Massacre Girls (Rated M)

[Philomel]

Massacre Girls (Rated M)
Condenscened Rubric
Participants: Briarheart and Amari

Plot - 23/30

Both:
This story is undeniably powerful. It has excellent rises and falls and a great deal of passion thrown into weaving a tale of excellence, excitement and sorrow. Setting was one thing that I felt could be worked on for both of you, but this is being picky. Overall the story is concentrated around Maddison and Amari's friendship, and ultimately Maddison's death, and this was carried well.

Briarheart:
A great strong point that you have throughout this entire thread is reason – why Maddison stole the airship in the first place, why she wants to go on a killing spree, and lastly, why she wants it all to end. This fits in with character, but also with plot for it is core to understanding the story itself. This is a believable storyline, with a good amount of complex history behind her that you show with diverse pacing, rising and falling it to increase tension. You also show skill in general storytelling itself, including use of single setence paragraphs (see end of post 5), sentence structure, and a variety of word choice. You opened the piece well, with a well-written setting, and the idea of the dead crew and the death in the village is used brilliantly as a backdrop, although in general I would have liked to see this more developed as time went on. You excellently have a foreshadowing on her evenutal death with the simple fact that she is flying an airship with a dead crew she herself as murdeed, and is talking to them as if they are alive.

Amari:
For yourself story is told from the portrayal of a person who has a best friend who they eventually lose. You start with Scarlet on the Bone Throne, forced there partly by Lye, and from there write a story of an adventure wanted. Your mix of paragraphing, with short and long ones – the latter filled with strong descriptions – works well to build the scene and carry on the action. Setting is something that could be worked on, with a look at technique to pull in the details of the landscape, for instance, but it has a good basis for what you want. You have good sized posts as well, which are easy to read and fit well with Briarheart's, finishing just when it feels right for them to do so. The top of post 22, for instance, carries from Briarheart's one before. This one, although longer than the others, fitted well as an epilogue. You carry the plot well also, with good death scenes, enough balance of emotion and gore.

Character - 24/30

Briarheart:
You show character invariably brilliantly through dialogue most powerfully. This can be seen in such posts as post 21 where Maddison says: “I'm just a tool. Always have been, always will be.” This shows her realisation of her existence and shows one reason why she is willing to end herself. You also use the method of internal thoughts: Actually listening to Lye. This helps to display persona to the reader.Small details such as the Firewater were great, and helped to carry the idea of what your character is like. You have her smile, despite all that is going on around her, and little actions such as describing that she gestures to the window with the rim of her glass in post 13 helps to add more structure and depth to your character. In terms of her death, and the grim acceptance of such a thing is coming she talks to the dead like they are real, and plays with corpses. The desperation for just simple adventure is clear in post 7 with, “What did she call them? The White Blight Knights? Never heard of them. Don't care for the name,” and continues to be written well. Post 21 of course is ultimately where your character comes to a climax in her life (literally) with fantastic use of honesty, thoughts and dialogue that is very powerful and gives good reasons as to why she wants to end it all.

Amari:
Throughout this piece you show a person who is desperate to understand themselves, their situation and life, but also a person who has a best friend and is truly sorrowful to lose her. You use great dialogue that shows some of her torment and mixture of feelings, some good internal thoughts and also actions to build up your character. Details such as what she is wearing – the large jumper instead of the red dress in post 4 – tell what mood she is in. You also gain a lot of insight into her feelings, such as in post 6 you have her attitude towards Maddison: “Bingo. The damn fuckin' crazy bitch wasn't out for a leisurely stroll.” Great dialogue can also be seen in posts, with an example from post 8 that goes, “Now, unless you want to play a twisted game of hide and seek, sit tight.” You keep up a consistency with the tone of her voice, which is always good to see. You make also her build up into sorrow extremely believable too. This is shown in her stacatto dialogue, flowing with a mixture of capitals and small letters, and repetition of her thoughts, with “No, no, no ...” One thing that you could consider trying to build on is the general overall reading of your pieces, for sometimes you have a heavier concetration on dialogue over action and persona, but this is a minor point.

Prose - 24/30

Briarheart:
From beginning to end you build up some very good use of technique. For example, in post 21 you use repetition - “Why why why why why WHY?!” with use of italics, capitals and bold letters to show the desperation and anger of your character. Punctuation use is also varied and strong, used in all the right places. One example is from post 13: “--It had to be! That would explain everything!” You do miss a couple of question marks, such as the start of post 13 with, “Isn't that the truth,” but it is clear you have done some editing and made this a powerful piece. You also have a good hold of linguistic technique, with an opening of a well-described setting by use of colour imagery and a similie: “thick as pea soup.” I would have liked to see more of this, however. Listing also was another technique that you use well in post 1, when Maddison lists the people who make the Seventh Sanctum their home. The last post of yours, however, shows some tremendous skill, with such uses as the “blood-soaked snow” and “Twenty … that's how many times I've tried to kill myself.” You use thirst, fire, blood and tears to elude to what is about to happen, setting a painfully enchanting scene. Excellent imagery use all around, and perfectly good clarity.

Amari:
Overall you have a good grasp of prose, with no noticable clarity issues, aside from when your use of capitals and small letters becomes distracting. There are a few minor technical errors such as in post 14, “Scarlets” should be “Scarlet's.” Generally your use of is punctuation strong, when you use a variety of words, capitals and so on. This can be seen in post 14 again, “Madison was not only accepting of the child--not any child, but one that was supposedly LYE'S--but she was happy?” One thing I would say about punctuation is try to use the same amount of dots in ellipses (…) for consistency. There is also some excellent use of language, for example the following collective noun from post 14: “an uproar of people.” Another thing you do well is use sound, such as in post 16: “FWOOOM--” - adding dynamism and full liveliness to the piece. One thing I would discourage from doing, that is a little jarring in the overall read of the piece is using numbers, but rather write them out, for example in post 4 you write, “90% snark, 5% vines and 5% questionable shit”. This is a minor point, however, for truly you show massive amounts of skill in the final post, where your use of language, sentence changes and paragraphing truly shows the despair of your character. It begins with a connection to Maddison's last post of, “And let go she did,” then leads into something amazing. The pointant description of the falling apart briarheart is beautiful and truly haunting at the same time.

Wildcard - 8

Both:
Honestly, this thread has been one of my favourites, easily, this year. It is not just because Maddison dies, but because it is also clear that you have put a lot of effort into it. Wildcard points here are going to emotion portrayal, which I feel is extremely well put across to the reader, through various techniques that I hint to above. All around it made me cry, and there are not many threads that will do that. You also write excellently together.

Final Score - 79/100

Rewards:

Briarheart receives:
2785 EXP
175 GP

Amari receives:
2320 EXP
200 GP

This thread is to be nominated for a JC.

“Friends are a strange, volatile, contradictory, yet sticky phenomenon. They are made, crafted, shaped, molded, created by focused effort and intent. And yet, true friendship, once recognized, in its essence is effortless.
Best friends are formed by time.
Everyone is someone's friend, even when they think they are all alone.
If the friendship is not working, your heart will know. It's when you start being less than perfectly honest and perfectly earnest in your dealings. And it's when the things you do together no longer feel right.
However, sometimes it takes more effort to make it work after all.
Stick around long enough to become someone's best friend.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration