As judged by Ataraxis, with scores and comments discussed and agreed upon by Ebivoulya and Tristam, the members of Panel B.
Trial Judging
Team 'Decimation Duo'
Good day and well met! I'll be your judge this evening. As a general note, I'd say you two displayed quite a bit of skill here, and I'm fairly impressed. There were, however, a few shortcomings that should be rather easy for the two of you to overcome. In any case, I'll let the Rubric do the talking!
N.B.: As a note, you might want to space out your paragraphs in the actual round battles. As it is, the battle has a rather unappealing format for reading.
Story – 3.125/5While I understand why you stinted on the storytelling aspect, you could have achieved an easy extra point by inserting a few extra lines to put the reader into context. As I entered the battle you two weaved, I kept wondering what exactly was happening, or what led them to fight other than their personal motivations. Naturally, you don’t need to mention the Cabal (as some write prior to arriving to the Garden of Secrets). The thing is, I didn’t know whether you were battling in your homeworld or battling in a GoS arena. I didn’t know what circumstances led an Elf prince to fight an Orc war-chief in front of a raving crowd on a sandy arena. Dealing with this information shouldn’t take more than a sentence or two from each of you, as the reader won’t need an exhaustive retelling of your characters’ history. A little bit of insight into who they are beyond ‘Elf Prince’ and ‘Orc War-Chief’, while not necessary in the trial, could also have given you a small bonus. Insight into a character is, of course, expected in the actual ToC battles.
On a lighter note, I think you both did excellently with the setting. Aralak did a wonderful job at giving a generally accurate yet light descriptions that set the atmosphere for the battle, while Synical took care of the details (the reflection of the sun on the sand, the dust clouds as he moved) on which he could capitalize in this fight. Therefore, you both also did fairly well in the ‘setting interaction’ department. My only qualm here would be that you both tend to over-write your descriptions, either in detail or in style. It can become thick at times with a slew of descriptive adjectives or simply excessive as you sometimes reach the level of ‘purple prose’. Just finding a good balance of detail and simplicity would make your team an even bigger force to be reckoned with. It would also improve your pacing, which faltered whenever the reader encountered theses instances of flowery language.
Character – 3.5/5Dialogue is still considered, but is less important as you aren’t fighting as a team yet. As such, I’ll focus more on internal thoughts. From his lines, Aralak was quite interesting, as he doesn’t follow the hackneyed mould of the numb-skulled orc ruffian. There’s even this palpable ‘snarky’ attitude, teamed with a calm and collected battle-mindset. Same goes for Lucien who, against my expectations, wasn’t the arrogant racist noble elf you would take him for: arrogant, yes, but he’s got the fight to back it, and he doesn’t underestimate Aralak at all. Basically, he’s an elf that kept his wits and common sense in fights, without losing that self-important, dignified edge. I might be extrapolating a bit, but I did get a good impression of your characters’ personalities through their dialogue and introspection.
The action, while not ignored, was unclear at times. Aralak did fine here, as I had no difficulty understanding his actions and reactions. Moreover, he anticipated Lucien’s attacks in a realistic manner (that is to say, without metagaming), which gives further clout to his defensive prowess in this battle. Synical, you played the actions realistically as well, but the level of clarity was quite a ways beneath Aralak’s, mostly due to the punctuation and sheer information excess. More on that in Writing Style. You did, however, have Lucien fight quite shrewdly, using the shield’s reflective qualities to momentarily impair Aralak’s vision (which, I have to say, Aralak ignored mentioning in his ensuing post).
Writing Style – 3.5/5I’ve said this often before in this judgment: you two have a distinctly descriptive style that could be described as poetic, though it sometimes veers to borderline ‘purple prose’. The trick is to know when you’re writing too much, and when simpler writing creates a pleasant contrast to your usual style. This shouldn’t be difficult for either of you, considering your skill, so I have no worry for the future. You also both used a more or less adequate number of rhetorical devices, though the most successful, I'd say, would be Aralak's: "The armour was exactly as the orc had anticipated, a shining masterpiece of foreign alloys edged with silver and encrusted with jewels like barnacles upon the underside of a galleon". Be careful in choosing your moments to use figurative language as well, to avoid overloads that cheapen the effect of the better placed devices.
As for clarity, save for the few moments of verbosity, Aralak did very well. However, Synical, as I said before, your actions tend to be unclear. Take this for example:
Originally Posted by
”Lord Synical, post # 7”
Dormant muscles awoke and he moved like a viper; feinting left, half-stabbing towards his opponent’s right then pivoting on his left heel in a small spray of sand and leading a three hundred and sixty degree right spin with a flipped blade; the longsword inverted in his grip so that if his arm was straight; the crown-prince would have the ethereal construct pointed towards himself.
Due to the nature of the turn and angle of the weapon; his right arm formed an inwards V shape, the sword reverse-held for the point to aim at Aralak. It was a risky move, more often than not considered a feint in and of itself to lure an enemy in. (…)
The most effective way of describing an action isn’t giving a play-by-play description of every movement of every part of his body, but choosing key points that are easy to read and picture. In this kind of battle, shorter clauses separated by periods rather than the incorrect semi-colon would have radically improved the clarity.
Lastly, you both have a great grasp of the English language. That doesn’t seem like saying much, but it is. Save for Synical’s quasi-abusive (mis)use of semi-colons, I perceived very few mistakes, and they were mostly oversights (or possibly cultural discrepancies). You can find most of them in the notes affixed to this judgment. i'd say Mechanics was the prevalent category that increased your score, here.
Final Score – 10.125/15!
Notes for Team ‘Decimation Duo’
Numbers between parentheses are post numbers. Even-numbered posts are Aralak, odd-numbered posts are Synical.
with crimson orbs framed (2) I very well understand that your style, as well as Synical’s, use a more poetical language. I would only like to point out that poeticism is perfectly fine until it becomes purple prose. When that happens, the reader might be more prone to pull away from the text. You two have a fair eye when it comes to the perception of this fine line, but you both do cross it at times, albeit inadvertently and never for too long. There are times when simplicity in your choice of words (such as using ‘eyes’ instead of ‘orbs’) does not detract from your style, but rather enhances it. I’d have to say, I’m just glad you didn’t use ‘crimson optics’ or ‘crimson oculi’. As a matter of fact, I’m also glad you didn’t use ‘claret oculi’.
None the less (2) Nonetheless
the derisive crowd was cast out from Lucien’s mind the guttural peasant rabble unworthy of a prince's notice, (5) I believe you missed a comma between ‘mind’ and ‘the guttural’.
mid-charge; twisting (5) comma instead of semi-colon. Semi-colons, most of the time, are used to replace a period and make the transition lighter. In this case, though, the usage isn’t adequate.
slide through the sand; sending (5) same as above
vengeance; Silthrim striking (5) same as above. Also, the reader wouldn’t know Silthrim is his sword unless he or she read your profile or side-profile. I’m not docking points, but should you fight in Round I, this kind of information is expected to be included in your writing.
axe wrought (5) axe-wrought
which left only the matter of which one his foe was less likely to anticipate (6) awkward wording
was straight; the crown-prince would have the ethereal construct pointed towards himself. (7) This was an incorrect use of the semi colon; I would replace it with a comma.
Due to the nature of the turn and angle of the weapon; his right arm formed an inwards V shape (7) Same as above. As a note, semi-colons are used to join two independent clauses (as in, clauses that could be complete sentences on their own). Otherwise, it’s used to precede a conjunctive adverb such as ‘however’, ‘therefore’, ‘nevertheless’, etc. One last use is to separate items of a list that already contain a good number of internal punctuation.
For the Prince; only war mattered; only the pinnacle of battle born perfection (7) I suggest an alternate formulation, as the punctuation here is also rather out of place. Perhaps: “For the Prince, only war mattered – only the pinnacle of battle born perfection.” Dashes are to be used sparingly, however, as they may visually weigh down the text.
There were a few more semi-colon misuses that I didn’t point out, as they should be easy to find, now.
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