Team Registration: Team Karakuri

Team Name: Team Karakuri

Members: Getsuaka Kato, Gyzmo Gadjiltron

Links: http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=17931
Kato

http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=18019
Gyzmo

Swift gust took over the lands. At the top of a small peak, lay a young man, his eyes closed against the cloudy skies. This man, Kato, held his arms back, behind his neck, slowly opening the grey optic of his left eye, and stared upwards. Small streams of sunlight poured through the clouds... He had no emotion to this, but a strong sense of disgust spilled out. Far by the horizon, dark storm clouds approached. It was time to move. The man rolled his shoulders quickly, yawning, standing up, to reveal a very tall, but slender build. Kato scraped his sandals on the rock he had lain on. Another sigh, of plain melancholy, escaped his lips, as the man let his black hair blow for a second, the sunlight now completely gone, as the clouds approached faster and faster. Sheathing a blade that he had by his side, a katana to be precise, he pounced off of the rock, bulleting down the mountain, his white kimono blowing in the facing winds. And yet, a smile formed upon his face. Not from happiness, no, no. But excitement. Another figure was around him.

Kato brought his left hand forward, as it began to glow white. He had no idea where this person may be. Nor did he care. But he turned around, looking into the treetops now that the mountain had reclined. At a flat surface of land near the bottom, he stopped completely. His left hand continued to glow, as he brought his right hand up to his left shoulder, pulling out the katana from earlier.

"Well, I suppose my nap can wait till later" he spoke softly to himself, sliding his left foot forward, right hand on the bottom of the hilt, the blade just touching the ground. His left hand was by his side, as this energy, his Twilight, dispersed. "C'mon, I'm in need of a good spar..." he spoke, almost angelically, but with the slightest sense of ill-will to whoever this unlucky camper may be.

A heavy gust of wind had strike a person who was walking on top of a medium sized hill, the boy just slid backwards against his heels but squatted down then skewered the ground with four fingers from his right hand, which he had extended from his right forearm to re balance the boy. Once the boy began to climb till the top of the hill, he went to lift his backpack strap by his left shoulder re placing it back on top of the boy's shoulder. The backpack was a forest green color, their were four pouches against the front side of the backpack. But their were massive holes against the pouches. He had be wandering around the lands from his travels, but the boy has been lost for sometime. The boy, Gyzmo scanned around the darkness caused by the clouds from above him and the Earth. He knew his scanners had picked up a person, or somebody, or something. Animal, man, or whatever. He was willing to get rid of it, if it got in his way.

Gyzmo began to run down the hill, racing upon some grass that were weak from their roots to withstand the breeze. He accidentally tripped a hidden rock, where tall blades of grass were surrounding it, and the algae on top of the stone made it hard for Gyzmo to watch out for it. He began to grunt from the rolls against the downward hill, he spotted the edge of the hill which would lead him to a pit of disaster but a small stream were down to the end, he couldn't risk falling into it. "Damn it! Help!" He shouted from his trembling lips.

He tried to pull himself up, but he wasn't strong enough to do so. He began to lose grasp against the Earth he gripped onto, trying his best to hold on. Like a cat trying to be bathe. Just then his backpack began to shake tremendously rapidly; The holes against the pouches began to glow a bright ruby red color, within a split second four massive serpent like creatures sprang out from the holes against the pouches. Two of the tentacles began to slither towards the hill then reel Gyzmo to the top of the hill.

Once touching the soft bed of grass, he sighed in exhaustion then hopped up to his feet. He began to dust off dirt from his coffee brown jacket, picking blades of grass off of his blue jeans, which in the sunlight it had a hint of Grey color onto it. He then pushed his rectangular glasses to the top spine of his nose, where a sudden stream of sunlight glimpse against his specs. "Hope this guy doesn't bother me..." He told himself, as the tentacles stood on his left, and right side. And one went over him, then the other laid on the ground. Their ruby jewels inside their heads were glowing magnificently bright, as they stood a 14.7 meters length they weren't fully extended just yet.

The boy looked forward, towards the man 'Gyzmo.' But this failed to be what his interest was, as he seemed caught in the action he had just witnessed... The backpack the boy had truly astounded him, the boy in front of him suddenly becoming very intriguing.

Until he saw that those could be used as weapons.

"Those serpents of yours..." That was the only word he could think to describe it. Despite his best friend having been an Android, he knew almost nothing about machinery. "Are really brilliant. It would be a true shame if they were to..."

He struck forward his right foot, the blade on the ground soothingly cutting through the soft ground, leaving a trail behind him, slowly growing potential energy. Soon, the blade itself seemed to have been transferred the Twilight energy once in his hand. His left foot followed through, as his left paw struck to the flat side of his blade. The figure that was far in front of him, now was simply a meter away. He brought up his blade, letting go with his left hand.

He stabbed forward towards the backpack, being at the left ribcage of Gyzmo, he brought up his left hand to this section, meaning quite no harm to the boy. His hand blocked Gyzmo from approaching him, though no contact was made. The blade suddenly jerked with a snap of his wrist into a long slash, to the 'thy' part of the bottom left 'serpent.'

"Have a little accident."

Kato truly was, a wild dog.

The Twilight energy in the blade stirred, almost as if it had a mind of its own, as the energy within his body sprang to life in an aura around him. "Showtime!" he yelled, following through the slash.

This man, who just seemed to come out of nowhere began to attack him. Gyzmo was astonished, but he ignored his emotions as his serpent which laid on the ground began to build energy, just then it wiggled around the ground till a polar white energy beam formed from within the head, then extended towards a nearby tentacle, beside him. Then the tentacle reflected the energy towards a new host. The tentacle above him, which caught the energy substance then clamped it with its crane like claws that rested on top of its head a crude shaped pyramid appeared around Gyzmo to block his opponents attack, but Gyzmo didn't stay inside the crappy designed pyramid one of his tentacles were coiled tightly like a spring that skewered right behind him.

Now sprang to a new location, he landed by a field of rocks he caught a balance once he landed. He wobbled after a few seconds, but caught his balance once again. Whoever this guy was, was not human; He was crazy though, he watched his opponent who was a few distances away from Gyzmo. "Hey! What the hell is your problem?! I'm not looking for no showtime!" He shouted, as he looked at two of his tentacles, nodding to them. All the tentacles contained a roman numerical number; I,II,III, and IV. The two that he was nodding too, were II, and IV. "Di, and Tetra. Ready your drills.." He commanded to the two serpents, they nodded as their claws on their heads assembled each other, forming one large spear like claw.

"Whzzzzz.." Was heard from the tentacles, when their claws began to spin in a clockwise direction and in a rapid speed, they just stood their floating beside Gyzmo. Ready to strike, as being ready as a hunter against a herd of buffalo's.

The triangle sprang to life in front of him, blade pressed against it.

"Damn it... These things really are a nuisance..." he said, clenching his somewhat fanged teeth, as he took his grip back on the blade. "Don't let this put you down, Kato... He needs to be terminated..." he muttered.

He dashed forward, approaching the man and the drills head on. The all familiar cocky smile formed upon his pale lips "Gimme the best you got!"

The Twilight energy bounced around his skin, continuing to cram within the blade, almost as if it was ready to explode- Perfect! The man ran at the boy again "Yo kid, don't play around in the mountains. Maybe some huge monster will try and kill ya!" he laughed to himself, his ego inflating to twice its size.

Slinging his limb up, the blade approached the two drills, as he jumped forward... Wait, what was this?

He ducked into a roll mid-air, as he brought out his legs, then his arms, planting himself in front of the boy, blade pointed forward at his chest.

"Gamover." he said coldly, as twilight began to spark off of the tip of Maboroshi, the katana. He kept it inches from the man, as the energy from earlier spilled out from his back, forming a twilight wall behind him, long enough to block the drills long enough for the next thing he was to do.

"Soukutsu..." he said, a smile growing large. A large shockwave sprung out to life from the tip of it, and seemed that Gyzmo was now to be 'terminated.'

"Too bad... If you survived, you'd really be a good comrade." he said while the twilight burst out, sparks flying everywhere, the charming smile upon his face starting to fade, the excitement of the kill evaporating already. Killing truly was orgasmic... And he lost the feel for this one.

Well, there you have it. I mean... Gyzmo's gone for now, just talked to him on the phone... So the ending will be pretty unclear. We have 1,755 words, if Microsoft Word's 'Word Count' isn't lying... Hope thats enough to get us approved!

Damn.. If I could just post once more, I could make this a little more interesting. But, had to leave that time.

I'd like to thank you both for participating in this event and putting the time into completing your trial. I'll be your prelim judge (this will be the first and last time you'll see me judging for this even), and I worked with Judging Panel A to bring this to you. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me via PM or AIM and I will be happy to speak with you.

General notes: I’ve never been one for general notes, as I prefer to just the judgment speak for itself. On the whole, please know that though my judgment will sound harsh, I did see some potential that could be tapped into with some effort and motivation. Hopefully you will benefit from this judgment and be helped along that process.

Story: 2.5/5

While this is designed to just be a sample, the goal should always be to give your writing more meaning. Perhaps it was due to stylistic and grammatical issues, but I never got a feel for your trial’s purpose. It didn’t feel like a story to me, but just a random encounter with little significance. Also, it felt that you tried to cram too much into what was merely a sample of your writing. As such, nothing felt well developed. Perhaps this will get easier for you in full-length threads. Just always remember to make the reader aware of why your characters are there, how they got there, and why it’s important.

The setting came off a bit stronger, and I got a decent idea of the environment from time to time. Still, it seemed to come and go and it wasn’t described in a clear manner. Doing well with setting comes from both vividly and efficiently describing the setting and then never letting the reader forget about it, which is done by having the characters interact with it. You did a little bit of both, which was a good start. Keep working at it.

Character: 2/5

On the whole, I didn’t get a feel for your characters. Again, some of this might be general clarity and other stylistic issues (which will be touched on below). The main piece of advice I can offer at this point is to make an effort to clearly portray your character’s thoughts, emotions, and behavior.

Dialogue was tricky for me to gauge. It could be described as unique in some areas, but it also came off as somewhat cheesy in other areas (without there being an expressed reason for it to be that way) and nonsensical and confusing in others. Once you get a better feel for your characters and clean up your respective styles, I think this will also improve.

Writing Style: 2/5

I can safely say that this category was the root of most of the problems with your trial, and thus will get more focus (including some notes that I made for your benefit).

In terms of Mechanics, fragmentation and comma abuse seemed to the name of the game for Kato. Gyzmo, instead of fragments, you had a number of massive run-on sentences. Clarity was also an issue. Whether because of stylistic and grammatical issues, or other problems, it didn’t feel like much was clearly described. I got only a vague picture of the setting (as I said earlier). Kato referred to his character’s “twilight power”, but didn’t explain what it was, exactly.

In general, it seemed that both of you lacked effort and polish, though in different ways. Kato: I saw a few attempts at using literary devices, but they could use some work to make them more effective. Your abuse of commas and frequent, unnecessary fragments made your posts hard to read and understand. Gyzmo: I saw less comma abuse (though there was some still present) and far fewer fragments in your writing. Instead, I saw several run-on sentences and just generally poor sentence structure. I listed some examples for both of you in my notes below.

Total: 6.5


Notes: These are mainly examples of some of the problems I encountered. Instead of listing every instance, I made note of a few key examples.


Getsuaku Kato:


“This man, Kato, held his arms back, behind his neck, slowly opening the grey optic of his left eye, and stared upwards.” ~ the commas surrounding “behind his neck” aren’t necessary.

“He had no emotion to this, but a strong sense of disgust spilled out.” ~ It’s not clear what you’re going for, exactly. It seems like you meant “He felt no emotion toward this,” but it’s hard to be certain.

“The man rolled his shoulders quickly, yawning, standing up, to reveal a very tall, but slender build.” ~ There is more comma abuse here. Also, saying “tall, but slender” implies that those two traits don’t often go together. In there instances, I would suggest something akin to the following: “ …shoulders, yawning and standing up to reveal a very tall and slender build.”

“Sheathing a blade that he had by his side, a katana to be precise, he pounced off of the rock, bulleting down the mountain, his white kimono blowing in the facing winds.” It seems like it would have been more efficient to merely say, “Sheathing the katana lying by his side, he pounced off the rock and bulleted down the mountain, …” Try to give your sentences thoughtful structure instead of just adding commas and more words. ;) Also, as a general note that this sentence provides an example of, using “it was”, “was stalking”, “he had by his side”, and similar can usually be replaced by clearly, stronger verbs. Details like that can really add a lot of polish and refinement to your style.


Gyzmo Gadjiltron:

“A heavy gust of wind had strike a person who was walking on top of a medium sized hill, the boy just slid backwards against his heels but squatted down then skewered the ground with four fingers from his right hand, which he had extended from his right forearm to re balance the boy.” ~ Holy run-on in addition to other errors, such as “had strike” instead of “had struck.” After “medium sized hill”, you should have ended the sentence and started a new one. Even so, the entire sentence would greatly benefit from being re-written, for issues of mechanics, clarity, and technique.

“Once the boy began to climb till the top of the hill, he went to lift his backpack strap by his left shoulder re placing it back on top of the boy's shoulder.” ~ Another example of poor sentence structure, as well as clarity issues. Also, on a stylistic note, saying “he went to lift” is senselessly wordy unless it’s used for a purpose, such as “he went to lift his backpack, but it wasn’t there” or something of that sort.