Fight for the Title : Ariana Vs Mathmagician.

[Ariana]

Ariana knew what was going on all along. As the man made his move, Ariana grabbed her unsheathed sword and quickly got up sheathed sword in her right hand and unsheathed in her left as she spins around and quickly brings the sword around to meet his knee, more precise, the back of his knee.

Ariana then brought her sheathed sword around and went in for this crazy man's back, hopefully knocking the wind out of him. Long enough for her to add his head to her collection.

Even though she is fast, she did not escape unscratched. As he came down, he knocked a tooth out of her beautiful jaw. One of her fangs to be exact.

This pisses her off so as soon as he hits the ground she brings the same blade that went for his knee up to his neck. "Now please, die and stop being such a nuisance to me. My Master told me to hurry so I am." she says as she brings her blade ever closer to his neck.

[The Mathemagician]

Everything appeared to go perfectly. Everything appeared to go perfectly. As the disaster happened, everything seemed to slow down to expose every terrible detail, one at a time. It was not until he was halfway into the fall that Alphred realized that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong. She had known! How...how...how had she known? There was no time for Alphred to speak though. She had known enough, not just to dodge, but also to stand up and retaliate as he fell! What's more, she was able to move incredibly fast and hit him twice on the way down or his short fall: in the stomach and the backs of his knees. The sheathed sword hit first, slicing his hamstrings in half. Pain. He could feel the tendons snap, cut in two, and fly back like enormous rubber bands, and he knew he would not be able to walk again on those legs. From that point on, everything he saw was in a daze of excruciating, awful, terrible agony. That sort of thing...was not meant to happen to him! It was meant to happen to soldiers on the battlefield, to warriors, not to mathematicians...! It...couldn't be. It would not be long before he passed out, he knew that somewhere in the back of his mind. His arm was know the least of his pains. Idly, he barely even noticed as the sheathed sword jammed into his gut, knocking his breath out. The momentum of his own fall, coupled with that blow...Alphred thought perhaps he heard a rib or two crack.

Despite all this, Alphred did get one tiny moment of satisfaction as he fell.He did at least manage to hit her, however pathetically. He felt his shoes make contact with her jaw, making a loud crunching noise. Had her jaw broken? Was a tooth cracked? He would never find out.

Alphred continued to fall the rest of the way, blackness already covering the edge of his vision. He fell sprawled on the ground, the sword blows having broken his fall in a most unpleasant way. His boy was twisted in unnatural directions, his hamstrings bled small pools amid the soft green leaves of the ground, his face was marred by a terrific grimace of agony. He barely understood the woman's words as they came out. Once he had processed them, he laughed silently.

"That...won't be...necessary. Don't worry, I'll...die. I'm always most..." Alphred said. Oddly enough, his voice was more confident than it ever had been before. His sentence was cut off though as he began to cough up blood. It gagged his throat and began to suffocate him, and he had to turn his head to the side and spit it up. He turned back and faced the woman, barely noticing the blade that was dangerously close to his throat. Dangerously! Nothing was dangerous to Alphred any more. What more could she possibly do?

"...polite." Alphred finished the sentence. And, staying true to his word, Alphred Tillman, Mathemagician, passed out completely.

Alphred is now passed out. End of thread. Now submitting for judging. Thank you!

[Christoph]

Sorry for the wait, guys. I'll get right into the judgment.


Ariana:

Continuity: 3
Your character’s reasons for going to the Pagoda weren’t fleshed out very well at all, but I can assume that they involved the typical “fighting to get stronger” shtick. Your opening really didn’t help weave a good story, unfortunately, and the ending just dropped off with nothing.

Setting: 5
This actually wasn’t bad. I certainly didn’t feel immersed in the setting, but you did interact with it. You’re heading in the right direction with setting, and I think it will score even higher once you work out your other stylistic problems.

Pacing: 5
The battle didn’t seem to flow very well, especially at the beginning. The introduction didn’t transition very well into the battle. Once it got started, it wasn’t too bad, though.

Action: 4
I don’t have a lot to say on Action, aside from that yours weren’t very imaginative. Your tendency to use present tense didn’t help, either. Often, it sounded more like a beginner roleplayer sitting at a table and describing his character’s actions to the GM, as opposed to a writer narrating a character’s actions with written word.

Dialogue: 2
The only word I can use here is ‘corny’. The dialogue was almost endearing in its cheesiness at times, but on the whole really didn’t help portray a well-thought out character. It mainly consisted of a lot of cliché one-liners pasted together. Very little came off as genuine, but that might have just been a side-effect of the character’s actual personality (more on that later.

Persona: 2
Bluntly put, I wasn’t impressed. Your character showed little depth and felt very fake. I’d go as far as saying she was a serious Mary-Sue – a super-sexy badass woman without any real flaws or weaknesses, at least, none that were portrayed in this battle. I really couldn’t feel for Ariana at all, unfortunately. I would suggest that you really get into this character and flesh out what her strengths and weaknesses are and what she’s really like inside. Make her a real person.

Technique: 3
Your sentence and paragraph structures were rather clunky and repetitive. You had a tendency to start several consecutive sentences with the same word, such as “she”. Also, your style relied heavily on more modern and/or real-life turns of phrase and references, which aren’t appropriate when writing in a fantasy setting. (See Note Four for an example) Your narrative style was very sloppy and lacked polish. I don’t mean to be overly harsh; I merely hope that by pointing out these issues, I can help you be mindful of them in the future.

Mechanics: 3
While there weren’t too terribly many typos or spelling errors, it came off that you don’t adequately understand the fundamental rules of English grammar. Your tendency to shift from past to present tense often without any good reason got a bit annoying to read very fast. (See Note 1 for an example) Also, you often improperly modified verbs, leading to incorrect sentences. (See Note 2 for an example) In addition, you shifted into second person from third person (see Note 3). Second person isn’t typically used effectively in fiction writing, and even so you should pick one point of view and stick with it.

Clarity: 5
Aside from the issues expressed in technique and mechanics, you did all right here. That said, those issues still really hurts the overall clarity of the writing. On the whole, though, I was able to figure out what you were trying to do.

Wildcard: 5
You’re clearly motivated to write, and I like that. With plenty of practice, I think you could get pretty good. Don’t let these numbers damper your spirits. Just take everything I and other judges say into account and really work at developing your style.

Total: 37



Mathemagician:

Continuity: 7
You had a unique reason for Alphred to be at the Pagoda, though I would have liked it better had you illustrated it more clearly and comprehensively. Still, kudos for giving a unique rational for battling. That aside, I would have liked at least a hair more background information on Alphred. Not too much; just a little, such as how he came to be in Scara Brae, or if he was native there. Little details like that give a story extra life. I also would have liked to have seem the ending fleshed out, but on the whole you did all right.

Pacing: 5
Same as above in regards to the overall flow. I did like how you played off of Ariana’s reference to the beautiful morning, putting your own spin on it. It gave the opening to the battle a nifty sense of duality, which made it easier to press onward as a reader. That also impacted your technique and persona a little.

Setting: 6
You described the setting fairly well. I actually felt more immersed in the environment while reading your posts. You also made sure that I didn’t forget the setting existed.

Action: 6
You did decently here. I like how you didn’t try to make Alphred badass or even competent. You stuck true to his character quite well, even at the expense of him getting chased around.

Dialogue: 5.5
I’d say you were about average in this category. The dialogue was pretty decent, but not too terribly impressive. I think you could work on really making your dialogue work with this character; he is the type whose manner of speech is likely to be very unique. I got a little of that, but I wanted more.

Persona: 7
You came out fairly strong in this category. I liked how you pointed out how Alphred didn’t notice the sunrise. It played nicely into his character. I also like how the language you used played into his personality (touched on again in Technique). Also, his nervousness when dealing with the opposite gender was amusing, if a bit corny. On the whole, I like that you made no attempt at portraying Alphred as anything more than a little wimp. You showed that not sll characters need to be brave warriors.

Technique: 6
Your first line was actually interesting in its intentionally-ironic sort of way. You could have followed up on that better in the paragraph that followed, but still, it wasn’t bad. You’re heading in the right direction, especially by bending the language to fit your character. All I could say in that regard is to try and polish up the style, so that it can sound advanced and intellectual without flowing poorly.

Your style is proficient on the whole, nothing too fancy but nothing terribly bad. You do have a tendency to overuse “was” as your primary verb in sentences. A piece of advice I’ll give is to avoid overusing “was” as the primary working verb in your sentences. Sometimes, ‘was’ serves as the most effective verb, but more often than not, a stronger and more specific verb could be used. When ‘was’ gets overused, it comes off to the reader that the author couldn’t think of the write words to use. Also, it can hurt the flow of the writing.

Mechanics: 7.5
I didn’t spot too many problems here. Some of it went hand-in-hand with the Technique comments. Other than that, just watch your wordings and run a fine comb through your posts and you could be looking at 9’s and 10’s in this category.

Clarity: 8
As a consequence of the somewhat over-acedemic and often repetitive style of writing, I rarely had any trouble figuring out what was going on, so that’s always good. Once you get better, you’ll be able to do this more efficiently, though.

Wildcard: 7
You had guts for going to battle with a character so unsuited for it.


Total: 65!


Mathemagician is the winner!

Mathemagician receives 550 EXP, 150 GP, and a Warrior slot in the Pagoda
Ariana receives 150 EXP

1.) “One for the record books, they would agree afterwards. If there were record books for such things, at least.” – Fragmentation. Sentence fragments can be used stylistically from time to time, but it just seemed clunky in this instance.

2.) “and in such stressful circumstances that he could not have possibly been expected to remark upon its aesthetics, as you may see.” – Avoid reverting to second-person language, as you did in the last part of this sentence.

1.) “The day was as beautiful as ever, the sun was shining, the wind has a nice calm breeze, the trees are swaying with the wind.” – tense issue.

2.) “Her pitch black ponytail blowing in the wind like crazy.” – This was an improper sentence, as “blowing” should have been “was blowing” or “blew”. Even then, it was sloppy and lackluster stylistically speaking. Describing it as blowing “like crazy” detracted from the sophistication of the writing in that instance. It didn’t display a polished, professional writing style.

3.) “You'd do well to leave her alone or else you wont see the light of day.” – Point of view shift. Remember that you’re writing a story, not talking to a friend.

4.) “So she runs as fast as she can and starts doing the 'Tarzan' -- jumping from branch to branch trying to get to the top.” – Again, you used the wrong tense. Also, when you’re writing something set in a fantasy world, avoid using real-life references. Honestly, that would have been a bit of a cheesy reference in any setting, regardless.

[Taskmienster]

Exp and Gp added