Grading Session for Week 293

[MoonlitRain014]

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

Group 1 (Will): 1st/5th/7th Divisions
Group 2 (Katie): 2nd/8th/10th Divisions
Group 3 (Cad): 3rd/12th Divisions
Group 4 (Hiren): 4th/9th/11th Divisions
Group 5 (Moon): AHs/Vizards/Quincies
​

Grades are due 11:59 PM EDT on Tuesday, September 10^th, 2013.​

 

[MoonlitRain014]

Ketch


The Overture [61/66]

I had to remind myself of how your personal plot was shaping up given all of the time we've spent focusing on the tourney. In fact let me start with a comment on your plot. Don't worry, it's good. I like the fact that despite there being quite a few threads to weave together, you manage to do so nicely.

The second comment I want to make is on characterization. You've drawn both Magdalena and Rudo well. For instance the way you conveyed Magdalena's blissful (wilful?) ignorance of Rudo's boredom (and the boredom of same) was well done. I could literally see that airy smile or her face and Rudo's sort of vague listening.

Finally I think you had a lot less of the thesaurus speak than usual so that's good. My only issue was that I'm not sure how far ahead this got us in terms of your plot. I mean it told some Quincy history and sort of hints at possible moves forward. That is mostly why I withheld the grade. It just felt a bit like time-killing.


The Righteous and the Wicked [86/91]

Well...this kind of felt like it was decoration around your plot. What I mean is that everyone else's turns sort of embellished the point you were making. I do appreciate that you were trying to advance Q plot but clearly it hit a wall. I think in some ways this might have done better if you'd have written a pchap about the topic.

On the plus side you did keep things going as much as you could. I think big multi-player collabs like this are a gamble and they don't always pay off. That isn't your fault of course. That's just an observation.

In terms of your writing, I liked it here. I think you managed to play off other people where necessary and provide us a glimpse into the tensions of Q land. I would have liked to have seen where this went but alas it was not to be.

As a final point, the reason I docked what I did was that issue of this being plot decoration that may not have been entirely necessary.








My links to be graded are here and here.

 

[Time Lady Katie]

Seriously, guys, use the grading doc. How hard is that? I can grade you a lot faster if I don't need to ty and find anything. And I'm sure I'm going to miss stuff. Also, everyone thank Unholy, we have a Super Division Bonus this week.

Bish
College is that rough on you, eh?

VERSUS KAMENASHI YUUREI, FIGHT!
I know Nella's lack of availability drove you nuts, but hopefully now you can empathize. Welcome to college. Anyway, I don't have much of anything to really say about this fight because it didn't really go anywhere. You keep consec up, though!
85/85

Dys
It must break your heart to have all this and have the SDB be next week.

Welcome Home
You set a really good example here for our other new writers, being remarkably sound on writing style as always. And adorable as always. I don't honestly have a whole lot to say here, though, I'm afraid.
63/63

The Family You Choose
My how I love our collabs. We need to write the logical follow-up to this after Round Three of the tournament. My only critique here is what I'm sure I'll get blasted for too - the collab got very unfocused. We bounced around kind of like a slice-of-life anime and not like a drama series. That can work still, if there's a common thread throughout. I did my best but I think at the end the common thread of family felt more forced than an actual thing rooting the conversation into a narrative. Something to think on. Also, I'll get us a collab bonus.
145/150

Set You on Fire
Fun facts: Kyuto throws her zanpakutou a lot. More fun facts: Midnight doesn't mind Adelaide showing interest. He likes Adelaide. I am curious how Adele finding out about the Ren incident is going to affect Adele's impresion of Hikaru, but I hear tell of a big ol' collab coming out that'll get everything in the open perhaps?
87/87

Hikaru's Fight
Adele had some pretty wild mood swings about Hikaru here, a bit too wild for me to buy into. At first she had some pride presenting him, then wanted Adelaide to kick his ass, than was upset that she did, even in light of what happened to Ren. I'm not sure jumping all over the map so quickly makes sense.
50/55

Fatherless Child
I'd love the cathersis of Adelaide beating the hell out of an old guy, but I wouldn't want to take that fun away. Instead, all I'll pin my hopes on a follow-up chapter that delves into the reactions of everyone, including Tabitha, of the story Adele is about to tell. I'd be interested to see how willing Tia and Zec are to become members of the family of someone they've never met.
60/60

Gloam
You get 150 Division for being a five-star newbie and helping Minj out.

Might and Magic
You really did save this collab from a bomb of a grade by fixing formatting problems and adding a wordcount. Week's MVP. Minj seriously owes you one. Something about casting - don't write "Hadou #5", write "Haou Five", "Hadou number Five", "Hadou no Go" or those sorts of things. In literature and formal writing numbers are bad and the number sign is worse.
107/109

Welcome Home
I'm docking a couple more points for numbers versus writing things out, simply because I really wanna push you and Minj out of that habit. Also, remember apostrophes in contractions. "I'm" instead of "Im". Don't take these little things too hard, though, because you really had first-class writing here. I particularly like the 'symphony of smells' turn of phrase. Also, that nice big closer was a nice one. Welcome to the 'Adele has slept on you' club. Adelaide is doubtless making t-shirts.
60/63

Hikaru's Fight
Not having wordcounts is a huge annoyance to me. That aside you had a phoenominal opening turn. There isn't a whole lot to say here, everyone in this collab, start to finish, acted the way their personalities dictated. That's pretty commendable. Now let's see what the fallout is.
73/75

Unholy
Welcome back! Thanks for the SDB!

Chance Meeting
Who in Seireitei authorizes all these shopping trips everyone goes on? Someone, somewhere within the Kidoushuu, badly needs to be fired. That aside, let's continue. You still have some trouble with unusual wording that I remember, a kind of... clunkyness to your writing that interrupts a natural flow. Try not starting sentences with "He did this. He then did that." structures, they're bland and are certainly adding to your problem. Something like "Oh, sorry, a misunderstanding got you shot," "Nah, these things happen," is almost farcical in it's unnaturalness. Unless both people dripped with sarcasm, and I wasn't sold on the idea they did, that conversation is way beyond my capacity to suspend disbelief. All that notwithstanding, I'm interested in how this descendant of someone Dellius knows is going to affect things for him, so you got that going for you.
55/62

Minj
I saw you went through and proofead everything this week. You ease my troubled soul.

VERSUS ADELAIDE PIERCE, FIGHT!
I got vengeance on you hardcore. Sorry Adelaide gets pretty protective. I'm not going to go into proofeading right now, since you have shown marked improvement in this collab, except to remind you to always write out numbers. Eighth instead of 8th, Central Forty-six instead of Central 46 to name some examples that are commonly mistaken. Instead I want to focus on storytelling because its my area of expertise - this collab has given you a lot to go from. The archetypical 'thinks he's a badass' character is dull, but your 'badass' was repeatedly shown up recently. It strikes me as odd that the Twentieth Seat beat him, but he still was cocky fighting a Captain. I hope he learns from these fights, and grows from them, instead of staying the same. Development makes characters compelling. Oh, one last note, it's a lot easier to keep track of wordcounts as you write than to try and compile them at the end.
140/146

Set You on Fire
Fun facts: Kyuto throws her zanpakutou a lot. Might want to consider that if you're thinking about keeping that tactic - what kai abilities can make throwing your zanpakutou work? Also, your division item Reminiscence which you receive after Shikai can teleport your zan back to you three times per fight. Now, on to a grammar issue you have some problems with. "If you have a quote, it must end with punctuation," explained Katie, "most commonly a comma if you do something like I just did." Using a period at the end of a quote means no 'he said' or anything like that comes after, you just move on.
83/87

Might and Magic
Smooth move, changing the title from the remarkably insulting "Modern Mulan". You do NOT need to list who participates in the collab in the thread title. Look at some other one-on-ones for formatting examples, especially since I saw Gloam save both of you tons of points by having you fix formatting errors. Typically for collabs like this only the total wordcount is given and then divided by two for individual grades, but I'll let this go because I'm not sure it's technically wrong. Next note is more for myself than anything: this mission ought to be obsolete. The Tenth it refers to is now the First Division and I need to fix that with Nella. Now, for you, my note here is one I make a lot so don't think I'm cracking down on you again: you use unimaginative nouns. Try being a bit more descriptive of who Hikaru is, what he feels and what he's doing between dialogue. Don't go with just 'Hikaru' or 'the swordmage', try 'the brown-haired boy' or things like that as descriptors more often. Change it up. The same things over and over get repetitive. I already slammed you in game for Hikaru being a creep, so I won't mention it here.
62/63


Raph
Yours is but a drop in a big freakin' bucket, pally.

Working for the Weekend
Kill all quincies.
Seriously, are you trying to revive TNK or just writing the first episode of an anime? Tell me Alex sat in the Protagonist Seat. Either way, this was a really long intro to something and I'm just hoping it's a slice-of-life spin-off RP. As an aside, good capturing the xenophobic tendencies of Japan with Ishihara. Now, make me care about the dozen NPCs you just introduced.
138/138


Hiren
What's good?

Title
Stuff about the title
??/??



For my Grader:

The Family You Choose
Versus Miyazaki Hikaru​

 

[Nargles]

I grade in this weird college note format so sorry about the weird subsets of grades guys haha.

Nella

vs Toride [61/61] + 75 Div

Life man. It happens. Anyway, I’m kind of sad that it decided to swallow you up now because damn did you write a good fight. Yuurei and Anshy are such different characters but you manage to write them both as super distinct personas. As for the fight, you pulled off some cool moves, used your GM feat really well and managed to keep this somewhat cocky-come-wise-come-sarcastic banter going on. I really have nothing bad to say about this. I hope you two have a rematch!​

Moony and Vin

Vin: New Girl Investigates [100/118] + 30 Div
Moony: New Girl Investigates [110/118]

Alright, so there were some upsides and downsides to this piece from both of your parts. It’s easier for me to address the bit together to both of you. First off, this applies to both of you, and you both know this already. WRITE OUT THE NUMBERS.Guns 101 was the biggest pet peeve I had.

Anyway, as for the meat of the collab let’s start with Elena. First off, nice job giving Elena an actual perspective in the collab. I mean, at times she did just turn into a one-liner bot (dental. and. cake.) I think what you really need to focus on is making sure that your turns are always pushing to a meaningful continuation of the collab. Some turns were simply flat out witty comment and that alone. While humor is great (in the right context) there’s a point where it becomes just too much. Mainly; however, I still want to harp on you for including more personal reflection on your turn. It’s all about striking a balance between illuminating more about your character while still not overwhelming the collab. It’s a hard thing to get down but this collab still seemed to be on the ‘no reflection’ half of the spectrum.

As for Moony, I have to ask, why was Zakki in this collab? Yes he did seem to set it up, but I think you could have easily just made it so he gave the order for Elena to meet Nakazawa somewhere else. He didn’t really make a big enough impact or give a big enough voice in the collab to really warrant him there. While your characterization of Nakazawa was great as always, you need to be pretty aware of all parties you add into the collab. If they simply become removable, background people, then they just detract from investing in the conversation as a whole.​

Moony

Ghost Hacker [86/88]

Must. not. go. into. rant. about. hacking. Sorry, CS Major moment.

Anyway. As for the non-CS parts of the collab, good job overall. Funny to see Zakki actively promoting and using shinigami in Cerberus. Shows the new direction that he’s taking the Corporation really well actually. The start of this collab was really good, and the back and forth between Picca and Zakki was really fun to read. My main part was during the falling action of the peice. Part of me felt like it was a bit too rushed and didn’t really feel like a nice wrap up. It mainly flowed like: HACKING -> THANKS -> CAN I CALL YOU? -> BYE. I feel like, considering the information about Zakki being actively spied on, that you could have gone a bit deeper.

Sure Picca is a relatively far-removed from the situation, but I think after a discovery like that a bit more back and forth could have been natural. I think the biggest thing you need to watch out in general in your writing is pacing. Sometimes I’ve noticed that you either front load, or drag out collabs. I’d say try working on evening out the content of the collab a bit more, spacing it out in a manner that keeps the user engaged the entire way through.
​

 

[swaswj]

Berri - 131/131

Oh lordy, this collab. I... I wish I had more to say, haha. This was a hilarious little sprawl all around, and ridiculous in every sense of the word. I do feel like you handled most of the narrative aspect while Raury was mostly a comic foible to Rufus' straight-man (well, relatively speaking).

+50 Div Bonus

Mr. Saturday Night Special (5232) 131/131​

Finny - 88/88

I may have said this last week, but it's good to see Picca around again. Although a curious setup for their meeting, I like the way Picca handled the entire situation. Whether it was intended or not, I also like that Picca managed to remain amiable while smoothly managing to avoid giving any detailed or potentially confidential information about the Gotei. It's also nice to see Picca as adept in this field but not infallible.

+50 Div Bonus

Ghost Hacker (3514) 88/88​

Ry - 131/131

I'm still laughing but I really don't have much to say other than that this was the highlight of my grading night.

+50 Div Bonus

Mr. Saturday Night Special (5232) 131/131​

Katie - 375/385

Not much to comment on your spectator turns, except yes, there are lots of animagi in your div.

The whole incident with Hikaru comes across kind of oddly. Not that I'm begrudging Adelaide going about it, but it's as if in this one thread, she emulates the two people she seems to hate most: Tsubaki and Haresuno. There's even a bit of Nana in there. Thus the conclusion at the end rings a bit unsatisfying... not because she's still harping on the 'not a captain' deal but because her reason for doing it wasn't the startling revelation that she was able to slip into becoming what she abhors: it was that her display of power scared her subordinates.

To me, it just felt a little rushed and weak -- and Tsubaki was even there with hypocritical jabs to serve as a reminder.

Your collab with Adele was cute. I actually enjoyed the fact that Adelaide lapsed into her usual self-depreciation and this cute little girl (and her cat) just lectured her out of it. The not-so-subtle incest jabs by Lashiel were amusing, too. All in all, it was a nice read and nice to see a different side of the Gotei than I normally get. I sort of miss this light-hearted fluff. Only complaint here is that your colors, and italics at one point with Lash, went weird in places.

Toride vs Yuurei (335) 17/17
Adelaide vs Hikaru (4350) 210/218
Family You Choose (6000) 148/150​

My Writing: ... none from me, that I know of

 

[Rob]

Well, since no one from Group Three has actually posted here yet *cough*Cad*cough* I guess I'll have to take it upon myself to grade this week.

Guys, send me links and whatnot.

Beaks -

You're the only one that wrote? Huh, go figure.

For all the shit Tsubaki gets thrown at her, I love her to bits. She's definitely one of the most interesting personas hurtling about these days, and she's a nice change of pace with all the dumb captain shit going on right now. I like this animosity towards Adelaide, especially given that Adelaide seems to have animosity towards anyone who has ever dared to tell her she's not the best thing ever. I like that kind of strife, those kinds of character flaws. But this is about Tsubaki, not Adelaide. Part of what I like about current TsuTsu is your ability to keep her consistent again. She a thorn in just about anyone's side, and I like it. She doesn't give two damns about anything - much like Nana, we should rename the third to the don't give a fuck division - and she's rather vocal about it too.

We need more characters like her (and might I dare say Nana as well?)

That said, I think it's a bit of a pity then that you only had the one turn in that open collab fight. Seems like a wasted opportunity, but I know that feel.

Take them 10 pointsu for that.

Now, for your chapter: were you trying to blind me? Holy shit the formatting is making my eyes hurt even now. I mean the idea behind it is nice, and works really well. It's just not really that pleasant to look at, haha. That said, this was a powerful chapter, but I wasn't really sure what was going on until about halfwaythrough - and even then I still wasn't really sure. It lended itself quite nicely this time though, and what you leave out about Tsubaki in open - and sometimes closed - collabs, you really try to explore in her chapters. The descriptive writing in this piece was interesting at the very bare minimum, it was really captivating.

And, if she's ever tired of being left alone all the goddamn time and has a change of sexuality, Nana will always be there for her. (even if she decides to remain straight, you know.)

All jokes aside, though, Tsubaki can only come out stronger and I hope she knows she isn't all alone as long as she will let Nana prevent that.

Top notch writing from you this week, so for that I award you 150 division bonus.

Yes. Take all my loving.

My writing for the week:
http://www.mangaden.net/forum/showthread.php?38116-Week-293-A-Burning-Sensation

Some may call this fluff. Me? I call this character development.