Survival Of The Fittest

Alright, so right off, we can see that Roland Kelly, also known as R.Kelly, is a Republican, and is written by laZardo. With that, you can tell that there’s no way that this kid won’t be an asshole. His profile doesn’t have much in it besides politics, though in one of the later paragraphs, it mentions that Roland is part of something called the “Valenti Syndicate”. I’m not exactly sure what that is, but I assume it’s yet another one of Denton’s many street gangs. As for his disadvantages, I don’t think “has never fought with melee weapons before” and “is accustomed to living in an urban/suburban environment” really count as disadvantages, seeing as I’d expect those to be the norm for most high school students. Then again, this is Denton, New Jersey, where every other person seems to be a gang member or a murderous psychopath inches from snapping, so what do I know?

His only pregame thread is rather confusing, with laZardo and Xaldien re-doing the opening posts several times, each time changing the manner in how Kristey initially approaches Damien. Damien is consistently terrified that Kristey is about to murder him, though her own narration gives no indication that she has anything close to that sort of intent. Shortly after the two of them meet up, all of laZardo’s other characters walk into the thread and immediately begin threatening to kill Damien for no apparent reason. Kristey stands up to defend him and stabs Roland in the neck with a pair of scissors. We don’t get to see anything of Roland’s reaction to this other than the fact that the other characters hear him scream. He’s basically an NPC in this scene, his lack of importance highlighted by the fact that his name is consistently misspelled by the other handlers and the fact that laZ directly refers to him as an NPC in the OOC notes. After a tense standoff, the bullies let Damien go, and imply that they plan to kill Kristey and Damien at some point in the future as retribution for standing up to them. Roland says nothing over the course of this entire scene. The whole event felt rather ridiculous and over the top, but given the overall tone of V2, I guess I’ll have to let it slide.

Shortly after the beginning of V2 proper, Roland wakes up in a confession booth in the church. The first half of the awakening post isn’t too bad, with Roland taking a while to come to his senses, trying to make out where he is as the knockout gas wears off. I actually thought it was interesting that his first assumption is that he’s been buried alive, and his first few paragraphs give a decent feeling of claustrophobia. Unfortunately, the trouble starts once Roland looks down at his bag and realizes that the terrorists have stamped it with the name of R. Kelly, the well-known African-American R&B artist. Seeing the name of a famous black man on his bag awakens Roland’s prejudice against ethnic minorities (because he’s a Republican, get it? >_<) and he loudly shouts out a racial slur, focusing his anger on an unnamed terrorist, who happened to be black, and Danya, whom Roland assumes without evidence to be non-white.  

He gives a long and drawn out prayer, because of course he would, before exiting the booth. I did like that he does acknowledge that he isn’t too good of a person and feels regret for some of the bad things that he’s done in the past. He then quotes Psalm 23:4, taking care to mention that he doesn’t mean anything sexual from the use of the words “rod” and “staff”. I’m not sure why anyone would take the phrase in that way, but laZ seems to be quite concerned about the possibility, even mentioning in the OOC notes that he applauds anyone who doesn’t notice anything sexual about the phrase, “Tightly clutching his staff in one hand, Roland slowly pushed the confessional door open just a crack…”. This pointing out of double entendres in his writing seems to be a strange fixation for Roland’s handler, but I suppose it’s not worth dwelling on.

Roland watches the escalating confrontation between Mariavel and the others in the church from his hiding place, debating whether or not it would be a good idea to step in. He fears that he will get killed in the conflict, but on the other hand, he worries that letting his classmates die would reflect badly on his god-fearing, conservative image. This debate does not get resolved, as Roland pushes the booth’s door open by accident, exposing himself without actually having to make a decision concerning the morality of entangling himself in the conflict happening outside his hiding place. He remains frozen in fear for a while before trying to calm down the increasingly hysterical Adam Amato. Almost immediately after he speaks, the church is declared a danger zone. Roland gets out of there, worrying that Franco Sebberts is going to track him down and kill him, just like he murdered Marvin, another one of the minor bully characters from Roland’s pregame thread.

As an aside, though his was barely in his pregame thread at all, I like that the neck wound that he received in it continues to inconvenience him, giving his character a sense of continuity from that otherwise pointless scene.

Roland’s next post is a rather long songpost. He experiences a humanizing bout of survivor’s guilt as he hears Kasumi White’s collar explode. His internal monologue makes a brief reference to the Left Behind series as well as multiple mentions of how much he loves America to yet again establish that yes, this guy is a conservative evangelical Christian. He angsts over the fact that one of his classmates had just died and, prays for forgiveness for not attempting to save her.

Alice Nichols walks in and throws a frisbee to him from inside the slaughterhouse before promptly going inactive. Roland goes inside, looking for her, the smell of death inside the slaughterhouse causing him to reflect on how God probably isn’t happy with him for all the terrible things he did before he came to the island. For a while, it actually looks like Roland is going to attempt to redeem himself, experiencing genuine regret for his actions.

Unfortunately, this character development is cut short as he walks in on Alice and immediately loses his mind as the announcement starts. His eyes scan over her “voluptuous” figure and her revealing clothing, which freaks him out for by now obvious reasons, before mistaking her face for that of Damien Carter-Madison’s. Roland comes to the conclusion that he is in hell, and what stands before him is Damien, somehow magically transformed into the metaphorical Whore of Babylon, and sent by God to punish him for his sins. Roland charges at Alice, knocking her down and quickly executes her without much resistance.

His collar begins beeping, and Roland tries desperately to escape what he assumes is now a danger zone. He flees in a panic, before the narrative mentions an explosion, followed by the words, B57 - Kelly, R - DEAD.

Immediately after the death tag, it is revealed that Roland’s collar detonating was only part of his hallucination, and he thanks God for giving him a chance to redeem himself for his sins by committing brutal murder. Of course. No actual redemption arc for you, silly republican. He then runs off into the night, realizing too late that he forgot his supplies back in the danger zone that he escaped from.

After this scene, Roland’s narrative really goes off the rails. He believes himself to be in purgatory, and assumes that everything that happens after this point to be a simulation set up by God to test him. He happens upon a sobbing Michiro Duli, and attempts to comfort her in another rare moment of humanity. After Michiro manages to convince him that Dungeons and Dragons isn’t some sort of tool of the Devil, they sit down and attempt to play a game. This, of course doesn’t get too far, as Roland immediately begins to hallucinate that Michiro is actually Damien Carter-Madison, back from the “dead”. After a brief struggle, he mercilessly kills her and mutilates her body in order to ensure that she won’t somehow come back to life. He quotes the same verse as in his first post (though thankfully with no OOC note this time), as he bandages his wounds, coming to the conclusion that God won’t let him into heaven until he murders Damien Carter-Madison enough times to act as penance for his sins.

Roland then enters the Hospital, convinced that everyone on the island who isn’t him is actually Damien Carter-Madison in disguise. He refers to the flashbang grenades that he looted off the corpse of Tanesha Lexx as “holy hand grenades” and thanks the Lord for giving him better weapons with which to smite Damien.

He encounters another player, Dan Johnson, and a fight begins in short order. After stunning “Damien” with a flashbang, he rushes into the fight. As the stunning effect wears off, Dan quickly overpowers the heavily injured R. Kelly and breaks his arm. As Dan leans down to finish off his opponent, Roland pulls the pin out of another grenade with his good arm and sets it off mere inches from Dan’s face. Roland uses this moment of respite to roll away from Dan, scrabbling on the ground looking for anything to use as a weapon, terrified that he’s about to miss his shot at getting into heaven. As Dan descends upon him wielding a hockey stick (which Roland hallucinates as being a giant scythe), Roland’s hands happen upon the syringe that Dan used to kill Edgar Judah earlier. He injects air into Dan’s veins, causing him to collapse before Roland disarms him and again, brutally executes Damien Carter-Madison for the third time.

Roland then hallucinates a brief conversation with Lucifer who tells him that he never had a chance to get into heaven, and that he’s been in hell this whole time. Roland accepts this surprisingly easily. Soon forgetting about the seemingly earth-shattering revelation that he had just received, he proceeds to create a makeshift splint for his broken arm out from the aforementioned hockey stick and exits the hospital with “Damien’s” stun gun.

His next thread begins with Peter Rosenthal and Andi Ayala having an extremely awkward sex scene before killing themselves. Drawn into the house by the sound of gunshots, Roland looks upon the two bodies before him with disgust, not because the two characters are dead, but because Roland considers gay people to be “freaks of nature”. He grabs the gun that they had shot themselves with and quickly exits the scene without much reflection, following a trail of blood splatters which he assumes is a marker sent by God to tell him where to go next.

The trail leads him to the edge of a cliff, and Roland reacts with frustration at the dead end. He throws his weapons over the edge, concluding that Damien has been killed for good, and, despite this, God has no intention of letting him into heaven. This is supposed to be a massive shock, but if falls flat because we found this out about this two threads ago and Roland didn’t seem to care. Unsure of what to do next, Roland contemplates suicide, the pain of his wounds continuing to dog him. After a rather long songpost, Roland concludes that there must be another way for him to get into heaven, and leaves to go search for it.

After he leaves the cliffs, Roland comes upon the real Damien Carter-Madison, seemingly back from the dead for the third time. Roland immediately forgets about everything that happened in the previous thread and shifts back to believing that he’s in purgatory again. The two of them have a surprisingly calm and relaxed conversation, considering that the subject matter is mocking the students who have already died, followed by an agreement that only one of them will be able to leave this encounter alive. They agree to square off and fight, and before Roland can finish his final sentence, Damien pulls out his revolver and blows Roland’s head off. R. Kelly dies, feeling at peace with himself despite the fact that until now he had accepted that Damien murdering him would send him on a one-way trip to hell. The parts of the post written from Roland’s point of view are rather shallow and uninteresting, confirming the fact that his only purpose on this island was to be little more than an NPC within Damien’s story.

Overall, I was massively disappointed by Roland Kelly. His story didn’t start out too bad, really. He was kind of an asshole, and aware of that fact as he started to proceed down the beginnings of what could have been an interesting character arc. Unfortunately, this is then ruined by him going insane at basically the flip of a switch and spending the rest of his story obsessed with another one of his handler’s characters. My recommendation is to read his first two island threads, and just pretend that he died at the moment his death tag comes up in the second one. His character arc is still cut disappointingly short, but at least you won’t have to be subjected to the remaining story, which makes very little sense and contradicts itself many, many times, for the sole purpose of pimping how great Damien Carter-Madison is.

Alrighty, time for another character! Thankfully we've almost reached the final five.

These kids just get shorter and shorter! Well, I mean, this guy's technically not very short, at six feet tall, but you know what I mean. He's another guy who got inactive killed, this time by Bryan. Let's just jump right into it now, shall we?

Jordan McKieman is a seventeen year old kid from Franklin High, and he can't decide what exactly he wants out of the things he does for fun, even though he is somehow good at all of them yet still doesn't stick to one thing for very long. He's apparently good looking, though of average build, which somehow doesn't really make too much sense to me but I'll take it. I'm just glad that he isn't younger than me, like the last few kids.

His mother "wears the pants" in the family, as a successful trial lawyer, while his father is a washed-up former musician from whom Jordan gets the majority of his personality. His dabbling in interests leads to a reputation as someone that's good at everything, which leads to many challenging him at whatever hobby they choose, eventually boring Jordan to the point where he just throws whatever competition they choose. The most fitting conclusion about this kid is just that he doesn't apply himself, and that he has the capability to do whatever he wants, but chooses not to because it's all just too much work, or something.

His advantages are that he doesn't get attached to stuff, and that he has a lot of skills. His disadvantages are that he gives up easily and doesn't follow through.

The weapon he gets assigned? Goggles.

I can already tell that this is going to be something of an uneventful ride.

Jordan's first thread, and first post, are the only things done by his original handler, OnceForgotten. He wanders over to the ranch, musing on how quiet everything is, and investigates the building. However, when he sees someone else, he panics, but steels himself to meet someone else. After all, sneaking everywhere can only last so long, he realizes, and goes over to the meet them at the entrance to the barn. This post shows some promise, but it was promise not to be fulfilled, as from here on out Jordan is given to Cyco, as his handler goes inactive and never returns.

We next see Jordan in the record store at the mall, while Tori and Bryan walk around. In a flashback, Jordan decides to turn tail and walk away after hearing the confrontation inside of the barn, and ever since then he's been hiding out and waiting for everything to blow over. However, he hears noises, noticing Bryan's footsteps, and walks over to the corner, seeing that Bryan carries a shotgun. He's content with just leaving the area until he spots Tori, whom he speed walks towards vigorously, dropping his backpack. Tori doesn't bother to look, thinks that Bryan is the one running towards her, and promptly freaks out when she notices that this isn't her companion. He goes in for the kill, wrapping a hand around her neck, as we get another flashback to his walk to the mall, as he searched for a weapon to replace his goggles and hears a gunshot. I like this method of handling the inactivity - flashing back to the time between threads in an attempt to establish a more cohesive narrative link is welcome, I feel.

He reaches out for a blade on a nearby counter, but Tori manages to elbow free and get to it before him, slashing his ankle out. Jordan falls, but pulls himself up on the counter. Unfortunately for himself, Tori is waiting, and tears his mouth open with her knife, Jordan grasping at the bleeding parts of himself, screaming one last desperate war cry, trying to rally his body for one last lunge, only for Bryan to arrive and shoot him square in the leg. He falls, his mangled leg giving out, and breaks his neck when he hits the ground.

That was quicker than I expected. I could count how many posts this guy had on two hands. I do think that Cyco handled him pretty well, though. Don't know how much I'd recommend him alone, but he's still a decently enough written kid, and a good example of inactivity done well in V2, so on those grounds I think he's worth comparing to someone whose inactivity wasn't handled the best.

Last hurrah! Fight to the finish! One more kid!

Ruggahissy - Today at 1:01 PM
to see this to the end with us
this is your fault

ugh fine

gimme another

kermit got Burton.


KermittimreK - Today at 12:04 PM
Me too, Kevin, me too
OH MY GOD BURTON YES

Kevin Kapustiak wasn't really much of a character, in my opinion.

Most of his hobbies aren't even mentioned in his profile, and his advantage of being good in street fights pretty much comes out of nowhere. He also has no pregame, so we can jump straight into the island.

Kevin just seems to wander from one place to another without much purpose. He doesn't have a particularly strong voice, either. Also, he refers to himself as "The Wolf" in his first and last threads despite there being no mention of him having a nickname anywhere in his profile, much less being referred to as "The Wolf". In fact, Kevin's most notable quality is the fact that he suddenly starts thinking about burgers multiple times during his journey, which is somewhat amusing.

In Kevin's last thread, he switches handlers, and his personality changes entirely. Now all of a sudden he is incredibly foulmouthed and aggressive, and offers sex with Sera Wingfeld as a prize if Matt Drew manages to kill him, which is pretty gross. Kevin gets overconfident and dies when Matt's friend Rob shoots him in the back of the head, and that is that.

Kevin was never a stellar character, but the personality switch that came when he switched handlers pretty much wrecked what character he had. It's just to jarring for the guy who was just thinking about how Heaven is a land of infinite burgers to suddenly be offering a woman as a wager for a fight to the death. It's just too inconsistent, and I can't recommend him.

Another character, if you please.

Burton Harris, AKA. Ken Lawrence, AKA. Kenurton Larris, is an amazing read. He's got some confusing and convoluted plot related to V3 which I won't talk about because this is the V2 RAT. Also, he's not the real Burton Harris. I think I'll be calling Kenurton "The Nurtmeister" in this writeup. Also Also he's written by Dodd.

Profile:

TLDR of his appearance: HE LOOKS LIKE A DIRTY COMMIE HIPPY *insert Nixonesque rambling here*

The Nurtmeister is a very smart boy. He scores off the charts on IQ tests, but does not do so on school tests. Because The Nurtmeister is a very smart boy, school bores him and he just doesn't give a shit. He likes writing, though. The Nurtmeister writes an advice column in the school newspaper where he masquerades as a 14-year-old girl. I am concerned by this behavior.

The Nurtmeister's profile wrote:Burton doesn't have any crazy idiosyncratic tendancies, he's not a maniac, he's not a sociopath

YES THANK YOU BLESSED DODD! Also The Nurtmeister wrote a play based on V1. Okaaaaaaay...

The Nurtmeister is basically always high on marijuana, and the school is okay with this for some reason. Also, he always keeps a cool head, even in like the most traumatic circumstances.





Pregame: IT'S A MYSTERY!






Island: So, uh, I guess Xaldien's handling The Nurtmeister now. Rip Dodd.

The Nurtmeister's first thoughts wrote:I could really use some weed right about now.

: )

Also he's in a DZ and heeeeeeeereeeee's Chiaki! The Nurtmeister points his gun at Chiaki for no reason while she's running the heck out of the DZ and then tackles her. Why? Why did u do that The Nurtmeister?

Actual conversation between The Nurtmeister and Chiaki after the tackle wrote:"You fucking idiot, let me get away from here," she creamed as she struggled and punched to get him off of her.
"Stupid woman, what the hell are you talking about."

Hm, so, okay...

First off, Chiaki creamed. Ew. Icky! Barffff! Gross, Chiaki. I knew you were into murderviolence, but not like that. Two, does "Stupid woman, what the hell are you talking about." sound like something The Nurtmeister as described in his profile would say? No, I don't think it does.

Chiaki punches The Nurtmeister in the face and grabs her gun. Then, Chiaki begins to run away from The Nurtmeister because she's in a DZ and her collar's beeping, but The Nurtmeister fucking tackles her again. The Nurtmeister, do u know how this whole SOTF thing works?

The Nurtmeister's thoughts again wrote:His regular cool started to fade away. Where's weed when you need it?

Christ on a bike, The Nurtmeister, you've really got a problem. You've gotta stop injecting those marijuanas, dude.

Chiaki shoots The Nurtmeister in the dick (SO MANY GENITAL MUTILATIONS V2! CALM DOWN!), and then she punches him in the face again for some reason. Chiaki fucks off and The Nurtmeister's collar explodes.

The Nurtmeister's last words wrote:"Fuck... I need wee-"

THE END!





Conclusion: WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!

((I'm gonna go ahead and slap a Trigger Warning for Sexual Violence, Nonconsent, and Genital Mutilation up top here))

I actually really enjoy Zachary's profile. There are moments where it's a little try-hardy and goes overboard from what we'd consider standard these days, but it's about being really good at vidya games rather than, say, being a military sharpshooter or the world's expert in experimental new wave parkour so I'm down to give it a pass. I like the details of including aliases like IM names and such, it brings a personal flair and sells his involvement in the online/gaming scene. I also really like the little description of his voice that's given at the end of his appearance, I'm sure there are other profiles that have done this but this is the first time I've noticed it and while I'd love to have a more thorough description it's something that's lowkey really smart. I'm definitely gonna be stealing that for future profiles.

Pre-game's not too notable for him. One thread that's mostly him paling around with Nich and Andrew after a couple other people appear and vanish without explanation. The thread never concluded, but one thing I do like here is that it reinforces the nature of Zachary as a punching bag and a dude who takes a lot of pain. It's something that's mentioned in his profile as relevant and he keeps on selling it in this thread by having Zed biff it and fail throughout, which provides further excuse for some of the try-hardiness in the profile. There's a real average skater punk vibe to the whole thing and I have no idea how accurate any of the terminology or descriptions are because lol I can't even ride a bike, but at least as far as the conversational/attitude vibe goes Laz does pretty okay here, I'm into it.

Welcome to the Jungle has a NC-17 tag on it. I didn't know what to expect from that going in. Zed's got a classic wake-up sequence with some memories of being kidnapped and convinces himself the whole thing is a game. It's a weird jump, to be honest, and I don't think it works as well as the moments where he thinks this is real. The blue text Laz uses for his thoughts is also suuuuper grating on evolution, unfortunately, so I guess I'm getting used to that.

"((The BS in BSOD doesn't mean Blue Screen, if you get what I mean. )"<---This is my favorite OOC text note I've ever read and I'm legitimately disappointed that NAFT never parodied this one when he was doing Weiss. Fukn missed opportunities, folks.

Okay. Sidebar here. I...kinda love the start of this scene. Like, a lot. It's cringey and awkward and no one is happy and that all just sort of works for what's happening. There's some extremely uncomfortable issues of consent that I think could have been handled much, much better, but this is an ugly scene.  I don't appreciate Zed's complete shift in tone as things continue because I feel it's stereotypical and problematic as all hell, but some of the ideas at play in the beginning here are pretty obvious issues that would come up in a game like this that we tend to steer away from as a sight and it's framed way, way better than I expected it to be. Where the scene really starts to stumble is about the time the actual dick-munching takes place. There's a lot of flailing in the narrative but honestly Zed plays it off a lot easier than I'd expect and it makes the whole thing kinda difficult to take seriously. Less genital mutilation, more that scene in 21 Jump Street where the guy gets his dick shot off. I mean...dude slathers Neosporin all over his open bloody wound. Don't do that kids. That's a very bad idea. The execution just isn't there on this one.

Ignoring that, I also quite like the dynamic that Zachary and Nich have in this thread, and there's some decent payoff to the videogame theming that's going on with the "You Found: Cat's Claw!" and "Nich Joined Your Team" thoughts that pop up here. I would have liked to see more of this before now, but it justifies the turn, and if it wasn't for all the physical pain I could even buy in that that's why Zed's taking having his dick bit off so comparatively well. The cheeky bit in Improvising about the lack of background music being eerie is another good thought for this theme. I think it helps his aggressiveness in Don't Panic, though I wish we could have seen A and B line up a little more directly because I feel like the implication is that Zed is still in video game mode and is playing to win and that's not 100% clear until the latter half of this thread. I also think he belabors talking about "save-points" way too much. It starts off kinda funny and then just keeps cropping up every post or two. Maybe it pays off in the future, we'll see.

""Al- most- done...AAGH!" It was becoming impossible to tell if Zed was either or both of reeling from or enjoying what he was doing."<---I'm leaving this line of Zed trying to patch up the gaping hole where his dick used to be here because I don't have the words to discuss how I feel about it and I just, I just need people to know it happened, okay? Okay.

"Stay calm...it's not like they'd have out-and-out yaoi in video games these days...it's probably going to be censored like that Hot Coffee thing..."<---Also this. I dunno where Zed's latent bicuriosity is supposed to stem from but it jumps out of nowhere in Pale Shelter. It's kind of interesting in a way and I'd like to have seen it elaborated on as more than a physical comedy goof because "consequence-free videogame as space to explore my sexuality" is a decent plot thread that I could have gotten on board with, but unfortunately it seems like it was just played for laughs, which is another problematic element of Zachary's story. It continues on into his death, which...man, V2 culture is weird about multiple characters from the same handler meeting, OOC notes, all that jazz, and Stopping For The Night is a mash-up of exactly why I'm glad we've moved on from that for the most part as a site because I find it very difficult to read and keep track of, there's just too much.

All in all, Zach's pretty readable and has moments where his story is very interesting! It's full of problematic issues mainly around his relationship with Andrew there at the end and the initial scene with Venus, but there's some good stuff in here and I particularly like how he played most of the videogame stuff. There's a lot of room for improvement but I mean, just based on how much I wrote going through him I'd say there's a lot to dissect here and that makes him worth reading. I'd recommend him for learning purposes alone and I think you'll have an alright to decent time along the way as well.

Okay, I finished reading the threads Alice Nichols was a part of. I'm going to be honest, Alice's story was kind of boring. All I learned about her was that she was considered ugly, had raven hair, and is of Russian/Chinese mixed race. Although, it is hard to expect anything from a character that only appeared in two threads total. In those two threads, she met Matthew Lafferty, then abruptly left like a scene was missing, and then come upon the slaughterhouse where she used her frisbee as a decoy against Roland Kelly. What stood out to me was her death scene. During her death, Roland hallucinated that she was Damien. The hallucination was highlighted in yellow text, which is a nice stylistic choice.

So, all in all, Alice was a short, uneventful read. Would not recommend.

Gregg Archer is one half of a love story plotted out by Megami and Riserugu. Ali Grayston is the queen bee of Bathurst High, and she's secretly in love with her childhood friend Gregg Archer, who goes to Franklin and is unaware of Ali's mean girl tendencies or of her feelings for him. I think the two handlers wanted Ali/Gregg to be one of the big stories of V2, a romance for the ages. it didn't end up that way.

Gregg himself is a pretty down-to-earth guy. He's nice, humble, athletic, intelligent, artistic... maybe he's a bit too much of a dreamboat, but he comes off as a normal guy who's a bit too dense to realize that his best friend is, as today's cool kids would say, "Thirsty AF". He's the more submissive one in the relationship, and he has absolutely nothing going on outside of Ali. She's the protagonist and he's the love interest. That doesn't make him a bad character of course, I like how Riserugu writes him. However, there's problems.

Gregg's pregame consists of one outing with Ali that's stretched over 2 1/2 threads. They go to the mall, go to a restaurant, decide to watch a movie, etc. It's boring as hell. Every post in the thread is around 2,000 words, mostly consisting of the characters dwelling on insignificant nonsense. How will Gregg cope with eating at a fancy restaurant? Will Ali's NPC ex-fling tell Gregg about their relationship? What movie will Gregg choose to have them watch? If you care about the answers to these riveting questions, read Gregg's pregame (except for the movie thing, we never learn what movie Gregg picked, they make me read about it for a fucking eternity and never reveal the result). All of this normal life stuff wouldn't be a problem if it really helped develop the characters, but it doesn't. You can learn everything important about Ali and Gregg by reading the first few posts of the first thread, beyond that it's just retreading the same characters traits over and over in a painfully slow manner. It doesn't have an ending, either, it just drones on until it stops mid-scene.

Okay, wow, the game. That's important, too. Gregg's first two threads in-game are the only threads where he's without Ali. They're pointless. He's just searching for Ali while having short and shallow interactions with Tori and Seth Malvice. In his third thread, he reunites with Ali, which is nice and all, but this is where it really starts to fall apart.

Ali and Gregg only have two threads after this. Riserugu leaves the site and Gregg is adopted by Megami. She does a decent job at writing him, and with Gregg and Ali now being written by the same handler, their story is told in only half of the words! Hooray! They run into everyone's favorite Marivarella Variavel, and in the confrontation Ali's mean girl history revealed in the open. It's all coming to a head pretty quickly. She gets herself shot, and Gregg carries her to the school, where he meets Beth. Suddenly, it just comes to an explosive conclusion. Beth hears a loud noise and runs, and in the very next post Gregg and Ali are incinerated when the school's furnace explodes (which happened because a nearby inactive kill, whatever). in the seconds before they're killed, Ali wakes up but can barely move. Gregg decides to stay and die rather than abandon her. Ali kisses him, he reciprocates, then... poof! They're gone.

As much as I've complained about post length, it's only really a problem in pregame. The in-game posts are still bloated, but they're shorter and have more going on. Gregg is a good character, and what I've seen of Ali is pretty good as well. The biggest problem is that the grand love story set up between Ali and Gregg in peters out and ends suddenly once they meet on the island. It's not a satisfying story. It's clear that OOC issues crippled the Ali/Gregg story. Riserugu stopped posting and Megami was left to handle Ali and Gregg while dealing with a million other problems as the only person holding the site together. She wrapped their story up in a sudden end because she just didn't want to deal with them anymore. Or maybe they were just rolled, I didn't check.

Gregg and Ali are victims to one of V2's biggest problems. Everyone had really big plans for their characters, but almost none of them came to fruition. The version is full of wasted potential and miserable ends to promising characters. Don't read Gregg Archer or Ali Grayston, it's a waste of time. If for some reason you want to read them after reading this, just follow Ali. Ali seems to have some more stuff going on by herself, and Ali is in all of Gregg's threads aside from two short, pointless ones.

Sorry for taking so long, but I'm reading through Jenna now. Here are my, uh... 'thoughts' (man, wish I could turn my brain off for this).

Jenna has a single thread in the 'distant past' section... sorta. It's a single post by Chase and I read it, then instantly forgot it, then went back and re-read it because it's just such a nothing piece of information that tells me absolutely nothing about the character. It's also not truly a piece of Jenna herself because it wasn't written by the author. Moving on to pre-game.

Oh, but before I go too crazy, let's call attention to Jenna's profile, which is a work of art much in the same way Okalani's was. Her interests are 'The Hellbirds, not much else', which is instantly painting a picture of this character in my head. And the picture is a single line, because that's one-dimensional as fuck. The appearance doesn't do any favors either, with lines such as "... the girl has a rather interesting caboose, that if anyone noticed under her baggy cargo capris they would be castrated" and "First to notice Jenna's pointed nose would get decked in a minute". We get it. She's violent. The biography backs this up by turning her into nothing but a thug in one of the billion gangs apparently filling New Jersey. The only service the bio actually does to her is point out that she's nothing more than a teenage stereotype, a "ne'er do well."

Jenna has, for a V2 character, a decent amount of threads with four pre-game threads and four proper game threads. The first is "How many ways can you define the word 'cow'?", which has a whooooole lot of... something going on. Jenna pops in for a two-post drive-by calling Mariavel a whore, then entering the bathroom... which is where 'Bank on this, Bitch' takes us. You know how sometimes kids have profiles that are a complete mismatch to a character's actions? This is NOT one of those. CATFIGHT, CATFIIIIIIIIGHT!

Ahem.

I thought reading Jenna would have to be the most painful thing I do today, and this is the same day I got a huge blister on my index finger during band practice. Unfortunately, I also have to read Mariavel. Two posts into this thread and I honestly want to call it quits, but instead, let's make it fun: let's tally up all the times somebody should have totally died in this fight but didn't, or does something quite unlikely in the realm of possibility.

1. Mariavel is thrown full-tilt into a bathroom stall and crashes head first into the toilet seat. Dead.
2. Jenna slips off her jacket in between the time it takes Mariavel to come rushing out of the stall (she's already on her way out before Jenna even starts) and to meet her mid-charge, then holds it out like a matador, complete with a shout of 'ole'. Yes, she really does this.
3. In the same breath, Jenna grabs Mariavel's hair and stomps on the rear of the girl's knee, but Mariavel completely no-sells it- nae, LAUGHS IT OFF, claiming that her hair has been pulled out so many times (presumably by her abusive father) that it doesn't even faze her. She then sweeps Jenna's legs.
4. While falling to the ground, Jenna somehow kicks Mariavel in the chest, comes up behind her and locks her in a full nelson.
5. Mariavel manages to headbutt Jenna. While in a full nelson.
6. Jenna manages to lift a toilet seat while locking Mariavel in a full nelson. Psychic powers confirmed.
7. Mariavel's arm is twisted behind her back but she goes for a knife anyway, to 'plunge it into Jenna's arm'. Jenna is only scratched.
8. Jenna slams the seat down on Mariavel's head and stomps on her ankle.
9. Mariavel gets up moments later, acknowledging she'll 'have bruises'.

Now, if I have a reputation as SotF's fight scene guru, allow me to dispense my full analysis of that fight scene: it fucking stunk on ice. Mariavel leaves to go back to "Cow" but Jenna enters a thread called "Down the Stairs Your Ride Awaits", which is unfortunately lost on the Invisionfree site but exists in some fragments in the Distant Past section. In this glorious piece of world building, we meet about Alex Stevens, a character central in Jenna's story (in pregame at least) and the leader of the Hellbirds, the gang she's in. We learn through Alex that Denton is apparently sharing a universe with 'The Warriors' as the area is positively riddled with gangs for miles around. They're even themed!

"He'd much rather go north of his turf with some other Hellbirds and bash up some Jackals, or south to tangle with the Prophets (a Christian gang that dressed in priest robes and shaved their heads, they killed anyone who wasn't Christian or did anything they considered "ungodly". They mainly used knives and guns, but the biggest member of the gang-appropriately nicknamed Goliath by his fellow Prophets, as he was over seven feet tall and all muscle- often used a bike chain as a weapon, and it wasn't unheard of for them to agree to a simple fistfight, as had happened about a year prior in a territory dispute."

Holy shit, a gang of preachers, and they're led by the gang version of Big Show!? That sounds badass! The Bloody Fists sound like total pissants compared to any of these hotshots. At least, that's what the narrative here is trying very, very hard to push. Things go on for a long while between Alex, Jenna and John and unfortunately several pieces of the thread are missing. Beyond those initial bits of 'what the everlasting flavor of fuck' world building we get nothing interesting. Last pregame thread.

Jenna skips every class and then skips the trip to the principal's office because she is a badass and going to class is for SQUARES! John, the hanger-on from the previous thread hangs out with a cheery attitude which of course is met with a less-than-enthusiastic response from the dour Jenna. John speaks a whooooole lotta crazy at her, hits on her a little bit, and then the two go their separate ways. Nothing of major interest happens here except hinting at a bit of a relationship between the two, and also it's heavily implied this takes place after the Mariavel fight... so when did all that shit with Alex happen, then? That seemed like it was another day. Whatever. No more time for questions, only the game proper.

Which will be continued later because it is very late.

My word, am I going to be one of the last ones standing?

Here goes, Girl 66, Penelope Withers!

[+] Profile

She's 16, in the 11th grade and enjoys design and cooking. Her appearance is very short, but tells us that she's fashionable, has long, dark brown hair in an elaborate braid, hazel eyes and cool glasses, and has perfect skin. No mention of height, weight, build, but okay we'll assume she's average in those regards.

Biography is, at a glance, also short and sweet. And honestly? Compared to the last few characters I've read that could actually be a good thing, it hopefully won't be bloated with childhood abuse, Freudian excuses for random mental disorders, or assorted arson, murder, rape, etc. Hopefully. Let's read!

HA HA NEVER MIND. She was born into a family of performers (who were also well-to-do? okay?) and learned a love of dance and performance (is that not a hobby too?). And then one day they took a wrong turn on a road and got lost, and after a random attack and kidnapping and a week locked in a room for no clear reason, most of her family was dead, leaving just her, her mother and her brother. So we're not skipping the childhood trauma, just writing it in short. So anyway Penelope her brother got dumped in an orphanage for some reason, with her mother claiming she'd come back for her in a year. Shocking surprise, she doesn't. So our plucky not-quite-orphans end up taken in by an old widow. At the age of 15 her previously unmentioned cousin Floret comes out of the woodwork to inform her that her mother had a heart attack, so she moves in with... uh, I was about to say him but we never actually establish Floret's gender, so, them. Brushing all the horrifying childhood under the rug, Penelope has "a lot of fun" in her first year at Franklin Senior, and then V2 happens.

Advantages; friendly and diplomatic, good outdoor skills, clever. Disadvantages; slow on her feet, physically frail, too trusting/sees the best in people.
Not sure how you grow up to be trusting after your defining childhood memory is being kidnapped and locked in a room by strangers, but okay, I like these traits. I'd like them more on a kid without a tragic backstory that makes them make little to no sense but I won't complain. Not a murderous psychopath is a good start. She starts with a mace which probably won't see much use and... oh it's Mitsuko. I hope Mariavel doesn't kill her.

Penny has no pregame, and I'm calling her Penny for short now, so let's move on to...
[spoiler="Version 2, the Island!"]
She begins at the Cliffs in A Withering Flower, whose position in time is hard to gauge beyond that it's in the same area that three kids got blown up in. It's not really explained what she was doing beforehand, only that she was close enough to get slightly burned but not too badly. That quibble aside, she's played pretty reasonably; she's horrified by the gruesome deaths she just witnessed, and scared that she might be next. She's a little scared of her own weapon, and regrets wearing stilettos on her way out of this oneshot.

Next we arrive at the Mall in Prophetic Counterfeit, in which it turns out Penny's arm got burned worse than we thought, now it's hanging limp at her side and probably won't be much use to her any more. Dang. She sees a guy lying in wait with a hockey stick, as though planning an ambush, so... okay that was a quick turnaround, she's no longer scared of her mace, she's going to get the drop on the boy and smash his head in with it. Okay. Poor guy tries to block with his hockey stick, didn't really have enough reaction time to go for the sick parry, and of course it gets smashed in two, and its remains get smashed in to (get it, it's a play on words) his chest along with the deadly deadly mace. Then she tells him to stay down, only to go add insult to injury by pulverising his groin with the mace. He throws up, and then she gets the coup-de-grace with a mace to the head. It seems like it's supposed to be played off as her fending him off in a blind panic after hitting him the first time, but, uh, this is kind of a one-sided curb-stomp battle here. Poor guy doesn't put up a fight at all.

Penny has a one-sentence crisis of conscience about killing the guy, immediately deciding she can't make amends so she might as well jump off the moral slippery slope entirely and into full player-hood. Joy of joys, here I thought we might have some regret from the sweet, naive, trusting girl. Guess not.

To Be The Strongest finds Penny, along with two other Mitsuko characters, on the Expressway. Apparently there were usable cars in V2? But yeah Mitsuko's other two, Carmen and Andrew, are driving along and swerve when they spot Penny standing in the middle of the road. Guess she didn't know you could drive here either. Andrew's a terrible driver and straight up kills himself doing this, while Carmen's airbag goes off and she and Penny are fine. Penelope snaps the stiletto heels of her boots to climb onto the upturned van and help Carmen get out (won't those boots be basically unwearable now, with just a big unsupported gap? I dunno), Carmen asks her to help Andrew, probably knowing full well he's dead, which Penny does... so Carmen runs off with all their stuff. Hey, it's Penny's trusting disadvantage coming into play! Apparently she didn't take Penny's mace though, so that's nice.

Penelope makes her way to the River for In The Darkest of Times, and despite her talk of resolving to play to win in the last post, apparently now she's upset that she can't just escape, and nobody else seems to want to. Girl, you didn't want to five seconds ago. Penny crawls under the bridge to shelter from the rain, and cries. Maybe all the bravado earlier was really just bravado then? Or this character's just really inconsistent. So Stephanie and Matthias join the thread and have a chat about Matthias' missing sister, and Penny leaps out to call Steph out on lying about having seen her, completely abandoning her shelter and the element of surprise for some reason. Then two more guys join the thread, Rob and Matt, and they... drag Stephanie away for some reason? And she just kinda goes with them after they tell her they're not a threat? They all leave together. Huh.

Anywho that weird interlude over, Debrah also turns up and reminds us that she's got her sister's severed head in her bag, lovely. Matthias says Penny can come with him, what a gentleman, and suggests hurrying when he notices said crazed, bloodied axe-wielding girl approaching. She begs them not to leave, she just wants to be loved! Very believable, I'd trust her. Anyway they run off now, and Debrah... I think she follows them? Hard to say, nobody updated their "continued elsewhere"s with links to new threads in this version, apparently.

Last thread, exciting times. Penny goes to the Mall again to uncover some Little Known Facts, where Beth is creeping around thinking of the Pink Panther theme song and hoping she'll run into Adam Dodd. Of all the weird things I've seen in V2, this sure isn't the weirdest, but it might be the most surreal. We're how many days into hellmurder island and you're humming goofy music and tiptoeing around exaggeratedly? What the actual fuck. So Penny sees that Beth has a gun and decides that's a great reason to attack her head on, declaring that she "won't let you kill me!". Could've just hidden, love, might've been easier. A swing and a miss, Beth points the gun at her and tries to act tough. Clearly not a dangerous type, otherwise she would've just shot her and been done with it. Beth shoots, apparently thinking her rifle won't be loaded with live rounds, and gets Penny right in the abdomen. RIP in peace kiddo. The girl who just charged in unprovoked, swinging a goddamn mace, asks aloud "Why?! Why play?" She just wants to go home, after all, which explains why she's attacking people on sight with a mace she claimed to be afraid of four threads ago. Beth, for her part, is genuinely distressed, and holds onto Penny's dying form.

She gets some dramatic... last... words... out, with lots of... ellipses...
Yeah she wonders if her erstwhile companion Matthias will be okay, and his sister Jodeen, who she'd previously made next to no effort to help look for. She pleads with Beth to look for her, make sure she's alright. She tells her dead family to wait for her, she's coming, then expires.
[/spoiler]

Well, here's the summary. Decent prose, poor content. Penelope's only consistent feature is that she's inconsistent, going from poor put-upon woobie one moment to bloodthirsty berserker the next. I won't say I enjoyed reading her, but it wasn't awful either, it passed the time. Like I say the technical writing skill was there, just let down by the subject matter. You can safely skip Penelope, she doesn't really interact with anyone in a meaningful way besides killing one guy and getting killed by another. I hope at least she served a purpose in bringing Elizabeth Ebert down to earth and out of her "it's all a TV show!" schtick. Maybe I'll read Beth later and find out.

All in all, another resounding "meh". And I do believe we're out of kids now.

It's been real guys, thanks Rugga!

I heard Mai committed a pregame murder and was instantly sold on this.

[+] Running commentary

Sadly the actual pregame murder isn't great (go figure), it's a retread of the poison kill from Battle Royale but this time it's deliberate and over a play, because if you're going to commit a pregame murder it may as well be over pointless bullshit.


Accurate

I don't think the poison she used would be very good though, it's pretty obvious if someone has been poisoned via it considering the puking blood part. It seems like a fairly obvious tell.


Like so.

I can only assume that the end result of this is the rest of pregame plays out like a game of Pryce High.

Some girl called An Linh eventually comes in and we get some casual godmodding of her implying Mai murdered Kim.

The rest of Mai's pregame passes without incident barring a dance instructor who's method of teaching is just yelling and fat shaming his dancers. Which if I was to guess, doesn't seem like a healthy way of teaching dancers.

Luckily when Mai wakes up on the island she continues being an actively awful person, so we have that.

She meets up with Jack Russell who is her friend but his original handler goes AWOL so Mai and Jack end up being handled by the same person.

Eventually after a lot of not much happening Mai decides to commit suicide with her poison she still has, because the V2 kids still got their stuff on island.

Jack realizes at this point that she killed Kim and runs away. Mai gives chase-somehow-and after eventually catches up to him and pins him down. She then graphically murders him via cutting his arms off and tearing his face off.


I couldn't find anything for this so here's Robert Englund taking off his Freddy Kruger makeup.

Then she commits suicide.

So yeah...

Ok so, to give a serious critique of Mai.

In short, she's not great.

In a slightly longer form:

Besides the entire pregame murder deal, her voice and character just aren't that interesting and we never get to see another side of her other than the ugly person who killed her best friend over a role in a play. Like a lot of V2 and some of V3 there's the basis for some interesting character work there.  The jealous friend who sabotages her bestie to get what she wants and there could be some interesting explorations of jealously and self-worth as well as self-esteem issues given her dance instructor and best friends fixation of physical appearance.

Instead what we get is a shallow evil character who just isn't very interesting and going onto the island doesn't help this out much.

Part of this may be that Jack's original handler went AWOL so Mai's handler took over. Now obviously it's not ideal but if you were going to stick with it you'd imagine the greater degree of control over both characters would mean you're able to produce something with a lot of detail and interesting bit. Unfortunately this doesn't happen either. The rest of Mai's threads end up being her having conversations with Jack which means that they all end up being lines of dialogue with no description or thoughts behind them. This ends up really hurting everything because the dialogue we're given doesn't have much depth to it, it's just the kind of the regular conversations you'd expect from characters stuck in SOTF but without knowing what's going on in the characters heads it comes off as fairly bland. That and due to the weird red text stuff we're left waiting for the moment Mai turns on him.

This moment never comes though. Ok that's not entirely true, we do get this moment but it doesn't come in the way that is being built up. Which doesn't mean its a good surprise, it's almost the opposite since the foreshadowing we were being given has us expecting Mai to just kill Jack because she wants to move on and she killed her best friend in pregame. Because of a play.

The other issue is the whole death sequence starting from Mai chugging her poison capsules in an attempt to commit suicide. As soon as this happens Jack instantly realizes she killed Kim. It seems to come too fast as a realization and while I'm aware it's probably for the purpose of getting deaths done it still doesn't quite hit the mark. It's just too soon to reach this point in their stories. This then also causes a continuity snafu as Mai fights off the effects of the poison for a massive amount of time, catching up to Jack and killing him. The death itself, is a bit of a mess as well due to the formatting choices that were made. Also she tears his face off.

Overall I can't say I'd recommend Mai. Not even for the curiosity factor of the pregame murder. She has the potential to be interesting and hit some intriguing themes but she's a victim of most of the early being very similar to Battle Royale in that most characters are exaggerated archetypes. It makes her come off as very flat, and worse boring. It's disappointing because there could be so much more here, but the choices of how her on island story plays out and how it's presented to us undercut all of it.

But hey, she'll always have the pregame murder.

So I read Jack Russell. Here we go.

Profile: What the fuck?

"Jack’s grades and musical talent has caused him to have the highest GPA in his class (this causes him to be on National Junior Honors Society)..."

"Jack is known for being a complete and total joker, it is rare for Jack to take anything seriously and this has gotten him in trouble in the past."

Um. No.

So Jack's mom is heavily pregnant with him and still coaching dance classes when " the excruciating pain and the weight of the baby caused her to collapse." Also "the charlatans she had to work" for some reason made a woman seconds from popping a baby out "go up on stage and demonstrate a ballet step."

Then:

"Her ankles where rendered almost useless and shortly after giving birth she was told that she would never be able to dance again she managed to inject her vein with an air bubble… killing her almost instantly. As if Jack’s birth couldn’t get any more disturbing future investigation of Jack’s blood proved that he was the product of an affair his mother had with one of the many male dancers she worked with. In a surprising act of nobility Jack’s father decided to raise Jack as if he was his own"

How do these things lead to one another? How does labor destroy your ankles? How did she inject her vein with an air bubble (I know how you do, but how did she?)? Why is the birth of her son not motive enough to keep going? Why did they investigate his blood? Aren't they concerned with the woman killing herself? Where's Jack's real dad?

Uh, it eventually comes out but doesn't seem to matter.

"A note where Jack fell from social grace would’ve to be in his sixth grade year..."

Oh good, we've gone back in time after describing his high school life.

"Jack found himself being bullied by some eighth graders and was thus panced in gym class and thrown into the girls locker room, with no pants or boxers on. The only catch was that the eleven year old Jack Russell had yet to develop…at all."

I have no idea what "develop...at all" means in this context. I'm guessing it means he has no pubes, but the phrasing makes me think he's 11 and his balls haven't dropped. Yeah, actually, that sounds right. Jack has no testicles. IT'S CANON, GODAMMIT.

"This caused him to become the brunt of many joke thorough the year, however this caused him to cultivate a friendship with Mai. She prevented him from becoming a social pariah and thus they’re very close."

Did he relate to her because she had no testicles too? Whatever. Let's move on.

Pregame: He has two threads, two posts total. One is on the ugly-ass old board and is shared with Jonathan Michaels. They're reacting to the murder and smoking. They're both insufferable, and the shared post makes it hard to tell who's talking.

The second thread is a homeroom. Jack appears once, but honestly, everyone here is so loathsome I didn't want to read too deep. Homerooms seemed better in concept than execution.

Game: Jack has only one thread where he's handled by his original handler. This is also the only thread where he interacts with someone besides Mai.

He wakes up nearly suffocating because his war hammer was in his bag and it was placed on his chest. Mai saves him, they look around for a bit. Tanesha appears, and he makes some really unfunny comments about her weight and skin color to scare her aware. Somehow it works, but now I hate this fucker.

After that is a three-thread continuous chain. He and Mai talk, but at this point, Mai's handler is writing him, so these posts are more Mai's than Jack's. Jack loses any sort of character and just becomes someone Mai has to bounce off and react to. He somehow figures out that he killed that chick in pregame just because he sees her taking pills and runs away (hey, a guy was stabbed to death in Vermont and I used a knife to make dinner tonight. Am I the murderer?)

After that is the final thread between these two. Again, it's Mai's post, really. Jack is just here to have his face and arms chopped off unnecessarily before Mai offs herself. And that's it.

Jack Russell Terrier is unfunny, dull, and solely a prop for Mai's story. Any character that is glimpsed in his profile is muddied under unflattering characterization and one-dimensional complexity. He loses all autonomy and personality once Mai's handler takes him over, and it doesn't make Mai interesting either. Now she's just a psycho who's taking her psychosis off on this dude because he's a friend, and that makes his maiming all the more shocking an action by her.

Oh, and this also made me realize my V7 kid Tanisha is super similar to this Tanesha, so I really have to overhaul the fuck out of this character to avoid comparisons. Also, Mai and Paris suck.

The character who accidentally killed chat, the quotation mark and sanity.

I'm not going to quote that line from Ali's profile here, because of the swathes of destruction left by it's introduction in chat. Megami was probably too innocent to realise what effect her words could have upon future generations of SOTFers.

Ali is a bit of a stereotype at points, the stereotypical rich bitch, daughter of a senator, who cares a little too much about guys. There's an interesting nuance in her profile, she's head over heels for someone who isn't interested back, and she doesn't really understand the ramifications about the way she presents herself on anything more than a surface level.

Pregame:

So Ali's pregame is kinda long. Really long.

Her first pregame thread sets her characterisation from the start. She's a rich kid who never takes no for an answer, and sneaks up on Ian Rico and decides that it'd be fun to snatch Sofie de Wilde's (Sofie seems to be pregame only) not-quite-boyfriend away, insults the friends next to him to his face while buttering him up. And then this drops:

Mitch wrote:“RED CARD! Somebody stop this child molester!”

In a move that brings thoughts of Fiyori to mind, Mitch Gunther, leaps at her, biting her in the arm. She's pissed and slaps him, leaving for the infirmary with an overwrought line.

Ali wrote:"I'll have you suspended for this, you know," she mused, no hint of remorse echoing in her words, "I don't think you understand who you're messing with. My Daddy's a senator, don't you know that I can pull the strings to get whatever I want? You people... I could make your lives a living hell. Remember that."

Herein lies one of the big problems with Ali. There's a little too much focus on how beautiful she is, almost every sentence is laced with a descriptor of either her looks/ her ability to snatch men away. This really is a problem of Ali, most of the writing is good, but it often feels a need to overstate things that are already clear to the reader, or simply unnecessary for the current post. She uses the word 'muses' far too often, and other small things in the use of vocabulary that could be evocative if they weren't overdone. Still, it brings across her character fairly well, even if I feel that a lot of her lines are way over the top.

Her second thread though, is a little more nuanced. Sophie plays off Ali rather well, almost unflappable in the face of Ali's insults and jabbing at how shallow Ali is, while Ali remains oblivious and spiteful, unable to get what Sophie means. The dialogue is a little cheesy, with gems like "Au revoir mon cheri, I do so hope we'll meet again," but it's an interesting thread in all.

She then goes on to meet CJ (our dear hook-handed janitor) Bryan, and Tori, and spends her single post in the thread telling Bryan that he'd missed a spot. It seems a little out of nowhere, but actually helps setup a little bit of the Bryan-Ali and Tori-Ali dynamic for the next thread.

Tori is a character I like from the get go, her personality is rather down to earth, even if her posts are marred by a rather large number of typos. Tori wants to get in with the cool kids, and sees Ali and Preston as a chance to do so, which sets up an really interesting dynamic. Ali hates Bryan for being part of the "Bloody Fists", and his shabby dress, and wants Tori to join her "Sisterhood", while Tori is intrigued by Bryan's kindness and the conversation she'd had with him earlier that they, and yet wanting to be part of the cool kids. It's rather unfortunate that not a lot more comes from this, but it's a quality scene that actually could be the setup for a lot more.

Then comes the part I kinda don't like. Megami and Riserugu spend at least twenty thousand words describing a date between Ali and Gregg and while on a technical level the writing is good, I can't actually bring myself to like it. Gregg doesn't know Ali's mean girl personality and she's head over heels for him. Unfortunately, the thread feels like it wears out it's outcome fairly soon, with so little to actual propel things forward. There are several subtle things that work well, but too often the thread simply meanders on, an it merely comes to an uneventful stop as pregame ends.

Island:

Ali's first Island thread has her exchanging usual island pleasantries like "What weapons do you have?". Mariavel stumbles into this thread, worn and bloodied after a couple battles. The two of them seem to have a personal grudge that goes beyond just the feud between their cliques, but Mariavel refuses to defile a church with fighting, a move that comes across as rather surprising given that this is the very first Mariavel post I've ever read. In any case, the thread gets rather crowded with the addition of the very unfortunate, R. Kelly and Ali decides to get the hell out of there.

There are some interesting inconsistencies in the thread, which unfortunately seem less of a personal contradiciton than a mistake. She notes her disbelief in god, before selfishly praying to god in her first post, and then goes on to deny any thought of religiosity.

But she's off without a single thought of that, and she wanders over to witness Jameson Doeert's death. Skraal's already mentioned this one, but she uses it to good effect. We get a little look into her mind that's different from her regular prissy rich kid thoughts, and notes points which she actually fails to notice herself in the narrative, and is a touch of humanisation that Ali has sorely lacked thus far.

Her next thread is an interesting fight with Tanesha, with an interesting flashback about how Ali had basically coerced Sera into pasting Tanesha's diary, which contained stories about her infatuations, in a place for all to see. I really enjoy this post right up till the last bit when Ali decides that she needs to give a speech about how much better she is than Tanesha, instead of running away with her tail between her legs. Seriously, if Ali would actually stop interjecting everything with "but anyway, I'm better than you" and have some mild introspection, she would be a much, much stronger read.

Well, on to the next thread, and Ali is doing her makeup? But in any case, she meets up with Gregg here, which is a rather nice thread, though my earlier complaint about them taking too long to do anything in pregame starts to rear its ugly head once more.

Gregg goes inactive and Megami picks him up and the two enter the next thread where the pair are accosted by Mariavel. Mariavel, doesn't actually want to kill Ali, which is really making me confused about all these second-hand Mariavel reports, and instead merely wants to humilate her in front of her crush. Mariavel reveals Ali's terrible side to Gregg, and Ali merely responds with vitriol. And so Mariavel shoots her, as Mariavel does.

Mariavel wrote:She’d never know if they hit Ali because the announcements came on after she shot.

That doesn't add anything to what I want to say about Ali, but I just wanted to share that. Somehow Mariavel can't confirm the shot because Danya is speaking. It's amazing.

But anyway, Ali is shot, and her horrible nature is revealed, and Gregg is somehow perfectly fine with that. The horribleness, not the fact that she'd been shot. They travel to the school where he tries to patch her up, and have a short encounter with Beth before the place blows sky high. But as they die, they manage to squeeze in a kiss within a song post.

Final thoughts:

Ali is competently written, but to be honest she doesn't have a strong story going for her. Her relationship with Gregg is the only real focus, and she suffers a little for it.  The chemistry between them is shallow in too many ways, and really doesn't deserve the focus it gets. There are several interesting scenes, but they are all too often marred by weird choices and there's a ridiculously large amount of wasted character development potential in her.

In all, not a read I would strongly recommend, but an inoffensive one. If you want to read her, I would recommend you skip all the threads in pregame after the one where she meets Tori. You only really need to know that her and Gregg are a thing, and that she hides her mean side from him before getting into the game proper.

this is how I die. not with a bang, or with a whimper, but by the immortal words:

"Well, Paris Persephone, the King of Gossip. We meet again."

[+] The Profile

okay so you probably know this already but Paris is a character i've been simultaneously dreading and praying to get for ages and the fact that i actually got him is both a minor miracle and proof that i have been cursed by an unfeeling god. paris's posts are all 85 years long and he only has 7 island threads but god does he feel so, so much longer. he feels mariavel long. but i have chosen this path, the path of the Gossip King, and i'm gonna actually read every goddamn word. and i'm going to write a thesis paper, and we're never going to let this happen again, okay?

let's get to the profile.

Paris Persphone is 16, and his only hobby is drama/theater, which makes sense because he's melodramatic as Fuck at all times. he's on the shorter side (his profile says he's "semi tall" which he Isn't, he's 5'7" which is a little below average for a 16-year-old) and super skinny and has eyes that are "light amber which shine when their in the sun" and he wears "Ferriar shirts" which, i don't even know what that typo is supposed to mean. google says Ferrari. does he just wear shirts with the ferrari logo on them?? thats not like a Shirt Brand hes just wearing a car logo on his shirt? also for some reason the fact that his family is middle class is in his appearance section. this is the least offensive part of the profile i'm only dwelling on it because it's gonna get worse

onto the actual bio:

Paris did have a brother though, his name was Andy.

this being in past tense makes me nervous

basically paris is a normal kid but also kind of a selfish prick which is also normal for kids honestly. anyway paris decides from a young age that he wants to be a Famous Actor, which is again totally fine. i'm waiting for this profile to horrify me but so far it's fine. he'd also... listen to his mother complain about other family members and then call them up to tell them what his mom was saying just to start Delicious Chaos. the king of gossip on his gossip throne

then his brother accidentally gets a blind cord wrapped around his neck and dies

i accidentally read this the first time as paris doing that to his brother intentionally because i'm expecting the worst and it wouldn't surprise me in v2, but no, it was an accident and paris did in fact try to help. ... until he stops trying to help because he realizes he'll get all of the attention if his brother is dead. so he dies and paris does not give even one quarter of a shit. the profile goes straight from there to paris entering middle school and never mentions his brother again. he was a "small child" when this happened btw. i'm imagining like a 7-year-old watching his brother die and then never thinking about it ever again.

apparently upon entering middle school paris Immediately becomes king of gossip the popular kids and everyone loves him, especially when he uses his Magical Gossip Powers to ruin lives. the profile keeps referring to the popular kid clique as "the Populars", capitalized, which is really funny to me for some reason. then he gets to high school and he has "more competition" which angers him but hes still leader of the "popular gang".

A new ability Paris obtained was to listen to conversations unknowingly. Being stealthy and hidden; and he uses these materials to produce the deadliest venoms out there.

i think paris might be an assassination rogue

then we learn the paris is, wait for it, the Gossip King, and also that no one knows His secrets. i assume his secret is that he let his brother die because that's the only thing that makes sense but seeing as his brother is totally forgotten by the profile after he dies i wouldn't hold my breath on that coming up ever again.

paris's advantages are that he's a good actor and a good liar and can manipulate anyone and his disadvantage is that some people don't like him because of his "snobbish attitude" which never comes up in the profile, i was under the impression that everyone loved him, everyone except Me

he starts with a knife and even the goddamn conclusion calls him the King of Gossip. i am going to drink every time i hear those words and then i'll die before i have to finish this writeup.

anyway overall: considering some of the profiles i've read in v2 this could have been a whole lot worse but holy shit he intentionally lets his brother die. that really happens!! i'm not that surprised but i'm surprised his advantages section doesn't start with "he's killed before". i can't believe i've only read his profile so far this is already suffering.

also before i move on to the game i have to point out the really obvious, which is that Persphone isn't a name. the wiki has this to say:

It is widely believed that Paris's last name was originally supposed to be "Persephone". Whether his handler, Strawberry_Prince, adapted the last name to "Persphone" to suit his tastes, or whether the spelling was simply a typo at first is unknown. Regardless, "Persphone" is the commonly accepted spelling of Paris's last name.

this is dumb. also paris is part hispanic and i'm just imagining trying to justify Persphone as a latino last name. this is also dumb.

i cant believe i wrote this much just about his profile fffffffff

[+] The Gossip King, pt 1 Pregame

paris's first pregame thread is a thread that got deleted during a forum crash and is being recreated by Megami and so its super hard to read but as far as i can tell there's only one paris post here so i'm gonna just read that. wait first theres this

Unlike Paris though, people actually liked Taylor. People only sucked up to Paris because he could be the ultimate twat. Of course Taylor would have never let Paris know he thought this. The two were polar opposites but social equals none the less. Taylor had several one ups on Paris, but the leader of the so called Populars was not someone the pretty boy prince of Hobbsborough's sophomore set wanted to take on.

1. no one actually liking paris makes a hell of a lot more sense than the profile implication that he's Super Popular
2. i feel like i need to start keeping track of the royal family of this school. does this mean taylor is paris's son. so many questions

there was someone named Kim mentioned in paris's profile as one of his friends and it occurs to me at this point that Kim was the pregame murder victim. again i'm gonna make this quick because this thread is really hard to read but basically the class is in lockdown after the pregame murder occurs and paris is cheerfully looking through the rest of the class trying to play detective. not because he's upset about his friend even a little- he seems to be gleefully remembering all the dirt he has on her, actually- but because he's Paris and he's The Best. the thread reconstruction is apparently incomplete according to megami in the first post and there aren't any more posts by paris here so i can move on

next thread: apparently Paris's pregame posts are way shorter than his in-game ones which is a blessing. apparently he has a scar on his face now?? i have no idea where that came from. apparently he was in a fight in the aforementioned thread which i guess didn't get saved??

ok i went back to read and it isn't in paris's own posts but in someone else's they mention that paris was being a prick and gets in a verbal fight w/ someone i dont think makes it to the island, and then adam amanto punches him in the face. i am fine with this

back to the Current Thread, he bumps into garry dodd on his way to the principal's office and gets the shit kicked out of him. seriously. honestly i might feel bad for him if 1. he wasn't such a tool and 2. i didn't know what was coming. as it is i find myself liking garry dodd a little more. then again he literally beats paris unconscious and drags him to the principal's office and apparently just walks away???? how does. what

he gets taken away in a goddamn ambulance and when he wakes up he's like

and he starts plotting vengeance because apparently his pain is secondary to Causing Pain To Others which honestly is what paris is All About. especially to me! he causes me so much pain

the next thread is called A Prince's Recovery and seriously no one is keeping track of the Hobbsborough Royal Family here

anyway paris has a dream about murdering garry. he wakes up and sees that he's bandaged and screams a lot. i thought he already knew he was injured in the Last thread okay whatever. garry comes to apologize to paris which is a poor decision because 1. paris is out of his goddamn mind and 2. to be fair to paris garry did literally put him in the hospital, idk if i'd forgive him easily either. then again i probably wouldn't THROW A LAMP AT HIM, which is what paris does. then he throws a drawer at him. man why paris doesn't have Serious Rage Issues on his profile i will never know.

someone else named Brendan shows up and he's not in v2 proper so i have no idea who he is but apparently they're friends and also apparently they're... dating?  or maybe just mutually interested but they don't know the other one's interested, it's hard to tell with the writing. i would've expected paris being gay/bi/pan/w/e to be in his profile but tbh thats about the least egregious problem w/ that profile so whatever.

He was tired, but he wouldn't rest until he had his venganza......Venganza......Venganza.....The word repeated in his mind.

i know paris is part latino but he never speaks spanish anywhere else so this is hilarious to me

anyway apparently brendan's full name is Brendan Xavier Snipes, which is somehow funnier than Paris Persphone. i'm just gonna quote these back to back:

paris:

Feelings. Who needs feelings? But this felt all too new to him. He was smart but in this kind of area he didn't know anything. Love was something that had never occured to him before, noone was ever intrested in him. Well they haven't really shown they were intrested, they probably were but they just didn't show it. How can anyone resist his charming looks?

brendan:

No, he was Brendan Xavier Snipes. He didnt have feelings, he was a cold, ruthless, rich-boy from england. He was the one people would cower of and admire at the same time. He was the one who could destroy a life with a phone call and rebuild one with a text message.
Since when did he care about anyone?

Well...apparently now. Feelings, who needs feelings?

basically these two were made for each other. their characters revolve around destroying the lives of others and not caring about people. it's Super romantic

brendan refers to him as the Prince of Gossip, because they're just going out of their way to annoy me now. basically they both spend this thread dancing around the fact that they both kinda want to kiss but are afraid the other doesn't want to, and it would be kind of cute except they're also both written as basically sociopaths. they're both annoyed by the fact that they're having Feelings. then paris asks for brendan to get him so poison for enacting his revenge. Super Romantic you guys!! there's a time skip, paris has another dream about murder, brendan comes back

After nearly three hours of phone calls, traveling across town and allowing a body-guard to beat the shit out of some drug dealer, Brendan had gotten the poison.

presented without comment.

brendan also brings him new clothes which paris describes in unnecessary detail and he gets out of the hospital prepared to fucking murder garry.

cool. one more pregame thread.

paris's first line in the thread is ""I hope one of the nerds die today." said Paris Persphone surrounded by a group of 'populars'." which honestly sums up his character and you can stop reading now. apparently he was upset about Kim (pregame murdered girl, remember) for like 8 seconds and now doesn't care because he has more important things to do, like bullying his classmates! lovely.

there isn't really anything else to say here. paris spends the thread bullying people in turn. whatever happened to trying to murder garry dodd that would have Sure Been Something

i can't believe that was only the pregame there is so much worse to come

[+] The Gossip King, pt 2 Game Start

god. okay see if there's one blessing with pregame paris it's that his posts are short. they're mostly just a couple of repetitions of how much he hates his classmates or how great he is or how he's going to murder garry dodd. In Game, on the other hand, suddenly Every Paris Persphone Post turns into a fucking novel that no one ever bothered to proofread.

let's do this thing.

paris's narration refers to him as The Gossip King twice in the first five sentences. a great start! basically his first two emotions on arriving in SotF is 1. outrage that this would happen to Him because he's Him (he's got this one in common with Anthony Ainsworth) and 2. glee that all the losers in his class will die and that he might get to take them out. oh, paris. it's like you're a premade villain or something. oh hey he remembered his brother for a second! he's mildly troubled by remembering that he let him die!! this may be as close as i get to seeing paris feel a relatable feeling. i am so happy. he's also a little scared!! another human emotion!!!! i am very proud.

then he decides to stand right by the door of the room he's in and stab the first person to try to come inside. guess we're done with emotions for now

ah yes i remember now, this is franco's first thread!! oh franco. you were a premade villain too, but like, a Fun premade villain. i miss you. franco has Real Emotions and is to some almost genuine extent is looking for an ally. paris doesn't Do allies and is like horrified by the fact that franco said the word "friend" and also mentally calls him an infidel. sorry, "infedel". like the fact that franco is Saying Words is enough for paris to visualize stabbing him in the head. to be fair he was literally planning murder in pregame, i shouldn't be surprised.

anyway he gets mad that franco doesn't come into the room (because he can't murder him easily) and he thinks about how kids who "aren't social" are the most likely to kill people. we're just going to ignore the fact that you were ABOUT TO KILL SOMEONE, i guess. he doesn't actually go anywhere in his last post but he's going to another thread now so i guess he moved. let us go Onward

motherfucker this is the one where he kills brittany ashworth. Brittany is a One Post Wonder who gets murdered by paris in his next post because he's in hiding and surrounded and that makes him mad. seriously. this is his thought process from noticing she's there to deciding to kill her:

Looking around he suddenly saw another girl roaming about. Paris immediatly hid behind the corner of the stairwell; This was just perfect. Now he was trapped by both sides of the lobby, this greatly annoyed him. What was he to do now? Paris suddenly started calculating in his head, he devised a quick plot on how to deal with the girl and this situation he was in.

The knife in his hand shook as he was about to undertake this procedure. It was nervewrecking as Paris never really killed before.

i don't know why i'm still surprised by paris's Complete lack of moral consideration and yet i am. probably because occasionally he'll display a Feeling for a second before being like nah nevermind its murder time. also im laughing at "Paris never really killed before"

brittany inadvisably calls out looking for allies by calling them Rats, which is incredibly dumb, and paris is of course Incensed by this Personal Affront. for some reason the narration jumps back and forth (not like between posts, between Sentences) between paris being a cold blooded ball of Rage and Need To Stab and being, like, a nervous kid. and the nervous kid parts ring SUPER hollow considering his actions. he stabs her in the face repeatedly Until Dead and apparently he screams while he's doing it, not like because he's upset or anyhting? he just screams?

when she's dead first he's repulsed by her corpse, then he's in disbelief, then he imagines that it was garry dodd that he killed, and then he collapses and starts crying. the paris stages of grief. this could Almost be a reasonable reaction to killing someone except that 1. he was full of nothing but vitriol toward her like 30 seconds ago, 2. he took a moment to imagine he was killing the guy he had Previously Planned On Killing, and 3. in the next post it's implied that all the Emotions were an act anyway. he runs into franco again and basically starts blubbering that brittany had tried to kill him and he was only defending himself. it's weird because he's genuinely afraid of franco (because he has a fucking grenade launcher) but he's also apparently faking being afraid of franco. i don't know anymore

then anna dibenidetti tries to comfort him and he straight up takes her hostage, like with a knife to the throat and everything. he's also thinking about how awesome murder is, so yknow, Emotions??? what are Those?????

"Now lets go unless you want to end up like her." he whispered making a motion with his knife toward Brittany Ashworths body. Paris didn't plan on killing Anna she could be used as a shield or a way to escape out of other finite situations. He could kill Anna later when her body was too injured to keep up with his......traveling act.

im so tired. sometimes Strawberry Prince indicates that Paris is faking his emotions, but sometimes he doesn't, and i can't tell if i'm supposed to believe that he Did feel that and is being sociopathic again 10 seconds later, or if i was just supposed to intuit that he was faking. i don't know man. he drags anna out of the hotel and toward the park while thinking about how hes Totally gonna kill franco eventually.

Paris has officially checked out.

[+] The Gossip King, pt 3 Midgame

in the new thread paris has gained a new personality trait: paranoia! also- guilt! apparently he feels bad about killing brittany!! i would be pleased by this development except his main reason for feeling bad is that brittany is A Popular (please stop using popular as a noun its destroying me inside) and he needs the Populars to be alive to worship him. this is perfectly in character honestly

The boy did have feelings for the populars, the people who've stood by him. They didn't deserve a death as gory as what he did to Brittany. They didn't deserve a to be bruttaly killed like the losers and nerds out there. Paris thought about this while nervously looking around waiting for something to happen as he would take refuge at a park.

Paris made up his mind, the next time he encounters someone that is popular he will give them a honorable death. He wasn't quite sure what an honorable death consited of or how it was accomplished. Maybe he should have payed more attention in history class. But definatly he would respect the fact a persons popular by the way he killed them. Sure it was sad, but he had to in order to survive. He had no other choice. That philosophy kept repeating inside his head over and over.

presented without comment other than this is hilarious

he runs into Preston and Melanie and sees that they're hugging and is like oh they're not killing each other which means they won't kill Me which means they won't kill me. except that he's still holding anna hostage at this point and preston comes over and waves a gun in his face. paris mentally calls him a "peace loser" under the assumption preston won't shoot him when he's still holding a knife at anna's neck (WAY TO BE INCONSPICUOUS BTW)

If he had the chance to kill this boy he would die the unpopular way. He obviously wasn't popular and dosn't deserve a clean or honorable death.

i'm sorry i keep quoting things but i cannot do this justice

anyway he demand's preston's gun as a hostage exchange for anna, which works, except preston's gun is a water gun, so paris is unaware when he starts mocking preston for signing his own death warrant that he has a Goddamn Water Gun. once again he transforms into Nervous Paris and starts shaking. he shoots! water comes out! paris turns immediately back into Death To All Who Oppose Me Paris and also mentally calls him an infidel.

The boy started running, like a lancer would in the Crusades. Carrying his mighty lance Paris would arrive from the duel victorious!

i have nothing to say to this

also paris stabs him in the dick. i have nothing to say to this either. he stabs him in the dick and he dies.

next thread!!

the first post in this thread is 3462 words so STRAP IN. it starts w/ paris becoming Regretful Paris again as apparently now he feels disgusted w/ himself for killing Preston and is in the business of Ruining lives, not Ending them. i keep wanting to bring up how he was going to kill garry dodd in pregame but Whatever.

Although people portray Paris as an evil person spawned from the devil he did have his values and morals

he thinks about how he needs to get over this Sentimentality. i notice that Strawberry Prince uses the phrasing "he wasn't used to killing" over and over again as though any of these kids are Used to Killing. anyway now he wants to win SotF partly because it'll make him famous, so he's back to Self Obsessed Paris now I guess. he spends a paragraph describing the house he decides to hang out in which is apparently the gay pride house seeing as every room is another color of the rainbow. he takes a shower to "purify himself of kind thoughts" which is another turn of phrase so hilarious that i can add nothing to it, and describes his pajamas which is Also hilarious, and goes to sleep.

most of this super long post is taken up by flashbacks to before and during the kidnapping. i won't bore you w/ too much because it's pretty pointless. mostly just paris complaining about not being in first class and calling Ernest Decarteret a terrorist and using Popular as a noun way too many times. terrorists show up and hes Shocked. this is a compelling view point that we only could have gotten from Paris Persphone.

Paris started to feel exhausted, as if he'd been through a rough day at Disneyland. Walking from attraction to attraction.

not the analogy i'd use to describe being drugged but you know what, sure.

now paris is going through christmas decorations in the attic which gives him flashbacks to his family at home, which is pretty much the handler's way of saying LOOK, HE'S HUMAN, HE MISSES HIS FAMILY, SYMPATHISE WITH HIM!! i do not. i refuse. he's back to being annoyed about feeling feelings (i thought you purified yourself of your kind thoughts!) he sees someone wandering around outside and suddenly decides the Catholic thing to do would be to let him inside and be nice to him. so Catholic Paris goes and says hello to him. like, nicely. it is a minor miracle. i check the wiki and find that paris is going to kill him. i am less enthused.

The Gossip King decided on some kind of ice breaker, hopefully this will get the ball rolling and the ice melting. Paris tried to become good, the good guy for once. Maybe being nice and kind will get you far? Then again so far acting like a goody goody made paris persphone the King of Mean positivley sick.

how many titles do you even HAVE

holy shit it's garry dodd. maybe something interesting will happen now.

"Well, Paris Persephone, the King of Gossip. We meet again."

the best line in v2. don't bother disagreeing w/ me on this i will not budge

anyway now that garry's here paris's cover as not the worst person on the planet is kind of blown but somehow he thinks its an A+ idea to just keep pretending he's Nice? he's obviously planning to kill garry because duh. also he excuses the christmas decorations by saying he wants to decorate for the holidays. it is June. you keep telling yourself that paris

anyway garry is convenient just as out of his gotdamn mind as paris is and paris takes that as enough of a reason to start chucking glass ornaments at both of them. garry gets hit w/ one, goes unconscious, and si somehow FIXED BY BEING SHOCKED W/ HIS 85% LETHALITY TASERCANE (i know i'm not reading Garry Dodd but i need to point this out: what the fuck). anyway this happens after paris leaves i guess because paris is under the impression that he killed both garry and darren. he chokes darren w/ a string of christmas lights and has a flashback hallucination of his family again (really pushing the HES RELATABLE thing hard here) and smashes his head in with a christmas star. tragically beautiful.

next thread, most of paris's posts are mercifully short except the first which is mostly taken up by yet another flashback. literally there's no point in talking about the flashback it's just him in the car with his parents arguing over directions and him being annoyed w/ them. that's it. this is supposed to explain why paris hates being at the expressway. now he's apparently Grumpy Paris. not thinking about any of his kills at all he's just Grumpy because there's an expressway. i don't know man

he runs into Licinia Vinici and is nice to her. not Catholic Paris nice because apparently it's not genuine this time, it's just Manipulative Paris. he introduces himself as Andy so she doesn't recognize him from the announcements and suddenly he's feeling guilty about his brother???? i have no idea how this kid's mind is supposed to work. she hugs him because she's a scared human person and paris suddenly switches back to Human Paris since he seems to be genuinely comforting her god i have NO IDEA what's genuine and what's fake w/ this kid. the announcements tell him that mai oshinari is dead which first he finds hilarious and then he's scared and then he's kind of sad? i don't know.

Paris made a fist in his hand to show his apparent 'anger' to this inhumane campaign set off by the government.

Acting is reacting as they say.....

wait so is he Not angry about SotF happening???????? uuuugh i know i'm repeating myself but like 90% of reading paris is just having no idea which of his emotions are real and which aren't. anyway paris decides that he likes Licinia because she's happy that a guy she hates is dead. in his paraphrased words, she's a loser, but the fact that she wanted revenge for what he did to her and has "the fire within her" is what Really counts. as stupid as this is i'm kind of happy that paris has found another human to interact with that might be interesting. then i notice on the wiki that he kills her. god fucking dammit paris

anyway he completely bullshits a life story to tell her even though according to the narration he genuinely likes her a lot (the narration also isn't clear at all whether he just thinks she's a good companion for SotF or whether he actually wants to befriend her or even if he kind of has a crush on her with lines like "And that was sort of attractive in his eyes, he felt drawn to her personality mroe so than her looks") and they head off toward the lighthouse together.

[+] The Gossip King pt 4 Endgame

just kidding!! the lighthouse became a danger zone so Paris and Licinia end up in the residential district again instead. there's only one more thread left, and then one more Post. The Death Post. i look forward to it so, so much.

now that he's been with Licinia for a few hours he decides he might as well kill her. the return of Death To All Who Oppose Me Paris!! except she isn't actually opposing him. in fact they've been getting along great. paris just wants to kill her because he's an asshole i guess. wait no he Does still like her but he's trying to Eliminate His Feelings. take another shower paris. licinia bless her heart realizes somethings wrong w/ paris and attacks first and runs. runs Directly into garry dodd and it turns out that they were half siblings the whole time and garry figures this out in ten seconds. sorry i'm supposed to be dissecting paris not garry dodd but jfc

anyway paris somehow still thought he killed garry despite announcements having already gone by. he stabs licinia without thinking about it for more than .3 seconds bc Garry Is Here And Must Die. paris is at full Death To All Who Oppose Me mode now, all of the other thoughts and feelings that he may or may not have been genuine about (i have NO IDEA you guys) are gone and all he wants to do is reduce garry dodd to nothing. hey at least that hatred has been consistent even if nothing else has been!! good job paris

garry is now considering the most painful possible way to kill paris. both of these children need therapy. like garry is literally contemplating flaying paris. i know he's a prick but please calm down. paris on the other hand just wants to turn garry into swiss cheese, which is much more dignified. both of their fight posts are so fucking godmoddy that i'm praying that they talked this out ahead of time because every post is like "garry pinned him and put a knife to his throat" "paris escaped somehow and pinned garry and put a knife to His throat" (not literal examples but you get me)

aaaaaand suddenly paris is hallucinating garry as his brother. what is WITH v2 kids and hallucinations, they are a plague. he's remembered his brother twice in the game so far and i've had no idea how to process how paris Actually feels because he swings back and forth between "whatever" and "crushing guilt" because his writing is super inconsistent but i guess we're coming down hard on the crushing guilt side now.

He wasn't a bad person, he was just a normal boy.

this is all just very dumb. it feels like garry should have been killed but obviously he wasn't rolled. or it feels like garry should have killed him but paris's handler wanted him to commit suicide and came up with this weird hallucination thing as an excuse. he threatens the shadow of his brother and freaks out a lot and then runs off to his Deathpost which i am really looking forward to because i am so, SO tired.

the first line in said death post describes paris as Disgruntled, which, is not, the right word. honestly this whole post is really easy to sum up. he hallucinates the people he's killed as ghosts with the wounds that he caused them, and freaks out a whole lot.

also paris's handler wrote two paragraphs and i guess accidentally copy and pasted those two paragraphs again right at the end of the first iteration of the second paragraph, so i was confused as hell for a minute.

anyway paris screams at his hallucinations to back off or he'll kill them again and stumbles backward off the roof and DIES.

tl;dr/final thoughts: