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Grading Session for Week 268

Wayne

Wayne

The Rustler of Jimmies
Latens
5,000✦
Exa
⏆2,500
Bounty
⏈0
Dahlitium (⏆50 per)
0⌯
Bigatium (⏆100 per)
0⍨
Auritium (⏆300 per)
0⍫
Vitatium (⏆1200 per)
0⌭
Caelitium (⏆6000 per)
0⌬


Group 3 -> Group 1 -> Group 2 -> Group 4 -> Group 5 -> Group 3


Group 1 (Will): 1st/5th/7th Divisions
Group 2 (Lil): 10th/8th Divisions
Group 3 (Rob): 3rd/12th Divisions
Group 4 (Wayne): 4th/11th Divisions
Group 5 (Hiren): AHs/Vizards/Quincies​



Grades are due March 19, 2013 @ 11:59 PM EST​
 
Beaks - 65 - 50 Division Bonus

First thing's first: I'm not sure how much I enjoy having to read about Tsubaki being wishes to death by every single person to have ever existed, ever, every single start of any collaboration involving pretty much any Soul Society faction, but in particular the Third or the Eleventh. You make it out to be much, much, much worse than it really is. I'm not going to say they don't dislike her or anything, but what you've been writing is a bit too dramatic.

Anyway, that aside, onto your actual collaboration with Vince. It felt... forced, especially on your side of the coin. Don't get me wrong, sometimes it just happens, but this entire read just felt like you weren't really feeling it and while that is fine, it kind of hurt my motivation to read through it as well. Although, I have to admit seeing Tsubaki flip tables because of Alexia was kind of interesting to see since I never knew that naive girls could pull that kind of trope off.

That said, there were actually a few places in the collaboration where I had to look over it again to figure it out and one instance I just didn't know what to make of it.

It wasn’t...actually ‘bondage’ is about the best word for it.

I mean, what? It wasn't actually bondage. Or, it wasn't... and bondage is the best word you could think up for 'it'?

???

Also, what in hell's blazes does Tsubaki sound like? I've noticed for a while now, but it feels like you hardly ever - if at all - use description for Tsubaki on how she actually says something. You always end your dialogue with a period, and then show an action she does. Not how that action relates to how she feels or sounds like (mostly the sound part, occasionally the feels part). All this time I'm reading this collaboration and go like, "Tsubaki, despite making great speeches, seems like a very dull person to listen to." Why? Because I have no idea how she speaks.

Try mixing that up a bit, Beaks, because you can do better than this.

Sene - 135 - 50 Division Bonus

Good gracious, 5.6k words. Thanks, babe. Old collaboration being old not withstanding, the Senesati to Adelaide ratio weighs heavily, heavily in Adelaide's favour, so try to look out for that in the future. Don't let someone out-write you, because there comes a time where I'll have to cut your grade in pieces to accommodate better for what you wrote.

Anyway, right off the bat I was left confused: “Ms. Pierce,” another female voice called out.

Was there another person who spoke before this 'other female'? I'm pretty sure this is the first person that called out in your opening turn, so please don't do that again.

Also, holy cow run-on's batman. Like, seriously, your first two dialogue sentences are one massive run-on. Commas are nice, but do not overuse their stay, they will tear your writing apart, and it will begin to show if you keep using, you know, commas over, and over, and over, and over again, and then you will read this and think, "Holy shit," and then turn the other way, because holy cow, this is ridiculous, like... really, seriously, holy batman run-ons.

See what I mean? But, no, seriously, try to watch out for that. Using it is nice, overusing... not so much.

Again with the run-on sentences, but I'll refrain from pointing them out from now on. One thing I did want to point out, though, is:

You said:
Unsure if the Fourth Seat knew or not, but for him to call someone by their first name is a sign of ease and to some degree a certain level of respect, then again, not many people knew this trait existed with Senesati either.
Click to expand...

You messed up your tenses there, you probably should've used 'was' instead of 'is'.

Okay, so this confused me thoroughly:

Anenokoji-taichou or Captain Anenokoji

They are the same pronunciation RP-wise, unless you specifically told her to say 'Captain' as in the actual English word as opposed to the Japanese our characters speak.

Anyway, the rest of the collab... I'm not sure I liked how you took control of Lashiel (At least, that's what I got from reading it, maybe I'm a massive dumb and read the entire collab wrong. If so, correct me).
I get the idea of having an outsider take control of it/her, but I'm not sure you guys managed to pull it off. There is a distinct difference between your writing styles which, coupled with a different font colour really made me wonder whether this was really the best plan of action.

On the whole not a bad collab at all, Sene, just a little... rough around the edges.

Mits and Hare
Cad will be grading you guys.

http://www.mangaden.net/forum/showt...surgence-Traversing-Paths-Rarely-Walked-Alone
 
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Good thing i don’t have consec this week or the world might be ending. Onto the grades:

Tom: So I actually laughed out loud at Clair’s alias for that alone you get props. I’ll be honest and say I haven’t read a lot of your stuff but I did like this chapter, mostly. I felt like the tension could have been added a bit more in Ewan’s conversation. It seemed like there was a lot of build up, or at least what could have been a lot of build up, but nothing ever came of it. I would have liked to see that tension ratcheted up a bit more to really draw the surprise that all Clair wanted was her sister. The writing itself was solid though.
See the Truth 71/72

The opening to your fight with kago was really good I think. Setsuna is a fun character to read and comes off as a lovible smart ass. The not so good part what the lack of description in the fight itself. You guys were bandying high lvl (or at least mid level) kidou spells and not actually playing them up. I’ve been guilty of this a bit so try to actually give the spells some scare factor facing Hiryu should be terrifying, write like it is.
110/115

I applaud you for using the word jerkass to describe Kago, for that take 50 div bonus (also because your writing was good this week)

Corin:
I’m probably being really biased here because not that much in terms of actual action happened. However the chapter is a good example of how to do characterization without making it boring as hell. That is was told like a black and white detective movie with all the references I really enjoyed. I do also like the references to you and arun’s collab, nice to see it at least casually mentioned. You always produce pretty solid work and this is no exception. You also gets 50 div bonus
56/56

Dr. Dee-oh-cee:
For a man about to blow up Shizou was pretty calm. The chapter was really good at doing the whole jokes to kinda cut back on the tension. I don’t know if I’m horrible but part of me was hoping he just exploded in the elevator. Even without prior knowledge I had a pretty good guess of what was going on from the start, but personally i felt like you could have built up the tension a bit more in the elevator before delivering the salvation. Would have done more to sell the reader on “o shit he might kill everyone” rather than “huh he’s not well o its fine he’s safe.” Having him getting more and more paniced might have helped as well. Then again that might just be me being horrible. You also get the remaining 50 bonus points.
72/72

Guest Grade Rawb:
Its nice to see Nana a bit more vulnerable than I usually read her. Often times she strides around as the big bitch in Seireitei its nice to see her having what read as a real moment of worry and weakness. The actual style of the writing was also top form however I didn’t notice the last sentence of the first paragraph read a bit run on-y though that could have just been the word choice. I would like to point out that the period line felt really awkward and forced.... but other than that a solid chapter.
56/57
 
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Vin – Strippers and Beaks

Huh. Your collab with Lil sure had a misleading title. And here I thought it was gonna be another lesbihonest escapade with some comic relief dashed in the middle. Not quite, eh?

Anywho, the first part with the whole wedding talk came off as plainly casual at best. Nothing really happened to make it stand out, but still pretty nice for a regular old conversation. It showed some insight on how Alexia felt towards Adelaide and Brooke, while at the same time carrying along some light humor.

The talk of captaincy and division etiquette halfway through appeared kind of out of the blue to me. One second they’re talking about preparing bachelorette parties, then the next it’s about how the squads hate each others’ guts. I found Alexia’s portrayal of the other unseated Duelists to be quite interesting. I’d like to see you expand more on that topic in future chapters since it adds a lot of character dynamic to Alexia, particularly since she’s unseated herself. That notion ties in to your collab with Beaks, which, made me even more surprised seeing unseated Elevenths talking shit about Tsubaki.

On that note, Alexia sure likes getting on people’s nerves doesn’t she? It was pretty funny managing to piss off both Lilith and Tsubaki just by talking philosophies and junk. That in itself isn’t bad OOC (IG is a whole different story) since it adds to the character dynamic I’ve mentioned earlier. It makes Lexi stand out from the crowd, so to speak. There were a few basic grammatical errors in both of your chapters, but really nothing too serious. Just a quick re-read before posting should do the trick.

Grade: 100 (Strippers) + 66 (Alone) + 75 Division Bonus for being the only one to write this week from Group 4​
​


50 Shades of Feng – I’m not even gonna try and pronounce that title

Ah yes, the old nobility business. Good stuff.

I was almost certain this was gonna be just another run in the mill meet-and-greet between two characters, but I’m glad you proved me wrong. The chapter started off pretty standard and straightforward with small talk and other trivial niceties, but it transitioned nicely to the central idea driving the writing. You did a great job explaining House Fu’s background and structure, and despite being somewhat brief, painted a clear picture of what they’re all about. All in all, this was a quick and easy read and I’m interested to see the follow-up banquet and how it plays out (if you two are even planning writing it).

Grade: 82​
​
 
:cutepanda: Announcements: :failhug:

Everyone, thank Kago for kindly buying us an SDB again! We may not have written 20k each for it, lol, but thank you for your generosity!​



Katie – 135 * 2 SDB = 270

Collab was okay. Unfortunately (and fortunately), it was old and your writing with Adelaide wasn’t as developed as it is now. The idea was pretty cool -- I liked that Senesati took an Urahara role here as he watched Adelaide and Lashiel duke it out. However, the writing quality was lacking. Parts felt rushed while others dragged out too long. There were some transitions that didn’t make sense. For example, you called Sene captain. Sene thinks but doesn't say that she could call him Senesati as its own form of respect. Then in a later turn, she starts calling him Senesati out of the blue.

Also, I don’t know how I feel about Sene playing Lashiel. Admittedly, if he didn’t, it wouldn’t be much of a collab. However, his characterization felt off. Lash is playful, sexy, and shares Adelaide’s perverted but sweet expressions. While Sene is talented at RPing girls, Lash felt generic and overly provocative.

Anyway, congrats on finally finishing an old collab. Props to you since I imagine that was a nice feeling of completion.

Ascent – 135/141​



Bish – 161 + 50 Div = 211 * 2 SDB = 422

There’s your soul slayer! It’s about time.

So the first chapter was all right. It was a pretty standard first conversation type of collab. I think you could’ve improved it by making the moments leading up to this conversation feel a little more grueling so that the actual meeting felt more earmed. I do, however, really like the spirit right now. He serves as a great foil to Satoru’s curious nature, pushing him to really fulfill his self-proclaimed role as ‘The High Inquisitive.’ Perhaps with a little more time and guidance from Diapasão, that title will be proclaimed more frequently among others as well.

Your second chapter was okay too (you can just post all chapters in one thread btw, especially if they’re consecutive and related). I really like how Diapasão forced Satoru to go to the library. Not only did it make Satoru work for the info, but it gave him an opportunity to learn lots of other random bits of info along the way too. I, however, wasn’t crazy about the way Satoru learned about his origins. It wasn’t so much the scene or the actions, but the writing and the pacing. Satoru generally has this ‘young wisdom’ to him, enthusiastic and mature during all of his quests for knowledge. This was rushed and felt childish in the thought process and development. Nonetheless, I am looking forward to how this will affect Satoru, and I’m wondering if we’ll see more about his backstory from this point on.

Em Sintonia – 110/112
RaÁ­zes de Ressonância – 51/54
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Hare
Daes Dae'mar
81/82

There isn’t much to say about introductions: Hello, please come in. How can I help you? Always a pleasure...etc. Aside from a great description of the room, I think the meat of the collab comes from the internalized and externalized conversations of position and reasoning for the next collab. For as much as they said to each other, I think there was more thought by Feng and Haresuno for the other. Is it an alliance or a stand off? Is he being pleasant by nature or simply going through the motion? Where could this go? Good questions that are brought to the readers’ mind within your writing.

All in all, though, it seemed as if Hare had less to hide than Feng, which seems to give him an upper hand in the future Game of Houses. And speaking of: this starts to scratch at the similar traits that draws so many into Game of Thrones or House of Cards...there’s a lot of potential for you and Shade to expand on this. Nobility has rarely interested me but when you play the card right, it starts to look captivating.

I knocked a point because there were 2-3 punctuation and/or questionable usages that caught my attention, but nothing that was worth highlighting or noting as detracting.


Mitsu
Training In The Woods
45/51

There are some pretty obvious grammar and punctuation issues here. If you have someone read your work before posting (yes, even 2 hours before deadline!), they can help you catch a lot of these errors. Rather than point them out here, I’d like to go through, line-by-line, in a Google doc and show you what I mean....we’ll just have to set the time aside to do so.

Content-wise, I like Sekai - she’s a good supportive role for Mitsuhit...making a picnic basket, sitting quietly for hours, without saying anything. Sure, it’s a little plot-hole-y but sweet. I can appreciate the struggle he faces with the growing power behind the attack and I really like how he got nowhere, after hours and hours of struggle, yet succeeded after took a nap. Nice hidden moral, there.

BUT...

And that’s a big BUT....it’s still illegal to release your kai in Soul Society. It’s risky to do so unless you make sure to note being clear of any surveillance and being far away enough from Seireitei. You did mention a forest in Rukongai but you have to be careful! A week in 7th could creep up on you!
 
Alright, everyone except Wayne (sorry), don’t forget to apply the SDB to your grades. The grades I post below are the raw scores (without the SDB added).


Pho

Catching Up

Grade: 50/50
Comments:

I think I’m going to have to write with Hijo more now that I know it confuses the hell out of Udo, haha!

But in all seriousness, I’m actually glad that Udo didn’t take Kago’s actions personally. Having Adelaide react so poorly and Udo react logically truly created an interesting dynamic not only with Kago and them but also between them. I hope you both explore and address that ‘disagreement’ of action in a future collab.

Not much else to say. Udo and Kago had a heart to heart and the vice-captain (at that time) allowed the sixth seat a glimpse inside his mind. I do hope to build on this so please don’t disappear again! :P

Zer

Blending Power

Grade: 110/110
Comments:

First of all, I’m happy that you portrayed Zerieth as such an inept shinigami in this collab. Too many times PCs pick up the techniques with rarely any trouble and go on to never mention training to trying to master them. Zerieth was the opposite and as your acting captain, it made me happy to see that.

Also, I thought your descriptions of learning the technique were vivid and allowed readers to almost experience what Zerieth was feeling as he learned new facets of the technique and explored it power. Kudos!

Finally, I’m glad that you didn’t have Zerieth internalize needlessly in this collab; you did more showing than telling. The parts you did internalize were necessary for learning/training so it was to be expected. Continue progressing forward; you are improving with each week.

Lil

No Strippers in the Cake Please

Grade: 101/102
Comments:

I have to say that I thought you handled this collab well. Alexia seemed to throw Lilith off her game quite a bit, but she remained true to her own thoughts and didn’t seem to be swayed so easily. I especially liked how Lilith softly hinted that Alexia’s reasoning for becoming a captain were narrow minded while still encouraging her to pursue her goal. She also challenged Alexia; this is something I find rarely in writing. Too many people want to extent any OOG feelings into IG writing. You did an excellent job of keeping the two separate.

As far as the story goes, the collab felt like a disjointed two-for-one. Personally, I would have rather seen this broken up into two separate collabs OR have more of a bleeding effect. Lilith mentally acknowledged the jarring topic change, but to have part of the bachelorette thoughts continue while Alexia was talking or have them mentioned aloud would have been more fitting.

Lastly, I felt like your imagery was a hit-or-miss. Yes, you painted a vivid picture, especially with the kitten to lion comparison, but I thought you were aiming for more symbolism until I read it a second time. Often the weather is used for foreshadowing or symbolism – like the sun setting indicating a downfall or negative reaction – however, the tone never ventured down that path, nor hinted at it.
At the very least, Apphia could be playing certain songs that are subtle suggests to tone or theme or foreshadowing.

In the end, I thought it was some of your more solid writing, so take +50 div points.

Wayne

Night Terrors

Grade: 84/84
Comments:

Hit.

In all honesty, I like seeing this more ‘human’ side to Kyuketsu. I felt like you did an excellent job inciting emotion where necessary and pulling in vivid imagery. I especially liked the stab at the end where he admitted to himself that he felt evil for lying to her.

The only thing I would suggest is to fix one paragraph:
“And I was perfectly fine with that.” She brought her head back up, taking note of the sweat still staining the captain’s forehead. “But this... you were practically having a heart attack in your sleep! Knowing that you’re tormented like that just breaks my heart. I’ve seen how the look in your eyes changes every time you go on a mission, and it’s as if the man I knew... vanishes completely. I know I’m not the strongest or brightest person around, but seeing you go through that... it frightens me. And because of that, I’d like nothing more than to hold you and protect you.”​

This was basically a pivotal paragraph where Fuko kind of poured her heart into her words, but there was no imagery or detail to her physically in this outpouring. Maybe you could have showed her choking tears back or stopping to find the right words. Something to give it time and allow it all to sink in for the reader.

For this ‘hit’, take +50 div/group points.


Through the Eyes of an Out of Control Storm

Grade: 32/34
Comments:

I’m just going to preface this by saying that I’m assuming Tits granted you permission to RP #28.

Aside from that, I can see how the time it took to write this collab affected your turns. Despite the description of #28 that “ the man addresses others with a playful casualness [and] it is easy to discern the false plasticity of this ruse,” I never saw this really come to fruition; however, it could be that your style of writing playful casualness is different than mine. I can’t really fault you for this and the collab did take long breaks. For the little bit you did write, you gave him an interesting personality for a faceless person. Kudos!
 
~ First Division ~​
Fin - 79/79
Chap 79/79

Your chapter was nice and simple. An easy read for the week, and also a pleasant one. Only thing I can really point out as a problem was how fast Picca got to the First. Unless you fast travel via Charon’s Road or some other way, getting across Seireitei from Ninth to First isn’t going to be “no time at all”. Aside from that, well done.



* Fifth Division *​
Just me :<

# Seventh #​
Not aware of anything from you guys. If I’m wrong slap me with a PM including the link to your writing.

|Guest|
​

Kaggles - 340/342
Luck 67/67
Blending 109/110
Catching 49/50
Leadership 115/115
+100 kan for training peeps.

The chapter was nice. I enjoyed reading a new character - especially a quincy. I look forward to what all will happen with his story, especially how he interacts with other shinigami like the one he met.

There were only one or two errors, like a missing word or context, but I’m not going to take points off for it in this.

Your collab with Zer was a nice training collab. I especially liked how Zer didn’t immediately succeed in his training as people often do. Kago’s stern bearing regarding respect is something I forgot about, but was happy to see. Too often people write their characters casually chatting it up with their captains (which isn’t bad unless its a first impression) as if they’ve always known them. The ability to relax and efficiently train a subordinate was nice to read, and I look forward to more training collabs while you’ve got the 8th.

Of note, however, you need to remember to capitalize proper titles like Eighth Division. I don’t know so much about the Grand Seireitei Tournament Grounds, but I’m sure they can be referenced as tournament grounds without any harm.

Finally, while I did enjoy the read, it came off as slightly flat. That may be just due to the fact that this is a training collab and there wasn’t a whole lot of introspection going on - something you have no real control over unless you’re writing Kago being introspective. And seeing as how he’s the trainer there’s no real point in that for this, now is there?


The collab with Pho was just as good as the training collab with Zer, though there felt more depth in this than in the other one. It could very well be that it’s just because I’ve read the collab between you and Katie (I agree that Udo took the news better than Addie), so I know the background where there was none in Blending.

Your writing in this was solid as well, though again you hit the proper title problem when writing out divisions. Fourth Division, Eighth Division, etc.

Your final collab with Tom was another good one, and one that even got me to laugh. Problems noted in the other collabs were noticed here, but I didn’t take points off due to the fact that Kago flailing his sword around was priceless.

Good use of casting and swordsmanship, though Setsuna dodging those high level spells is questionable.... Kago using them on the poor guy even more so!
 
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