Judgment
Foreword
Firstly, allow me to thank you both for allowing me to judge this epic. I very much appreciate the time and patience you gave me to finish it, which I hope I have fully re-invested as effort into the commentary and feedback. Whist I have made every effort to give a full and thorough account of the thread as I see it, its sheer size means that I have had to be somewhat selective about the length of my commentary to ensure you receive your scores and rewards before we migrate to Althanas 4.0.
If you feel that you need extended commentary, I would be more than happy to provide you with this later or edit it into the judgment. For the purposes of finding a balance between timely scoring and meaningful feedback, I hope the below suffices.
Story: 20/30
Plot: 6
Throughout the thread there were three elements for the reader to consider; firstly, Karuka and Taische’s relationship, development and journey together. Secondly, Storm’s own agenda with Radasanth’s law enforcement and Letho Ravenheart. Thirdly, the amalgamation of the three plots. Each element deserves its own appraisal so that’s what I aim to achieve below.
Starting with Karuka and Taische, I thoroughly enjoyed the development of the mother / daughter relationship throughout the thread. The posts focused mostly on life lessons with everything from simply learning about nature (early posts) to wrong versus right, the life cycle and the way of the world, so to speak. After Taische’s development and the meeting at the farm, the thread shifted focus onto Karuka and Storm’s relationship and even the workings of the triumvate. Even if it was accidental, the structure and order of the posts formed a well-written continuity that seemed to have a purpose in mind without giving the reader mindless filler. One criticism is that parts of that continuity became a bit wobbly after Storm was ambushed at Letho’s farm, and your final post seemed a little abrupt, but not enough to spoil the overall experience. This is something I’ll touch upon in pacing but I believe the length of the thread might have had more to do with this than anything.
Storm’s side of the plot was intriguing from the get-go. My first impression was that the letter was from Karuka, so I was nicely wrong-footed when I was proven wrong. Though the idea about a trade-off with Radasanthian law enforcement for the removal of Letho was in itself fantastic, I predicted almost immediately that it would be a trap to lure Storm out and catch him off guard. In that respect, although the build up was written brilliantly, I was a little disappointed that you didn’t work a twist in to throw me off the scent. One element I found myself querying was whether or not it was ever resolved that the gunmen were hired by Sir Edgar Tyllan. I still think that was never truly answered; more implied.
Setting: 8
Setting was, undoubtedly, one of your greater strengths.
You are both exceptional at describing your character's surroundings. You both incorporated setting into other elements of your storytelling which enhanced the entire experience for me beyond just the plot and reinforced what you were trying to show the reader. Examples of this include Taische contrasting between the earth beneath her feet feeling right and Corone feeling very stale to her. In Storm’s third post, you describe Radasanth in such a way that puts it on a pedestal and yet shows it up for what Veritas knows it to truly be. These types of moments, and there were probably too many to list, truly did improve the overall experience for me. There were very brief instances where I felt that setting was lost to action, especially at the farm, but those were few and far between really.
Pacing: 6
As mentioned above, pacing was an area that could use a bit of attention and I feel I can attribute my issues with this to two different, but equally important, areas.
Firstly, while the early action and overall dialogue kept me hooked, I felt as if you were both operating on different speeds or levels of escalation. It wasn’t exactly horrendous, but it was noticeable. Storm, I must admit I felt that a few of your posts, however good the intention or quality, struggled to enhance or advance the story when needed, not so much early on but perhaps mid thread before the farm. During this section of the thread, Karuka’s posts always felt like they were addressing a plot point in terms of development of either her relationship with Taische or general advancement towards the story's goal.
This brings me to my second point, and perhaps the reason why the first one stands out so much. The thread was epically long. It is often difficult, unless you are both operating in perfect synchronization, for two writers to make every post plot relevant and filler free for an extended period of time. Taking this into consideration, I think you both did a good job (despite how the feedback reads) in keeping on track.
Character: 23/30
Communication: 8
You both performed well in this area. Storm’s colourful dialogue and logical thought process stood out in this thread, especially in the way you allow his emotions to bleed through via the dialogue and liberal use of internal thought. This allowed the reader to delve into the inner workings of Storm’s mind and this was delivered in a way which many try to emulate but few can actually do. I like the way he modifies his behavior and usually abrasive attitude when around Karuka; this shows good levels of character development and attention to detail.
One of the things I enjoyed most about this thread was how Karuka sews little flecks of her culture into her dialogue. All too often I find myself advising people in this area to give their character something to make them stand out from the generic; a little twist on their speech, or a particular habit or action that puts that little trademark on them. You do this brilliantly, placing emphasis on her accent to give her a southern Irish drawl (that’s how it sounds in my head, anyway) that distinguishes her from the masses. I really enjoyed the lesson she taught Taische about distinguishing which mushrooms were poisonous and could almost picture myself getting the lecture in that heavy accent.
With Taische, there were one or two lines I had to re-read to make sure I fully understood the difference between an intentional child-like play on words (“Someone’s going to die very badly” was a zinger) and a genuine mistake. Now, I have to be careful about sending misleading signals here or giving contradictory feedback, but whilst there was strength to be found here, I found that your talent with Taische lies more in her childlike actions rather than the dialogue. Whilst Karuka’s lines are always interesting to read (if not sometimes a little hard on the eye), Taische, I felt, leaned more towards the generic I talk about above. This is by no means a criticism; perhaps just an observation that your weakness, if it can even be perceived as a weakness in the traditional sense, in communication is your strength in action and therefore evens itself out over the course of the thread. I still very much enjoyed reading her lines; I just believed Karuka’s dialogue was perhaps more of a standout because of the sheer intensity of the accent.
Persona: 8
Storm is a character that, when the mood takes him, can provide the reader with a wealth of dimensions but when it comes down to it he is who he is. In this thread, the lightning mage’s history with Letho Ravenheart really brings the best out of him, even if the end result wasn’t quite what he expected. Reading Storm’s reaction to that letter was priceless; I could almost feel the smarm oozing from the post but it never felt like too much or too little.
I am a massive fan of how Taische and Karuka were made to be their own characters and their separate personalities are clearly distinguished here. Being mother and daughter there are both realistic differences and similarities between the two that allow you to put each on their own suitable, individual podiums. The first instance of this was during Taische’s nature lesson, where she only longed for a return to Dheathain because she had grown bored of Corone, whereas she understood that her mother probably like Corone more because it seemed liked her natural home or environment.
One thing I really liked was the way Karuka nurtures and helps Taische to grow through the journey, ensuring that both characters got an excellent level of development that not only felt natural and un-forced but was pleasant to read. As I touch upon in other sections of this judgment, it seemed like each post was a nicely paced step that formed an ascending staircase of growth. Master writers can bring each and every character to life, even if elaborate backstories are not provided, and I felt you both achieved that.
Action: 7
I felt that your characters' decisions made sense, and reflected who they were. For example, I appreciated the way that Karuka merely constricted the gunmen in post six without resorting to killing them. This demonstrated her strong moral compass, without being showy about it, or shoving it down the reader's throat. Actions were, overall, logical and were consistent with personalities without revealing anything too special.
There were not as many of these notable moments as I had expected towards the latter part of the thread. The ones that were present were to be expected, which, like the predictability of Storm’s side of the plot, was precisely the problem. However, I felt that you did both work together nicely to ensure that transitions of moods, which can often be difficult to portray, went smoothly. As mentioned in communication, what I felt Taische lacked in dialogue (compared to Karuka, anyway) she more than made up for here. You really did a great job in bringing through her childlike behaviour in the form of little actions, such as her stomping her feet or sulking.
Prose: 26/30
Mechanics: 9
You both produced a solid and well written piece; one, I would point out, whose only real error was in the third post where a sentence was missing a full stop (“The pleasant spring had yielded to the unforgiving summer, and with it came a certain omnipresent lethargy Heat was a funny thing; it seemed the Radasanthians yearned so desperately for it in the harsh cold of winter, yet loathed it when it finally arrived at their doorsteps.”). Sentence structure, grammar and spelling were otherwise nigh on perfect, hence the high score and the limited feedback here. Sorry I can’t give you more, but there simply isn’t anything else I can add other than well done here.
Technique: 9
The one thing I liked jointly about your writing was how you both introduced an entire spectrum of literary devices to give the reader a complete picture of your story. You marry vivid description with easy to understand terminology that brought scenes to life and made the piece very easy on the eye. As the reader, I noticed subtle contrasts between your styles. Karuka lends herself more to vivid description of both action and setting, whilst Storm’s style combines an eye for small details and the employment of clever little metaphors and similes. Together, perhaps without realising it, you both give the reader nicely contrasting posts that come together to form a thread that is very well executed.
There is only a small adjustment to the score to reflect one minor annoyance. A habit of repetition crept in a little bit (“small rodent he had blasted that morning on the small spit” is one such example). Given your excellent command of the English language, I found this to be a little grating. Then again, I am probably also nitpicking a bit. Also, Karuka would have benefited from breaking up her dialogue in some places to ease the burden of trying to understand what she is saying. This is touched upon below in clarity
Clarity: 8
The only real issue I had with clarity was having to re-read parts of Karuka’s dialogue in an attempt to understand what she was saying. This particular section early on was one example where my eyes were screaming to be thumbed out:
Ouch."Th' lives y' save, th' people y' help, y' change th' world fer them, wee bit. Y' save th' world fer
them. Sometimes y' can save many jus' by bein' there, lookin' evil in th' face, and askin' it if it
really wants t' tangle with y'. Sometimes y' can fight with all th' strength in yer body fer one life,
an' y' lose 'em anyway. Y' keep goin' b'cause y' never know if y' don't try. Y' keep goin' b'cause
it's th' right thing t' do. An' th' victories are worth th' defeats, wee bit. They're worth it."
Everything else, though, was good. There is very little else to say here.
Wildcard: 10
Given some of my critique above, you may wonder why I believe this warrants a full ten. Category by category analysis of the rubric doesn’t always paint a full picture of threads, because one thing that is missing from our judgments is the enjoyment factor. I thoroughly enjoyed the read from start to finish. You are both exceptionally talented writers and some of the criticisms above are nit-picking at an otherwise solid performance for the sake of adhering to our official rubric.
Total score: 79
Storm Veritas receives 5005 EXP and 300 GP!
Karuka receives 2785 EXP and 190 GP!
Taische receives 1425 EXP and 145 GP!
This thread will also be nominated for a Judge's Choice award.
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