Veteran Bracket: Elijah Morendale vs. Reine

[Elijah_Morendale]

If you wanted to see me at my absolute worst, all you had to do was put me in a room alone with a woman who was half undressed. Of course, by that I don't mean in a sort of "ha ha! I'm-a gonna' rape you then steal all your jewelry!" kind of worst, but you'll definitely see me stutter, stammer, blush, and blunder even more than I already do. I've never been terribly comfortable looking at a naked body, especially a woman's...

And here was one sitting in front of me, still attractive despite the bruise that was starting to form on her left arm and the cut across her eyebrow from when I... From that split second that I really should apologize profusely for.

(Oh gosh. Better avert my eyes and distract my mind before I go into any descriptive detail that might, uh... yeah. Don't need that happening right now.)

I slowly made my way over to the bed beside her and plopped down on the soft mattress. A thousand things to say sprung to mind, but my tounge refused to cooperate. This afternoon had just been one really bad trip. We spent the next ten seconds in awkward silence; Reine hunched forward slightly in her chair, myself leaning forward, my elbows resting on my knees and my hands clasped together.

Without thinking, I picked up the wet cloth that she had tossed onto the table. I brought it up to her face, causing her to wince and pull back for a second.

"Oh, sorry..." I retracted the cloth a bit. A speck or two of dried blood had stuck to it.

"No, it's alright..."

I went back in to try and clean up her wound a little bit. I tried to dab lightly, since I could only imagine how much it hurt to the touch. Man, I was still feeling terrible about hitting her upside the head with that icicle. We spent a few more seconds in silence, seconds that seemed like an eternity.

"It's not your fault," I finally said. "I got careless. I should have remembered that it was just supposed to be a light sparring match. At least, I hope it was, right?" I didn't wait for a response. "I also feel bad about what Nadia did, and I'd like to apologize for her as well, since I know she probably wont. It's just that..." I let out a deep sigh. "I don't know what goes through her mind sometimes. Like, uh, a few weeks ago, when we were all ghost hunting and whatnot... How she didn't really lend a hand when I was hurt... But then today..." I couldn't go on. Time to change the subject. "Turn your head just a bit this way, please."

Reine silently complied. I shifted the rag around in my hand a bit to find a strip that was still a little wet, then wiped some of the smeared blood off of her cheek.

By the gods, she has pretty eyes.

[Reine]

Faelynn tried not to wince. The wound wasn’t all that bad and didn’t hurt too much, unless someone was scraping a cloth along or near it, which unfortunately at the moment was a constant thing. She just needed to bite her tongue, ball her hands into tiny fists that fit in her lap and pretend that Elijah was bathing her in sunshine, rainbows and bunnies instead of water, a scratchy cloth and poorly worded apologies. It’s not that she didn’t appreciate his apology. She did, in fact it made her feel a lot better. No one liked believing that everything was their entire fault, even if the whole situation was their entire fault. He was trying to shoulder the blame and sure, he had cracked her in the head with an icicle, but she had attacked him first, even if it was just a jest.

Oh, this whole thing was just messed up. They both knew it; neither of them just knew what to do about it. They paused, stuttered and filled a room with silence and muttered heartfelt apologies while not entirely sure where exactly they should go from there. She certainly didn’t know what to do from here. This was supposed to be a tournament after all. Shouldn’t he know that?

“How’s your stomach?” Faelynn ventured, hoping to she hadn’t hurt him too badly. Though if she had, she bet Nadia would have done more than just slap her across the face.

He gave an awkward half smile. “Nothing I didn’t deserve...”

“But you didn’t deserve it. I got angry after you clobbered my face.” She protested.

“Heh, and I got angry with you for attacking me with icicles.”

“But I knew they wouldn’t hurt you because of your crazy enchanted sweater!”

“It’s a hoodie and you could have hit me in the head!”

“I-I wasn’t aiming for your head!”

His blue eyes met her golden green ones. They locked, stared at each other and both looked away. The room fell into silence as he continued to clean up her face. It didn’t feel as awkward as before.

Faelynn shifted in her chair. Elijah pulled away from her. “D-did I hurt you?”

“No, almost done?” She looked at the ground, her eyes focusing on an awkward scuff mark on his left shoe.

He nodded. “Just a little to go...” he wiped the cloth along her raw skin a little more, “...and all done.”

Elijah leaned back and she stood, moving towards the skin. A large bruise had already begun to settle around the gash. By tomorrow morning it would be an ugly colour; right now it barely passed for a strange blue-green.

“Thanks a lot.” She gave him one of her most charming smiles.
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “No problem...”

“How about we go grab that pint I mentioned earlier?”

He looked at her, his eyes wandered downward, his face turned red and he quickly turned away. “Ah... t-that s-s-s-sounds great.”

Faelynn blinked and looked down, then burst out laughing. She had completely forgotten about her state of dress.

“I promise, I’ll put a shirt on!” She managed to squeak out.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, Faelynn grabbed a clean shirt out of her dresser and slipped it on. Tonight might be salvageable after all.

[Saxon]

Reine

STORY

Continuity ~ 4/10 ~ Reine, you mentioned in passing in some of your posts of some things you had done with Elijah, but the biggest thing that tied you two together was your relationship as friends. That helped pad your score a bit. However, even though this element of some sort of friendship between you two was present throughout the thread, the biggest thing that hurt you was how you tried to paint this battle. This battle read like it was some sort of hokey, melodramatic play that both of you were trapped in and were using the tournament as some sort of reason to force you two to fight each other.

Whether that was your intention or not, Reine, I’m not positive. This battle started off rocky and lasted for about seven or eight posts until it spiraled off into some sort of animesque soap opera. And while you guys did finish, the ending fell flat. This didn’t really seem like a battle or much of a conflict other than you two finding some reason to beat on each other for the tournament’s sake and then making up shortly afterwards. It just seemed really hollow and forced and for the reasons stated above I gave you a 4.

Setting ~ 3/10 ~ I wasn’t even really sure until around the third post where you guys actually were. As you described it, it was somewhere in deathain and eventually you let it slip that you two were fighting at a school of some sort. And that even seemed almost as if you two had decided on the location on accident. You didn’t really try to bring the setting to life from what I read other then to spell out the essential details and leave it at that, but when you did it showed. An important thing to remember is that you should try to describe and establish a setting as soon as possible when you begin writing because it’ll help better draw the reader in and give them more reason to bite onto whatever hook you’ve given them. If you can do that, especially if you have the home field advantage of being the one to establish the setting in a battle as the first poster then your score in setting should dramatically improve.

The only other bone I have to pick is your choice of descriptions was that they seemed unintentionally muddled at times which could make it really confusing with trying to understand what your trying to get across. Sometimes, I even questioned how much effort you were choosing to put forth, but I’m going to air on the side that it was an honest mistake. An example;

Silence filled the arena. The wind blew, the crickets sang, night turned to day, blah, blah, blah, no one moved, basically everything that could fill an awkward silence did. Not enough to make it no longer awkward though, just enough to emphasis this weird situation.

Though I’m sure you had thought it might have sounded better in your head then when you put it on paper the phrase “blah, blah, blah” when in the middle of a description that isn’t a part of dialogue should never be there. If anything, it makes your writing look choppy and will give the appearance of laziness which will most definitely knock your score a couple points. The other thing that was wrong with this description is that you didn’t even really describe it! This goes back to what I was saying earlier about whether or not you had intentionally tried to play this battle off on a lighter note, but the phrase “basically everything that could fill an awkward silence did.” Hamstringed you. My advice on describing awkward silence would be to either focus on the characters or the environment, or even both to really sell it to the reader. The goal of describing a setting or parts of a situation is to make it easier for the reader to picture it in their head or to relate to it, what you described didn’t really point in any real direction and made for poor storytelling.

Pacing ~ 4/10 ~ Your pacing with posts general was average, but what really knocked you down a couple points was that your action usually seemed rushed and sometimes even forced. There was no real suspense or anything that kept me guessing, so Reine’s actions seemed predictable and vanilla. My advice would be to try and work on your descriptions and be more creative when your character is in a fight. Anybody can throw a kick or get slapped in the face, but sometimes things just don’t go according to plan in a fight or blows might miss their mark. The creation and use of icicles was just as you had stated. Instantaneous. Which made the description of forming them and using them seem very flat and rushed. Try to work on building up the moment and utilizing the time between actions to build up suspense to help your action and eventual climax go that extra mile. It’ll also even make your writing stand out more as being easier to follow and to understand.

CHARACTER

Dialogue ~ 3/10 ~ The dialogue was forced and generally unimpressive. Nothing really that Reine said wowed me or seemed unique other than it ended up being terribly predictable. Try to develop a personality with your character through her dialogue to make her stand out more, which can be a considerable strength. Also try to be more creative with your swearing or off-color words. I have no issue or qualms with people using ‘fuck’ or ‘douchebag’ in their dialogue, but you often overplayed it to the point that the word fuck was practically a comma for your sentences. Try to avoid that because not only does it act as a crutch to keep you from writing really impressive dialogue, but you’ll run into the problem of readers drifting in and out of what your saying because of boredom which will kill any sort of pacing or action your trying to build up in whatever your trying to write.

Action ~ 5/10 ~ While your action often hit it’s mark, there was nothing done to build up to it or really make it stand out that made it interesting to read. Noticing a pattern here? While I’m sure your intention wasn’t to write a thriller or to bedazzle the reader, it often goes a long way to try and keep a reader by making the action in a fight look like an actual fight which are often short bursts of action with maybe the occasional word or two depending on the character. Adding a sense of realism or something more authentic to allow your character to better support the rest of your writing would greatly help you.

For example, being slapped and drawing the gratuitous amount of blood that you did for the wound completely removed the focus from the battle and upon the injury. While something like that might be true for an amputation, a bullet wound, or something more serious the description of the injury and your character’s reaction was very melodramatic. This is something you want to avoid as much as possible because it’ll lead to how your thread eventually played out which was Reine’s reaction of melting down and then running off from a fight which made the rest of your actions for the thread harder and harder to find believable.

Persona ~ 2/10 ~ Your character didn’t really stand out at all in much of what you wrote. Reine was either very angry, playful or cynical and didn’t much deviate from the three. This might be okay for a manic depressive war veteran, but it doesn’t paint a good picture for a teenage girl in the middle of a fight. Few of the emotions you harped on were articulated really well and made Reine more into a caricature than an actual person. Real, normal people don’t go from 0 to 60 with their emotions right from the get go unless something traumatic or shocking had happened. It builds up. Work on utilizing Reine’s emotions to better illustrate her personality and the way she reacts to things instead of going off of something you might have seen on television. It’ll make your character more believable in the things she does and who she is, and also make her easier to relate to for the reader.

WRITING STYLE

Technique ~ 5/10 ~ Few things really spoke for you in technique that really made your writing stand out as adventurous or interesting. It seems you’re clinging to the idea that predictable actions and reactions should remain predictable for the most part. I still don’t know whether it was intentional or not, but I enjoyed the hokey, light hearted side to this battle that Reine and Elijah almost seemed trapped it. It definitely spoke a lot for you and helped pad your score. But, to improve, I’d suggest taking advantage of more advanced techniques like foreshadowing or allusion to make your writing more unique and more entertaining to read. In order to improve you’ve gotta try new things and whether you succeed or fail at them, you’ll develop your own touch which is something any writer or roleplayer needs.

Mechanics ~ 6/10 ~ While you had few spelling errors and grammar problems, the biggest thing that hurt you was that you flirted too much with breaking paragraphs and sentences down to the point that it made your overall writing more choppy. Having an occasional sentence between paragraphs is great for punctuating a point your trying to make, but when overused it makes it for a hard read. Try to be more selective in what you want to focus on in your writing to make it look more smooth and practiced.

Clarity ~ 3/10 ~ See Pacing.

MISCELLANEOUS

Wild Card ~ 0/10 ~

Total ~ 35/100


Elijah Morendale

STORY

Continuity ~ 4.5/10 ~ You and Reine really went neck and neck with this score because you both pretty much played on the same element. Friendship. And while that helped you both give your characters reasons for their actions in the fight, there wasn’t much more than that. What really gave you the edge here was the reference to something you and she actually did previously, something involving ghosts, which provided you with a stronger anchor for later posts which made you more memorable. I would, however, recommend putting a bit more effort into the descriptions of your references in the future to better improve your score.

Setting ~ --/10 ~ While you didn’t really describe your surroundings other than what directly affected Elijah as a character, you did make more of an attempt to use the setting and parts of it to your advantage. I’m also taking into account that writing your character in a first person narrative made it a bit harder for you to describe your surroundings because of the technique and how it naturally made you more inflective. While it is not something I’d advise you to continue doing in the future, I recognize it as an honest mistake and I’m going to shift points from setting to wild card to reflect it. However, I really recommend taking in more of your surroundings with your character other than what’s in the immediate vicinity to help improve your score in the future.

Pacing ~ 6/10 ~ Your action was clear and concise for the most part, and I even saw times where you attempted to build up action and use it to your advantage. However, while you did utilize pacing your posts you didn’t really go much further than that and sometimes skated too close to the pit Reine fell into where your actions might have become bland and predictable. You also faced a similar problem where you would also be far more loose with the way you described action that bordered on becoming muddled and confusing.

CHARACTER

Dialogue ~ 5/10 ~ Your dialogue seemed to provide more color to your character and therefore brought more to the table. While it was sometimes bland and ran into the same ruts Reine did, what set you apart was that you actually attempted to apply local color and emphasized parts of your dialogue like someone actually speaking will do. That got you higher marks in this score, but I’d really watch out for the overuse of swearing for the very same reasons Reine got knocked for. It makes for bland dialogue and bores the reader. Be more creative next time and you should see some improvement in this area of your score.

Oh, and I laughed at the part where Elijah settled on fighting rather than trying to reason with Reine on the basis she’d never back down to him at the sound of reason. Very unique.

Action ~ 5/10 ~ Your action was very clear most of the time, if a bit predictable. You seem to be a bit more practiced in incorporating pacing and description into the actions of your characters. However, I would recommend finding more interesting things to try in a fight then what you chose to do but I did see attempts with it (For instance, the scissor move with the icicle batons). Fights are usually hurried short bursts of action with not much time for things to be said either way, so the next time you fight I’d like for you to try and speed up the action and try to illustrate it as a real fight to see what that does for you.

Persona ~ 6/10 ~ Your character really came to life here. While you had trouble with keeping your writing from becoming bland or predictable, you made Elijah more memorable and real as a person with your use of first person and his natural shyness. While I’d certainly recommend trying to be more creative with your dialogue and action, your character seems to be able to stand on his own and he doesn’t seem generic. Keep working on it.

WRITING STYLE

Technique ~ 7/10 ~ I could definitely see some colors of technique in your writing such as local color, first person, and emphasis on parts of your dialogue. I’d recommend improvement on some of the techniques you utilized, but in general I could see a lot more in your posts that show a practiced hand. Watch out for focusing too much on yourself and not your surroundings as well as blandness in your dialogue and you should see further improvement within this area.

Mechanics ~ 6/10 ~ I saw a few more spelling errors in your posts then I did Reine’s, but you didn’t really have very many other grammar problems. I’d work on proofreading your posts more because spellcheck doesn’t always catch everything, even if you need somebody else to read your posts to spot these problems out for you. However, they were rare, but when I saw them they did stand out as things I would expect you to be able to catch. However, very rarely will you ever write something out entirely and have everything perfect.

Clarity ~ 4/10 ~ While you were often clear and easy to understand with your actions and dialogue, you did have your moments. The biggest thing that hurt you was the question I kept asking myself at the end of every post towards the end of the thread.

“Who the fuck is Nadia?”

I understand she’s a companion of yours and what not, but you need to take bigger steps in giving her a place in your posts if you’re utilizing her. The only other thing I saw that really irritated me was Nadia’s melodramatic reaction to Elijah being kicked in the stomach. Not every woman takes out her claws when she’s seeing her man hurt, and if they do they don’t or shouldn’t do it in the way you ended up describing her confrontation with Reine. Work on using her more in your threads and give her a bigger place at the table, because I or any other reader shouldn’t have to dig through your profile to figure out who exactly Nadia is and why she’s so bent on protecting your character.

MISCELLANEOUS

Wild Card ~ 5/10 ~ You were given points in the wild card because of your use of first person narration in your posts. Your points from setting were put here instead, but I gave you an extra point for the use of the technique. Just be careful of spending too much time focusing on your character and not as much on your surroundings and the people in it.

Total ~ 48.5/100

Reine 35/100
Elijah 48.5/100

Elijah Morendale wins and advances to the next round! Congratulations!

Elijah Morendale is awarded 1250 EXP and 150 GP!

And Reine receives 250 EXP and 52 GP! Better luck next time!

[Taskmienster]

Exp and GP added!