Astral Fight

[Omni]

Sorry got flu over the weekend and mostly lay in bed FORGETTING MY DUTIES. Extension granted by default (though I would've anyway).

Round 3 began from Renji's last post, at 06:14 on the 24th. That means you all have until the 27th at 18:14 GMT, ie TOMORROW, to post, unless extensions are requested. You've all done pretty well though keeping on time for a four-person fight, so good jorb!

[Kuzuru]

Calling

[Kuzuru]

Posted.

Used Demon Lotus so Okor wouldn't murderlize me too hard.

[Omni]

About 3 hours and 20 minutes left to post. Don't mind extending it by 24 or 48 hours if requested.

[Weiss Schnee]

yeah, I'm going to have to ask for a 24 hour extension. Lotsa stuff happened today and posting for this got lost in the shuffle. Apologies!

[Omni]

Course, just let me know if anyone needs the 48 hours, but it won't extend further than that.

[Weiss Schnee]

and made my final post for the foight. I guess that makes it judging phase.
Weiss continued to use her t1 power-up so her stats remain what they were.

[Omni]

Good going, folks. I'm going to have a leisurely read through and then judgement will commence. Expect it today or tomorrow.

[Omni]

As I read through these posts I had to keep in mind each writer’s individual style, considering how those styles complimented the character – needless to say, with so many different styles, each of them high-quality in their own way, this was an extremely difficult judgement call to make.

I based the general feedback here on overall writing, including the introductions, since I read them anyway – but some of the criticism doesn’t apply to the fight posts, which were all I took into account for the final judgement. I included my full feedback anyway, for writer’s purposes.

I’m sure you’ll all be mega-interested in me taking a moment out to do some endorsements. Music can help me focus on long reading assignments, particularly getting into the tone of a work, and for this particular series of posts I chose Destiny Potato’s LUN. It’s got the haunting, dark bits but it’s also rocking and high-energy – otherwise it wouldn’t have suited a fight in such environs. I recommend it! If it’s your thing. Then, Youtube decided that Infected Mushroom’s Legend of the Black Shawarma was also good for this post – and I agreed. Less dark and haunting, but more weird, and that suited also. Then Monster Magnet, then just some random anime music because “ALMOST DONE”.

My process:
For fights, I will always read through everything in one go anyway, so I did not follow this fight except for the OOC notes during the course of it and the run-up, and to make sure posts were being made on-time. Then I read it, fresh, all in one go, taking notes as I went. This took about 2 hours. I noted down my rough impression for each post as a numerical score out of 10, to help my memory.

Feedback
I wouldn’t normally give such in-depth feedback for a fight, but the calibur of this writing forced me to delve deep and so I think it would be injustice not to go into some of my thoughts here, for transparency’s sake.

[spoiler]
Miscellaneous notes:
I enjoyed the structure of the fight, how it split into the duels that followed logically on from the buildup of the introduction, and then crossed over and converged into a multi-faceted melee.

Renji:
An extremely balanced style that I profess to enjoy quite greatly; you know how to use what I would call “economy of text”: you can describe something in few words by using well-chosen and particularly evocative descriptors. An immensely valuable skill in writing. Your dialogue is also very readable, and conveys the character confidently.

Your best fight post was your second, in my opinion, though they were strong throughout. Strong characterisation and some great meaty fightstuff in your final paragraph, which I would rightfully call a crescendo.

Rules note: you shouldn’t have been able to deflect a T1SA with just a regular move. Super Moves are only blocked by other Super Moves, as a general moves rule.

Okor:
I would describe Okor’s style as ‘epic’, and very fitting to the character: he is centuries old and nothing he does is in a hurry. Long sentences, lots of description and evocative imagery. You use some very obscure English as well, words I occasionally have to look up, though this does add to the Okor feel. I’ve raved about your dialogue and characterisation of Okor before, so I won’t repeat myself here.

One thing I will say is that your style doesn’t always lend itself to clarity. Sometimes this is through sentences being a bit too long and overly-suffused with descriptors, requiring a read-back in order to pick out what actions actually just happened. Other times it’s less a weakness of the writing itself than it is there are certain techniques you could employ to improve clarity – like starting a new paragraph when the focus changes from one character to another. This might seem superficial but I find it really helps me read without stopping. I didn’t notice this particular foible in the actual fight posts, though.

Sometimes I’m left wondering what particular powers are being employed, like in the second post, where he reforms into a child after being cut in half? Such a thing would require Shapeshifting, and you could argue that it’s a combination of Disassemble and the weirdness of the dream-world … but it can sometimes come across as shushing the rules in favour of artistic license and badass moments. If you’re going that far out there, it’s one case where I would actually use one of those OOC summaries to explain what happened, hahaha. Otherwise I kind of see it as stretching what you can do, for the benefit of writing fodder, which is sort of … cheating.

I greatly enjoyed the final post despite having little combat, and I’d call it my favourite – which is good, because final posts should be strong! The illusory flame stuff here was a good use of the dream world and also gave your fellow writers more fodder for the writing – which is a bro move that I always like to give a nod to.

Weiss:

You do a good job of summarising history and its relevance to Weiss’s current predicament for current readers, which helped me understand Weiss’s mental state and pull me into the narrative. Non-RWBY watchers should easily understand who Weiss is, and RWBY-watchers should get a good sense for how YOUR Weiss differs subtly and builds upon what the show does. Perfect. The limited-perspective (as opposed to omniscient-perspective) which includes Weiss’s thoughts lends itself to this, so it’s a suitable choice.

Very occasional minor spelling and grammatical mistakes (in intro) ‘omniverse’, which is a proper noun, uncapitalised, separate spelt ‘seperate' – mind that such tiny nitpicks are something I would never really mind unless I were looking for the absolute slightest possible tiebreaker. In the actual fight posts itself, I was confused by the use of variation in paragraph breaks – sometimes using only a single line break as opposed to the normal double-line break. Is this meant to be like … a semi-new paragraph? I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s a proper grammar convention and, as someone who notices these things, it briefly takes me out of the text to wonder why you’re doing that.

Rules note: When you used your powerup the first time you didn’t specify whether you used it for just the post, or the entire round. You did with your final post, and kept a tally of SP used, which was helpful when you did it!

Alexander:

You have an extreme confidence with writing that shows in the deft, seemingly effortless (as easy as writing never is, the true pros always make it look like it was) way you construct your text. That’s a very basic observation to make, but having such skill makes everything you write better, let’s get that out of the way.

I found the introduction to spend just a couple paragraphs too many on the flowery dream madness, though it was a grand entrance nonetheless. But your fight posts were creative, interesting and fully exploited Anderson’s craziness as a character to set some scenes that made me grin, particularly the first post, which also featured excellent dialogue. I also appreciate your ability to honestly assess the abilities of sparring characters and give them each their due in skill.[/spoiler]

FINAL JUDGEMENT

[spoiler]WEISS SCHNEE

Your posts were a great combination of action and emotion. Let me go on record that the moment that made me root for you to win was in Round 2:

As she dodged through the swarm though, she remembered one important thing from that fatal confrontation:

The number of bullets in his clips.

This kind of attention to detail and appreciation of continuity of character, this was the single-greatest asset to your victory. This is what I like to see, in fights or otherwise – for what is a fight, bereft of its context to a character? Meaningless combat. And while meaningless combat executed brilliantly can still make for a fantastic read, this was a fight with ALL TOP-TIER WRITERS. So excellent writing was par for the course. The technical epiccery of your posts was elevated by its emotional resonance, and its relevance to Weiss within an overall arc.

This single detail was not enough to put you on top – but as I went into Round 3, I wondered whether you’d be able to pull off another such great post. Because if you could continue that vein of story into Round 3, you would pull out the win.

Well, you did. The outcome of this fight, for Weiss, means a lot. So please continue this story thread into the finale!

Weiss may now write the conclusion to the fight – no word limit or anything – and the fate of the other characters rests with her. I might recommend working together to figure out a logical conclusion for all characters, since this is a melee. The ending doesn’t necessarily have to be “Weiss beats everyone individually”, but rather, Weiss remains standing. Given how close this was and the SP spent by all other members, I’m going to go ahead and say that, IC-wise, beating Okor will probably leave Weiss at around 17 accumulated damage.

Huge congratulations to all participants for pulling off such an excellent stunt. This fight was well-organised and friendly, yet competitive, and had me wondering who the winner was going to be right up until the final post. Basically, this was the perfect fight, and I would call it probably the closest and best fight I have ever judged. I would love to read more like this.

If you guys would like additional feedback, private or otherwise, feel free to ask, either here, via PM or via skype. Please be specific on what you want feedback on, so I can give you an honest response.[/spoiler]

[Kuzuru]

Fuuuu I'm embarrassed at having made such a big mistake in regards to that super. I read it and then went to write my post and completely forgot that it was a super. My apologies.

At any rate though, great fight guys I had a ton of fun writing with you all and it was a helluva match. Well written by all and I hope we get to do it again!

[ElFailzalot]

Hoooooooly shit, man. Hearing how close of a fight it was is far more than I was expecting. Much appreciated for the judging, Greggo.

And congrats to Weiss on the victory. Here's to hoping we can have another chaotic slugfest again at some point.

[Okor]

Aw man, I had thought that the shapeshifting nonsense was covered under the whole "Dreamworld Shenanigan" artistic license.

Thanks for Judging, Omni! This was a great fight, and it kept me on the edge of my seat with every post.

[Omni]

I will say that in the end, nitpicks - rules-based or otherwise - did not really factor into the verdict. I noted things down as I went, to help should I really be undecided at the end - but the emotional resonance of Weiss's narrative is what decided it.

[Weiss Schnee]

Well, this was quite a judgement to wake up tb. For someone who hadn't even considered themselves in the running, I was pretty shocked to find out I won! I can't thank ya enough for the swift judgement, Omni, and for the compliments - I'll make sure my last post lives up to your expectations.

Also, seriously, thank you to everyone who wrote in this fight thread. It was a huge pleasure with a lot of ups and downs to it. I ended up writing some stuff I didn't think I could write, and it's given me a lot to use for Weiss in the future. I hope to get to write with you all again!

[Greg]

Just a heads up that everyone'll be free to post if there's no conclusion up within 48 hours, with the assumption that Weiss has won.