Grundy vs.Colonel OOC

[Albert Wesker]

The 'official' OOC thread for this pretend scuffle.

Ruleset
Word Limit: 800
Posts Per Player: 3
Time Limit: 72 hours
Random Elements: On
Damage Meter: On

Standard rules for the most part, just with a little bit longer time limit because y'know, life happens.

IC Thread

Need us a judge for this nonsense, so iffen you're of a mind to do that, just speak up, and make mention of which grading format you'll be using and all that.

[Corporal Light]

Ah, what the heck. I want to be a judge.

I'll probably use the Sinestro Grading Tool, as mentioned here: <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://omniverse-rpg.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=4529&p=50757&#p50757">viewtopic.php?f=38&t=4529&p=50757&#p50757</a><!-- l -->

[Sans]

Also, before I forget, do you want me to calculate damage at the end of each round or no?

[Sans]

Damage Results!

1st Round-

Colonel: 6 Damage.
Moderate Injury. Arms crushed by Grundy Smash. 3 Damage.
Minor Injury. Back battered from landing in the river due to Death Grip. 1 Damage.
2 Accumulated Damage.

Solomon Grundy: 9 Damage
Minor Injury. Single gash on the chest caused by Screen Divide. 1 Damage.
Minor Injury. Shrapnel wounds on torso caused by Colonel Cannon. 2 Damage
Moderate Injury. Deep stab wound inside the stomach from Colonel Saber. 3 Damage.
3 Accumulated Damage.

Good luck in Round 2!

[Sans]

Damage Results:

Round 2!

Colonel: 15 Damage.
Minor Injury. One side bruised from being flung by Fastball Special. 1 Damage.
Moderate Injury. Back and torso damaged from fall and elbow drop. 3 Damage.
Moderate Injury. Hit by charged Grundy Smash. 4 Damage.
1 Accumulated Damage.

Solomon Grundy: 17 Damage.
Minor Injury. Mild facial burn from Colonel Buster. 2 Damage.
Moderate Injury. Knee blasted open by a plasma shot from Colonel Army. 3 Damage.
3 Accumulated Damage.

Good luck in Round 3!

[Sans]

Judging Time!

Before I start, I must say that I thought the fight was a good one for the most part. The only real problem I managed to have with the entire thing (as in, the whole fight) was that I never felt like there was a reason explained as to why they are both fighting. Colonel kinda hand-waved it in the first post, but I think setting up the reason either within an intro post or even within one of your fight posts would have helped the entire thing make more sense. As such, it was a missed opportunity.

Anyways, that's all I really wanted to say about the fight. No one missed any deadlines, so no need to put penalties. Damage will be countered below the judging results, so here we go starting with:

Solomon Grundy

Description and Clarity: 1.5

As this is your first time writing a fight post, it's to be expected. Plenty of the problems I had with your descriptions were the same ones I had when I fought my first time too. Just takes practice.

One of the first things I noticed is that you have a tendency to repeat your words CONSTANTLY! Your first post is the worst offender of this, with words like "zombie" being used more than six times in the first post alone. To aid in this, I recommend reading other character's posts on this site that are known for their excellent descriptions (People like Okor, Sinestro, and Nealapph are great examples.) as well as using a good thesaurus to broaden your word usage. My personal favorite is <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/thesaurus/">http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/thesaurus/</a><!-- m -->, and I also suggest you use it when you write.

Thankfully, your descriptions improved by the second and third post, and part of the reason this isn't a straight up 1 is thanks to some decent ones like the following:

Colonel sailed straight up into the air, turning ever so gently at the apex of his climb. The robot flailed desperately as he tried to right himself, or at least avoid the inevitable follow up to Grundy's skyward sling. And then he began to fall down...gaining velocity as he reapproached the ground. Grundy stood there, waiting...breathing heavily, watching his opponent sink like a stone. His fists, clasped together.
"NOW GRUNDY CRUSH!"

He tilted his neck to the side and wound up, swinging just as Colonel was a few feet from the ground.

CRACK

I like this one thanks to how its paced and how it ends, with good use of onomatopoeia and something that genuinely had me nodding and saying "That was pretty good." as soon as I saw it. In fact, if there is one thing I think you do undeniably well in, it's anything revolving around onomatopoeia. I heavily suggest taking advantage of that skill in the future.

Now, even though the word repetition did lessen by the second and third post, it was still prevalent. The second thing I also noticed was that, overall, the word choice is merely okay. A lot of the way things were described made an otherwise action-fueled scene somewhat bland. This is, again, due to word choice as well as one more thing: sentence structure, which will be covered more in the Technical grade. For now, let's focus on word choice. The best way to solve it is a good thesaurus and a good dictionary. Whenever you can, look up words on a thesaurus and put them into the dictionary, using whatever ones make the most sense in the context of the situation. Be careful, though! Using too fanciful words is almost as bad as using dull and uninteresting ones. Description is a tricky thing to balance (I still have issues with it myself) but it is worth it once you get the hang of it.

As an example from your first post again, here is this section of it:

The hulking zombie charged, bellowing and gnashing his broken teeth. Colonel clenched his own jaw and deactivated his glowing sword, charging up the dissipated energy into a glowing green blast of energy. The soldier program managed to get off about three shots in the time it took Grundy to cover the distance between them, two of them hitting their target in the shoulder and chest with the third missing by an inch. A huge, dead hand swung towards the zombie's opponent, almost in slow motion, and impacted with a heavy slap. Colonel let out a grunt of exertion as he slowed the open handed slap with his free hand and fired up his blade once more, just as a tree trunk thick forearm hit him right in the sternum and drove him backwards into the air. Both the zombie and the robot sailed clear over the river's depths, the Navi born along on Grundy's fist by his velocity. As the zombie landed on his boots, he swung his arm around, hoping to find purchase on one of those metal limbs. He felt the green energy blade sink into his back and shoulder, but by this point it was like cutting a steak with a toothpick. Gripping his opponent by the leg in his banana fingered fist, he held him up and roared again before slamming the soldier Navi into the ground and following with a slow, heavy kick that just missed as Colonel managed to use the momentum from his slam to roll away.

This is my rewritten version of that post:

The gargantuan behemoth charged, bellowing and gnashing his broken teeth. Colonel clenched his own jaw and deactivated his glowing sword, taking a step back and leaning forward, charging up his dissipated energy into a glowing green blast of energy. The soldier program managed to get off about three shots in the time it took Grundy to cover the distance between them, two of them hitting their target in the shoulder and chest with the third missing by an inch. A huge, dead hand swung towards the undead's opponent, impacting the robot with a heavy slap. Colonel let out a grunt of exertion as he brought his hand up to meet the tree trunk thick forearm, slowing it down as he reactivated his blade. All of a sudden, the gigantic brute raised his meaty, vine-covered limb once more, smashing him right in the sternum and driving him backwards into the air.

Both the zombie and the robot sailed clear over the river's depths, the Navi brought along on Grundy's fist clamped around his metallic endoskeleton. As Grundy landed on his boots, he whirled around, his beefy mitts ready to find purchase on one of the long, metallic limbs of his assailant. Suddenly, he felt something burning hot sink into his back and shoulder, but by this point it was like cutting a steak with a toothpick. He snapped his hand towards the Navi's leg, grasping it tightly and providing a good sized dent in its armor. He lifted him up into the air, hanging the soldier upside down. He twisted him around until their faces nearly touched; the soldier's was completely stoic and calculated, while the beast was gritting his teeth and snarling. The swamp monster roared, providing no real reaction from his attacker as he abruptly slammed him into the ground. The robot's frame started sparking, cracks surrounding where he had landed as Grundy reared his leg back, about to kick forward. Before he could, Colonel hopped towards the corpse's right, feeling a gust of wind sail past his back as he rolled out of the way.

Not perfect, imho, but I think this is something you can strive for. The other problem your descriptions have is that they usually have FAR too much stuff going on within them, which ruins the pacing. If needed, separate your sentences to decrease their length and so you can REALLY show me your writing chops.

As for clarity, I didn't get TOO confused as to what was happening, but there were several arts throughout that just left me wondering what exactly was going on. Be sure to double check, or triple check, your posts to make sure they are understandable.

Voice: 2

I like to think that, for the most part, Voice is made up of the usage of literary techniques, pacing, and the overall tone of the writing itself.

There wasn't really much that I found wrong with the voice itself except for one thing: pacing. Again, the first post REALLY hurt you in terms of your scores. Most, if not all, of your sentences in that first post had TOO much stuff going on in it that was being told WAY too fast. You can look back up towards the section I pulled from it to see where. For pacing, try to cut your sentences up, which allows the pace of the action and story from being too fast while also keeping it from being too slow.

Thankfully, I found that the overall tone and the literary techniques used in the entire fight were well implemented, though there weren't a lot of them. Let me list my favorites.

-fwwwweeeeeEEEEEEEEEEE-

KABOOM

THWAK. THWAK. THWAK.

Colonel sailed straight up into the air, turning ever so gently at the apex of his climb. The robot flailed desperately as he tried to right himself, or at least avoid the inevitable follow up to Grundy's skyward sling. And then he began to fall down...gaining velocity as he reapproached the ground. Grundy stood there, waiting...breathing heavily, watching his opponent sink like a stone. His fists, clasped together.
"NOW GRUNDY CRUSH!"

He tilted his neck to the side and wound up, swinging just as Colonel was a few feet from the ground.

CRACK

Again, I like your usage of onomatopoeia. It really did serve to help establish the more chaotic tone the writing had, which also served to contrast the more professional tone set up by Colonel, which I also liked. There were also some metaphors placed here and there that were pretty good.

In short, work on your pacing, and take advantage of the techniques you are good with. They can EASILY become a defining aspect of your writing.

Character: 3

Without knowing anything about who Grundy was before the fight, I came out of it figuring he was an impulsive, easily-angered, undead corpse who is so determined that he won't stop until his opponent is dead. And he isn't very intelligent.

With this in mind, there wasn't anything in the fight I thought was out of character for him, and I don't have an issue with how he was presented. I also liked his dialogue, as it fit his character well too.

What I think COULD'VE improved, however, was the motivations for why he was fighting, as well as other, more complex things like that. This goes for both you and Colonel, as I never ONCE figured out why exactly you guys were suddenly wanting to kill each other. Again, I felt like this was a wasted opportunity on BOTH sides, and something that everyone should take advantage.

Also, I felt like the dialogue you used for Colonel felt a bit... strained, I suppose. Could need work on it.

Story: 2.5

It was okay. Nothing blew me away except for one or two parts in the works, which boosted your score, but other than that, it was just an average fight. I think this suffered because, again, no motivations were given as to why both of you decided to start trying to kill each other.

However, I DID like the end of the first post, which described Grundy stabbing himself in his chest further to elbow drop Colonel. I will admit, this impressed me. It shows that you can easily make something cool out of a potentially lethal wound, and that you can be flexible as a writer. I also know you can have a sense of pacing, judging from the end of your second post, which I also enjoyed. Just be sure to remember to make each sentence only as long as it needs to be, and always try to make each story as interesting and as compelling as possible.

Technical: 2

We've more or less already covered this. The main issue I have with it is that some of the sentences get dragged on for far too long, resulting in details getting crammed into one sentence where it would be better to separate them. Be sure to cut sentences to prevent this.

Aside from that, there were some misspelled words and other errors. Always double check, and I also suggest writing into something like Open Office or Microsoft Word, as those can often catch errors quickly.

Grundy's Score: 11

Colonel's Judge Time will be posted the first chance I get to it.

[Harlan Higgs]

That was a really well written critique! Thanks for all the time you put into it, and I will totally work on those issues you mentioned. Now that you laid tjem out, it's easier for me to see where I can improve. And yeah, I know I have a bad habit of repeating words, I was actually worried about that for most of the posts. Thanks again, and I can't wait to see the result.

[Sans]

Judging Time!

I probably won't talk quite as long this time, as most of what I said in this intro applies to you too, Colonel. But anyways, let's go.

Description and Clarity: 3.5

For the most part, you did a damn good job here. I rarely, if ever, got confused by what you were writing down, and each movement was properly described. This gave me a clear sense of the battle and kept me engaged. Good job!

There were a few times, though, that it could've been better. Mostly in terms of sentence structure. There were a good amount of sentences that I think could've been shortened to two or three sentences rather than the REALLY long one sentence.

Here's a few of them that I saw:

There was a faint, meaty crunch of impact, the brute's head flung sideways from the blow, but he only turned his leering, simple expression slowly back.

Colonel's face showed a very rare moment of genuine emotion, his eyes widening in shock at the sudden action of the hulking abomination, actually pulling his bladed arm deeper into the wound, and firmly anchoring the mechanized soldier in place, preventing his escape.

His free arm came up and around, and with a wrenching motion, planting both legs into the ground for leverage, his fist crashed into the undead hulk's head.

I feel like these sentences would've been better off being cut down. Something like this:

There was a faint, meaty crunch of impact as the brute's head flung sideways from the blow. However, he only turned his leering, simple expression slowly back towards him.

Colonel's face showed a very rare moment of genuine emotion, his eyes widening in shock as the hulking abomination actually pulled his bladed arm deeper into the wound. Then it firmly anchored the mechanized soldier in place, preventing his escape.

He planted both legs into the ground for leverage. Then, with a wrenching motion, his arm came up and around, crashing into the undead hulk's head.

Probably not perfect, but I think this is something that could be used more often.

Other than that, though, you're pretty good here.

Voice: 3

You definitely had a good voice here. It served as a nice contrast to the more irrational, bestial I suppose nature of Grundy's writing. This one, compared to the Grundy's, is more professional and rational.

For tone, pacing, and literary techniques, there isn't much to say really. I generally found all three of these categories to be good in their own right.

For instance, this is good pacing right here:

n answer the giant brute merely let out a roar of challenge, breaking into a slow, lumbering run of his own, his hammer-like fists at the ready.

The impact when they met kicked up another cloud of dust.

Fist met fist. Sparks and disgusting ichor flew every which-way.

Colonel lost feeling in his arm, but the very distinctive, rippling crunch told him his foe hadn't fared much better.

The separation of the lines slows it down just enough so that each movement felt like it mattered, and was paced expertly. Good job.

Characterization: 2

Admittedly, Colonel is a FAR more complex character than Grundy, but I feel like (unlike Grundy) he never got time to "shine," perhaps. There's some dialogue here and there that captures him well, but the very most I got out of the fight in terms of his character is that he's a loyal, robotic soldier and.... not much else, in my opinion.

I feel like if you dedicated some parts of at least one of your posts JUST to his character, than you'd be solid here. For example, one of my favorite methods of characterization is a monologue in either the second or third post. In my opinion, monologues can go a long way to explaining a character's motivations, personality, method of speaking, etc. without it feeling unnatural. Bonus points if you manage to pace it well and have it make sense in context.

Another thing that docked points here is also related to motivations. Although I like the fact that you at least tried to explain why the fight was happening, I don't think the reasoning is solid. At all. From my perspective, Colonel doesn't seem like the guy to go and randomly attack somebody for no reason unless they were doing something wrong. Without an explanation there, I was left scratching my head. So motivations could've been thought out a bit better too.
Speaking of motivations, there didn't seem to be any for you either. Most of what I said for Grundy applies here too, in that case.

In short, this could've been better. I know any character can be written as interesting. Just keep working on it .

Story: 2.5

Most of what I said for Grundy applies here too. This probably would've been a two, uh, too, but I added an additional half point because you at least gave a reason for the fight to be made, even though it's rather odd.

In answer, the giant only let out a bestial roar of "GRUNDY NOT NEED TO ANSWER YOU! YOU ATTACK GRUNDY!"

In short, like with Grundy, this can be improved with time and more writing.

Technical: 3

Thankfully, your sentences and everything else that was grammar related didn't make me want to kill myself, so thank you kind soul.

Aside from that, you use commas a little too much. I mostly suggest cutting down sentences for the same reasons I gave Grundy.

Final Score: 14

COLONEL WI- wait a minute.

I almost forgot to tally up the damage and super move clash!

Rolled a 2, that means Colonel missed his super completely, and Grundy managed to land it!

So even though Colonel is the winner, this is the final damage result.

Colonel: 20 Damage (dead)
2 Accumulated Damage.
Moderate Injury. Pummeled into the ground multiple times by Buried on Sunday. 4 Damage.
Minor Injury. Arm bruised by Grundy. 1 Damage.

Grundy: 20 Damage (dead)
Minor Injury. Gash across chest from Colonel Saber while under his Power Up. 2 Damage.
Minor Injury. Slice in the neck from Colonel Saber while under his Power Up. 1 Damage.

Everyone is a loser!

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