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Round 2; Envy Vs. Maxie

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Round 2; Envy Vs. Maxie - Page 2 Empty Re: Round 2; Envy Vs. Maxie

Post by Dregan Tue Feb 23, 2016 1:12 am

Okay, so first of all, apologies. Yes, this has taken a goddamn looong time for me to get to, and that really is inexcusable.
At the same time... at the same time, hm. Wow. This fight has been like a demon to me, preying on my mind. Get ready for some looong walls of text.

Entertainment
Maxie - Details, details, details. You have them! A lot of them! And they're glorious. Little things like the arching of a spine here, or playing with the fabric of a dress there, it's just all really... nice. Consistent too - a lot of the time it's easy to start with all those details and then fall into more generic description as things progress. It was also great to really get an inside look on Maxie - I really liked reading through her thought processes and it really helped contextualise her actions. Overall, it was a damn good read!
I will say however, there were certain portions where it felt less like you were writing purely in character, and more that you were using your character as a tool to, uh, perhaps act as a proxy for some of your own thoughts and feelings. Certain elements, such as the, uh, very particular dislike of the music came across as rather... heavy-handed, shall we say? Whilst it's sorta fine doing that sort of thing for the most part, sometimes it can really bring things down slightly when used to highlight potential issues in your opponent's writings. Roleplay is essentially written-form improvisation. And the number one rule of improv is to comply to what your improv partner is saying or doing. So for example, when Envy struck one light and took out all the lights in the area... I agree, it doesn't make much sense. At the same time, having the character stand there and go 'actually this doesn't make sense' can really take the reader out of it, and drag down the quality of the writing as a whole. You want to engage us - not highlight reasons for us to disengage.
Still, outside of that issue, your own writing was enough to draw us back in and be engaging. Really well-written and enjoyable work. 8/10

Envy - Okay... I'll be straight out, I have issues with your writing here. And first, let me be fair and clarify, I find nothing wrong with your presentation or technique. The quality of your sentences, your paragraphs, whatever, it's all actually really good. Get good peeks inside the minds of characters, actions are described well, it's good to read. You do admittedly suffer from the odd clunky sentence here and there - for example using a metaphor before following it up with 'but not in a literal sense' can really kill the flow, and I didn't realise that 'the posture of a murderer' was a specific thing. Police line-ups would be much easier if all murderer's had a standardised stance. Not even gonna touch on the 'if this were a chatbox' line. Still, despite these oddities in phrasing, you do make good use of imagery elsewhere - such as the whole 'scratching at the inside of their psyche' descriptions. Overall, the writing, from a pure reading standpoint, is good!
Iiiit's the content I have issue with. Primarily just... Psycho. As a whole. I'll be honest, it really seemed like a bad, bad idea to bring them into the tournament. For a start... where did they come from? In the Lounges, in the previous fight, there was no foreshadowing of this at all. It really felt like it came out of nowhere, and felt really forced. 'Forced' being probably the key operative word I'd use with a lot of things associated with this character. It seemed like you really wanted them to be creepy... but tried so hard it became cartoonish, almost a parody of what it was intended to be. This wasn't helped by all the jamming in of random Nightcore stuff, which felt... really unneccesary, and didn't seem to add much to proceedings. It just felt really jarring - I'm not sure if you were attempting to try what they did with the Nightclub fight last round, but it just felt really awkwardly handled.
We also had the Hide and Seek stuff with Psycho which... okay, I get what you were trying to do, but once again, it felt really forced. An important thing in writing is to have a natural flow - it felt really unnatural to have the characters meet up for a fight in the centra, only for it to immediately devolve into trying to part ways again. Even when it seemed like the ongoing action and occurences should've prevented the whole 'Hide and Seek' thing from happening, you still strode towards it. I understand sometimes you get an idea, and you really want to use it, but if it seems like it isn't gonna happen, sometimes you unfortunately just have to let it drop. It seemed you were really desperately trying to push the Hide and Seek stuff forward, which really slowed down the first half of the RP and stifled the action.
This is mostly unfortunate because, I'll be honest, when the actual fighting properly got underway, it was a good read. Genuinely interesting combat, some nice exchanges. When you were actually writing... well, the combat portion of the combat, you were at your strongest. It felt like you were leaning away from relying on writing gimmicks, in favour of more pure quality description and content.
Uuunfortunately this was bought to a halt again with the re-emergence of Envy. Now, I won't say bringing Envy back in was a bad idea... but once again, you fell to that element of trying too hard and being too forceful. All the weird font stuff in particular just... it was like you were stood in the middle of a field, screaming 'subtlety' at the top of your lungs, waving your arms whilst explosions occured around you. And it really, really is a shame. Because I think this whole fight for you essentially showcased how capable of a writer you could be, only to be bogged down by the contents of what you were writing. 4.5/10

Creativity
Maxie - Oooh boy did you make me happy in this one! Because I'll be honest... I wouldn't say you were given tons to work with, but you really did make do with what you had. First of all you have the harness. You noted an obvious use for it, the potential for armour and such -  however, the idea of using it as a makeshift net of sorts is something I hadn't even considered. It was a goddamn good idea, especially considering just how viable it is.
Then there's the gun. You managed to take a toy gun, and still make it work as a viable ranged weapon. Good. Plus, using the light of the gun as a beacon to draw attention to your character, which was great... albeit, uh, probably kinda inaccurate. Unless the laser is shining through fog or anything like that, it ain't actually gonna be all that visible. Think sorta like a laser pointer - all you really see is the dot at the end.
Okay, but shut up tho because the halberd is awesome. I unfortunately can't award you purely on the awesomeness of that weapon, however, the creative uses of it with the extension-attack and with the spiking it into the ceiling to make a makeshift perch... that really had my attention. Speaking of using what a character already has in creative ways, helloooo wind bubble of slowness. Good. I like. I am happy. 9/10

Envy - This is something I'd like to've seen a li'l more of from you. Obviously, you did have the whole Psycho ordeal, which was... certainly unique, albeit, as a standing facet of the character, I can't judge the creativity of the basic elements of the character themself, but rather what you did with them. I will say, whilst I didn't neccesarily like the whole 'Hide and Seek' ordeal, it certainly seemed to be fitting of the character, and I do appreciate the attempt to approach the battle in a slightly alternative way. In particular, smashing out the lights was a neat idea, and whilst there may be a slight pause of whether or not it would entirely make sense to've taken all the lights out in one hit, I can at least think of a couple of explanations for that, and once again I appreciate the effort to taking a different approach to the combat.
Taking note of the lights, I will say I also appreciated early on the note of the lights and sirens disorienting Envy. It's a small thing, but it's nice to see you taking account of how the environment can impact your character on even a base level.
Unfortunately, beyond that, we didn't really see much else from you in terms of doing anything particularly different. Whilst you seemed to have some nice thoughts to start out with, those soon drained away. It would just've been nice to've seen a little more. 6/10

Balance
Maxie - I will say, in the earlier part of the fight, I was a little worried by how easy Maxie seemed to be finding things. Obviously this wasn't entirely your fault, you were fighting a little girl, but there were certain bits and pieces where I think more leniency could've been allowed... In particular, I'm talking about when Psycho plunged things into darkness, then Maxie flew overhead and sorta watched her darting around. It may've been nice to give the stealth tactic a little more credit, even if it was something as basic as; 'For a moment, Maxie lost the small figure, somewhere deep below in the darkness. A moment later however, a flash of moving red and a hint of white gave away the position of the young girl.' Something to highlight the ability to find her whilst at least giving some credence to the stealth tactic, so it didn't just come across as 'Well, that didn't work, this was kinda easy.'
Still, within the actual fight itself, by god did you give and take. You didn't force any hits, and the damage you did take was... by god you made it sound like it goddamn hurt. I actually winced slightly at your description to that one strike to the eye, dear god. You also provided plenty of highlighted opportunities for when your opponent could strike, pointing out the holes in your own character's attacks to highlight when an action could be taken against them. Though, uh, there was one particularly odd occasion where you wrote your post saying something along the lines of 'as Maxie leaned in it gave a huge opening for Psycho to strike out and catch her' ooonly for you to then dodge the strike which was written in response to that. Was kinda odd.
Still, overall, good! Would not want to be Maxie right now. It kinda sounds like she's hurtin'. 8/10

Envy - Okay, this one... Hm. Okay. Before I actually address your own post, I'm gonna take the chance to look at Spekkal's very first post and lead-in to the match. Essentially, we have Maxie assessing your character - sorta breaking them down, considering their strengths and weaknesses, the evidence of how they operate and such. 'Twas a pretty decent and accurate breakdown.
Aaand then your next post seemed to be almost... trying to undo that? Like, it was as if you'd read Spek's post and gone 'Oh, well, they've assessed all this, gonna actively have my character set out to prove them wrong and defy everything that has been set up'. I don't know if it was on purporse, but if it was, poor show. It really did feel your entire set-up to the match was just meant to be one big stamp of defiance so your character's highlighted weaknesses could be overlooked.
Still... putting that aside for now, your writing throughout the fight beyond was fine and dandy - good stuff! No forced hits, took plenty of attacks and allowed your character to be injured in a fair few ways. It was all good there in that respect! 7.5/10

Clarity
Maxie - Seemed all good to me - I understood basically everything! There were one or two run on-sentences here and there, a few too many 'ands' and 'buts', but overall fine. Oh, er, other than this one particular sentence. I'm just gonna let you have it; "The only outside source that she was surprised by this was that her pupils diluted." 9.5/10

Envy - Okay, so your writing, once again, from a technical standpoint was all good. Sentences were mostly concise, spelling was all good, you could read the sentences and understand what they were saying. Although, uh, some of the contents of what was occuring in those sentences was often... confusing. For instance two seperate instances with different walls. The first was Envy making a wall into a radio, somehow? I... have no idea how that happened or how that was meant to work. He just sorta... did it? Was it a power? Is he so technologically capable that he can turn segments of cement into fully working electronics? What was going on there? Similarly, later, you had Psycho attempt to cut the music in the place by... stabbing a wall? It's almost as if you have an entirely different concept to me as to what walls are, and I am so very confused.
Same could be said for the piledriver. A piledriver, generally speaking, is when one picks up another person, turns them upside-down, and drops down - usually to a seated or kneeling position - to drive an opponent's head into the floor. How someone is meant to perform a piledriver on another person using just their own head is beyond me, and you didn't bother to explain for yourself.
Another confusion for me is the nature of Psycho and Envy. How much is Psycho aware of when Envy is in control? Like, it seemed to be implied she was itching to come out and fight at the start, so was assumingly very much aware of what was going on. But later you say Envy had forgot to mention it was a fight going on so... why was she so desperate to come out? Plus, after letting Psycho out, it's not that long til Envy is wanting to come back out, so what was the plan with letting Psycho out in the first place? And why does he want to come out, unless he's aware of what's going on outside? How that whole thing operates is really vague.
Add that to a couple of self-contradicting sentences, such as Psycho 'not being able to small Maxie, but being able to smell Maxie's scent', and well... Things weren't very clear. 5.5/10

Dregan's Overall Awarded Scores;

Maxie - 8 + 9 + 8 + 9.5 = 34.5/40

Envy - 4.5 + 6 + 7.5 + 5.5 = 23.5/40
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Round 2; Envy Vs. Maxie - Page 2 Empty Re: Round 2; Envy Vs. Maxie

Post by Electrisa Fri Mar 11, 2016 10:00 pm

Oh hey, Envy is back. Good timing.

Maxie!

Entertainment - ..I like your style a lot. Maxie is a super likable character that had just the right ammount of wit for the MINI WIT BATTLE IN THE FIGHT, YEAH, and your posts were organised, you noticed all the details and I loved it. It diiid get a lil bit repetitive here and there though, aaand admittedly I don't think the Envy description at the beginning was necessary - unless it was something to help you. Since, well, Envy description should be provided by Envy. And it all turned out to be wrong later either way. But the way Maxie thought every move through and also your sass, I loved it so much, and even if the posts were long, they were interesting to read for sure! The only thing more I have is that you took one paragraph to describe one punch from Envy. That's both impressive and 'damnit, more reading'

8,5/10

Creativity - Well, you certainly used the environment for what it was worth, what with the harness and gun and maze. You also noticed disadvantages it brought, which is great too. Planning attacks forward, and the bit with noticing it's in fact a thing for people to watch, so they need to be entertained, I also count in because who can stop me, and compared to some fights.. well, some people certainly missed that point.

7,5/10

Balance - Her flight ability and speed balanced by the fact she's so easily bruised and overpowered, her inside conflict over wether to beat up a child or not, and then that wiped away by obvious reasons, her slight bit of "too-much-confidence-in-yourself" paid back in bruised face, everything was perfect to me, really.

10/10

Clarity - Well, this was the worst thing for me - and I'm not sure whose fault is it, mine or yours. I.. had trouble seeing some attacks Maxie made. Also, I had trouble imagining how wind powers strengthen your limbs, but I think I sort of got it. The descriptions were just a bit wonky for me. Might be because I'm tired. Might be because you were tired. Hecku knows

7/10

33/40

Envy!

Entertainment - ...This section I would like to dedicate to "All the cliches and cringe-inducing attempts at scary I could find in your posts that failed to entertain me in the slightest":
-Mangle rip off, (just the white-black-red design overall. Please.)
-Evil alter ego,
-Hide and seek motive,
-Nightcore,
-Tridots... EVERY...WHERE...
-Coin flip?????,
-"Innocent, but also creepy",
-"Wow suddenly no more innocent",
-Singing. During the battle,
-Evil monologue,
-Evil smile,
-Evil... pose? Evil POSE?,
-"Hit me again",
-Looking into the soul,
-Screaming and combustible shapeshifting,
-Gorey illusions,
-Death threats,
-WoW lOoK At thOsE JuMpY LettTeRS So Cr E PE y,
-also, blood red. Just. Those two words,
-Psycho. Just. THIS NAME,
-HOW many horror animes and creepypastas did you read trying to make Psycho?,
Overall conclusion: Would not make him an Undertale boss.

..I guess there was like one or two lines of wit I liked.

1/10

Creativity - Heey look, i already included every cliche in entertainment. Guess I can't do that here. Let's see. Oh, here's what I missed.
LE Envy. That's a one.
Two.. the attacks were.. well.. NOT thought through, but I think you're aware of that. I guess it was your charas' tactic to just attack wherever and whatever. The guilt act was good though. I can count that here. Though while Maxie did take notice of it, I wonder, how was Psycho able to sing all that Nightcore while there was this deafening techno thing going on? In my rules, creativity is also noticing things like that. Your characters did have that little bit of self-awareness though. Like Psycho noticing that monologuing was a screw up and all. Good.

6,5/10

Balance- ...You know, I accidentally clicked "0" instead of the pause.
That'd be quite correct.
I must admit, Psycho DID take hits, and you described damage well, and allowed her to be trapped, confused, losing her point and everything. That's good.
But you.. overdid it. And I'm not sure if it was on purpose, or not. Mainly with.. with shutting off the lights, making Maxie invisible and leaving Psycho in full view. Why?
But also.. the fact that you completely changed the character. COMPLETELY. It's as if you were using two in the tournament, and that we should've kicked you out for, really. It didn't feel like they were one. They don't even SHARE MEMORIES. That was utterly pointless. Additionally, when Envy was out again, HE DID NOT SHARE HER WOUNDS, as far as I'm concerned. And this.. is a very plain example of THE OPPOSITE OF BALANCE. He was ready to tear Maxie apart again while Psycho was completely defenseless. Moreover, we don't even know the limitations to his magical powers.

4/10

Clarity - ..See, most of your posts were kept simple and clear, with short descriptions, but everything was to the point.
...Except for the parts where it was not, it was utter nonsense and chaos.
*sigh*
Why was he laying face down? Why would a coin decide? How did he just appearify speakers out of nowhere? Why did shapeshifting not harm him, but was utter torture to Psycho? Was it just to make everything more EDGY and SCARY? "Couldn't smell but could smell?" Envy accussed Psycho of not beating a single Mobian, but she said she'd "finally met her match"? How did she break whole walls of black light with single scissors? How can a bloody sword shapeshift into scissors? Piledriving with YOUR HEAD? Predators aren't glass cannons? "She was a predator, not a fighter", predators are fighters?

You said you wanted to change Envy in your 'i'm back' post. I'd propose you start with these.
Seriously, man.

3/10

14,5/40
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Round 2; Envy Vs. Maxie - Page 2 Empty Re: Round 2; Envy Vs. Maxie

Post by Dregan Mon Mar 14, 2016 7:54 pm

Overall Scores:

Maxie - 32.5+34.5+33 = 100/120

Envy - 16+23.5+14.5 = 54/120

Your Winner For This Round;

Maxie!

Congratulations!

Topic now unlocked so people can finish up the combat if they so wish. You may also go rejoin the Lounge if you so wish to kick some life back into there!
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