Final Fite I: A Floaty Fite

[Hailwing Of The Citadel]

Hailwing's desperate move paid off, but John's kick came in a split-second after, his leg cracking the warrior's ribs like rolls of cardboard. The impact pushed him farther from John, and the two were then plummeting too wildly to maintain their struggle.

His skin numb from the wind, Hailwing grimaced and tried to make eye contact with John. He wanted to get one more good look at him. "Seek me again!" he tried to say, his broken ribs stealing his breath, the roaring air silencing any remaining sound he could make.

Then they were at ground level. The violent sound of wind suddenly halted, as did just about every other sound in the world, as Hailwing crashed into the very edge of an island and felt his body explode with heat and pain. His consciousness left him just after that moment, and the limp body slid slowly off of the grassy surface and into the water.

Slowly sinking into the sea, Hailwing's corpse dropped lower and lower into the depths until his shattered body was surrounded by a blue mist, eventually transforming into a bright blue aura. A moment later, and he was gone.

His consciousness didn't come back after the conclusion of the battle, like most living creatures who were killed in a Citadel arena. He reappeared near the entrance of the Citadel building, standing with arms crossed, locked into the same pose as always, to be summoned into battle once more when requested. Built from concrete and the imagination of the powerful monks of the Ai'Brone, the statue was a waiting tool once more.

[redford]

John growled in frustration and pain. He had just thrown away his chance for victory, and though his opponent had put up quite a fight, he knew he had played down to him. The wind whipped his hair, now a matted tangle of blond and red, around his face as he caught a glimpse of an approaching island. A flash of green as he fell through leaves, and he barely had time to see the flat rock his body landed on. John didn't even have time to feel pain as the impact crushed his skull, and the rest of his body, into the stone.

A flash of blue at the corner of his vision, and John stepped through a portal. John was already looking down at his arms and feeling his face, already knowing that they were whole but checking anyway. The uneasiness of his stomach was one part due to the portal, and one part knowing his friend wouldn't let him live this one down. As if on cue, a voice rang out in the crowded room. John looked over, spying Jor, his rugged face cast in the light of a portal nearby.

"Oh, man! What a fight! I knew that old automaton could give you a run for your money!" he exclaimed, clapping his hand on John's armored shoulder.

"It was a tie," John mumbled, more to himself than anything. "I could have beaten him."

Jor put his hands up defensively. "Hey, I'm sure you could have, I'm just saying that he gave you the best bout I've seen you in since a long time," Jor leaned close.

"And we dug him out yesterday."

Jor smiled again, his glee almost contaigous. "So maybe you should get a little more training in, eh?"

John leered at the Ai'Bron monk, turning back to the portal.

"Again," he said.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Judgement

Story

Redford: 13
Hailwind: 14

As can often be the case with Citadel battles, this thread didn’t really have much of a story. The first time the reader sees anything that might link the reason for the fight to a plot is at the end of Redford’s final post in post twenty two. The interactions between John and Jor at least give the reader a feeling that there was a reason for John being there (“"So maybe you should get a little more training in, eh?"), even if it wasn’t a heavily story orientated one, but the posts throughout the thread concentrated almost entirely on the fight alone and the scoring above reflects this.

A suggestion to improve the scoring in the story section would be to think about the reason your character is in the Citadel. If they are there to train, perhaps allude to it during the introduction, or during the fight itself. Perhaps there is a reason for them to train? If they are there to get stronger, why is that? Just to get stronger in general or to get stronger to overcome a specific challenge? Thinking about these types of things can at least give some background to your actions, even if they seem simple.

The pacing of the piece was good, in general, with Redford’s use of short, sharp sentences and Hailwind’s own writing style helping to maintain a consistent speed during the battle.

The setting was an area that felt better attended to by Hailwind in this battle. The arena was original and described well, and there weren’t too many issues following the clash across the platforms and understanding where everybody was. Redford seemed to put a lot of effort into describing his actions, but not enough into the setting itself. To improve this, try to visualise the world around you from your character’s point of view and really try to pull the reader in. This will not only help your score in setting, but will help both the reader and the other player visualise your attacks and movement across the arena and increase clarity too.

Character

Redford: 13
Hailwind: 13

There was very little dialogue, internal or external, to assess in this piece. From the little communication the thread contained, the reader gleaned only a little of both characters personalities and thought processes. Hailwing’s dialogue was restricted mostly to in-fight comments, such as his introduction and even a moment of congratulations afforded to John mid battle (“John's movement and positioning had kept it as secret as possible, and Hailwing had been too consumed with the fight to consider the movement of the ground."Well played!" he called.”), which gives the reader an idea that Hawkwind is modest in battle, at least.

John, however, remains the strong and silent type, barely uttering a word externally until post twenty two. The reader does, however, gain some insight into the workings of John’s mind in post four (“"Your feet are no good to you if you don't know where to put them. Always control the high ground.") and post fourteen (“"You are huge, John, and you need to use that. Be immovable, unchangeable, unstoppable.").

An area for improvement here in future Citadel threads is to treat the reader to a little more of your character’s personalities by introducing more external or internal dialogue, depending on what suits the nature of your character. Whilst nobody expects someone to be reciting monologues during a fight, each character can be afforded various thought processes or bits of colourful dialogue they can use to add life to their posts and really bring the reader into the battle.

Despite the lack of dialogue, the reader can gain an idea of each character’s personalities by the time the thread ends. Hailwing is well portrayed as having a straightforward attitude, seems to enjoy battle and is confident and modest enough to congratulate an opponent when they excel. John is a quiet, intelligent but seemingly gruff man who doesn’t speak unless required to do so. That said, bringing through and developing the personalities in such threads does seem to be an area where improvement can be made for both contestants. Again, I would place emphasis on the need to use descriptive writing specifically to convey more emotions, or lack thereof, if suited. Show, don’t tell, the reader.

On a final note on this section, there was some good action here from both parties throughout the thread. In particular, the way John took Hailwing’s punch and recovered his momentum in post ten was nice (“The fist caught his jaw, snapping his head to the side. John took a step back, not quite staggered, but moved with the punch, taking another two steps back and falling to the ground near the edge of the platform, plunging his fists into the earth. Tendrils of his armor grew down and around the soil, anchoring his body there.”). There was also a good counterattack by Hailwing in post fifteen that showed forward thinking and a tactical awareness, having been disarmed prior to this post. (“But on that fourth and final attempt, Hailwing summoned his final ball of ice from below the surface, creating the heavy projectile but hiding it in a layer of tar as his hand came back up. This he was sure to aim perfectly, trying to catch John by surprise.”).

Prose:

Redford: 15
Hailwind: 16

For the most part, spelling and grammar were both solid. Between your posts, I found only a small number of spelling and grammatical errors and these consisted mostly of incorrect sentence fragmentation and a couple of typing errors. For example, in post seven, paragraph five, the sentence “Of course there were many in this world who did not display their true strength, did not wear it as a warning badge” should really read “Of course there were many in this world who did not display their true strength and did not wear it as a warning badge.” Another examples of this type of error can be found in post fourteen when John is thinking “"You are huge, John, and you need to use that. Be immovable, unchangeable, unstoppable”. Again, it should really be "You are huge, John, and you need to use that. Be immovable, unchangeable, and unstoppable. The word ‘and’ makes all the difference in both of these examples.

To improve upon your scores in this area, I would recommend a simple glance over your posts with a spell-checker to eliminate any obvious spelling errors and a quick “sense-check” read through to ensure all of your sentences are structured correctly.

Clarity was not much of an issue here in standard terms. Most of the battle was actually pretty clear, and the reader was able to follow most things through. The only negative point on this particular area (and this was alluded to above under “story”) was that Redford spent a lot of time giving clarity to his actions and neglected the setting, whilst Hawkwind’s approach was balanced and this allows the reader a clearer picture of what is actually happening in the arena.

Overall you both write descriptively. There are some really strong moments of description in Hailwing’s writing (“He wanted to get one more good look at him. Seek me again!" he tried to say, his broken ribs stealing his breath, the roaring air silencing any remaining sound he could make.”) and Redford produced a nice bit of writing when he took a hit in post eighteen (“As if to punctuate his realization, a solid elbow crashed into his face. John felt and heard a crack at his nose, and brought his right hand up to block a subsequent hit. Blood flowed upwards as they fell, smearing his face with the stuff.”). Whilst nothing jumped out as wondrous or captivating, most of the enthrallment was in the battle itself. There is room to grow here and an area for improvement would be to drive future threads and battles forward by using more similes and metaphors to really add colour to your writing.

Wildcard

Redford: 6
Hailwing: 6

The wildcard here reflects my enjoyment of the use of tactics within the fight, and the way both of you took your respective shots at each other. It was an enjoyable battle that could be made even better by improving on the areas mentioned above. Well done!

Final scores:

Hailwing: 49
Redford: 47

Hailwing wins! Congratulations!

Hailwing receives 1500 EXP and 110 GP!
Redford receives 450 EXP and 105 GP!

[Rayleigh]

All EXP and GP have been added!