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Grading Session for Week 307

Redfin

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

Group 1 (Finny): 1st/5th/9th Divisions
Group 2 (Raph): 2nd/3rd/6th/11th Divisions
Group 3 (Katie): 7th/10th/12th Divisions
Group 4 (Hiren): 4th/8th/13th Divisions
Group 5 (Moon): AHs/Vizards/Quincies​


Grades due by 11:59 PM EST on Tuesday, December 17th
 
Doc
60 Div Bonus
Chapter, A Case of Crabs: 175
This:
“No more.” he grunted through clenched teeth, “HEAR ME! YOU WILL HAVE MY BODY NO MORE!”

Should be"
“No more,” he grunted through clenched teeth. “HEAR ME! YOU WILL HAVE MY BODY NO MORE!”

There are some parts that I think could use a comma. I'm not certain, though, I'm just saying I would have a comma there. Give a look and see how it feels.

In the midst of the strange quaking Akane had become completely frozen.

In preparation to clobber the ginger samurai it began its advance.

To even Gorou’s surprise Gunshin had fallen silent.

In the midst of the strange quaking, Akane had become completely frozen.

In preparation to clobber the ginger samurai, it began its advance.

To even Gorou’s surprise, Gunshin had fallen silent.

Hmm, grammar, why you so hard? I guess my main logic for that is if you switch the part after the comma and the part before, it would work as a sentence without needing the comma.

Also, I dunno why, but the word clobber just feels so... comic-like after all of the other colorful descriptions that have been going on this chapter. It sort of broke the moment a bit.

This:
“You are right about one thing, Gunshin,” Gorou took in a deep breath, “because I cannot simply slay it as I have other hollows. But I can kill it,” he paused.

Should be more:
“You are right about one thing, Gunshin,” Gorou took in a deep breath, “because I cannot simply slay it as I have other hollows. But I can kill it.He paused.

He paused does not directly say how the dialogue was said, and you already had one earlier, anyway. Generally, each line of dialogue should only have one part that describes how it is said.

Similar thing here:
“I killed a monster wearing my skin centuries ago, Gunshin. I will take this one to that same cliff and if it does not blink, I will do it again,” the samurai was at last resolute.

This should be:
“I killed a monster wearing my skin centuries ago, Gunshin. I will take this one to that same cliff and if it does not blink, I will do it again.The samurai was at last resolute.

The samurai was at last resolute is its own sentence. It works by itself.

Now, on to more general comments. Hmm, I'm not quite sure which order reading this and the collab would go better. You posted the chapter first, but I read the collab first. The end of the chapter sort of implied hope, but I already knew the other ending.

The chapter itself was great. The madness and primal rage of the hollow really carried through all the way from start to end. Then the struggle between the two of them was done really well. I like how it played out. I probably wouldn't have fully gotten what was going on it if I hadn't read the collab first, though.

Nice job on both of these. It is a great sendoff.​

Collab, The Beam of the Hero Will Kill All Villains: 135
So, not a Keiji chapter. I will admit, I've not seen as much of Gorou.

“Here. Safer f-for every...” he noticed the pain in his comrade’s eyes, “everybody. I cannot...I can’t,” he could not bare to utter the words.

This dialogue would end much nicer on a set of ellipses with the next sentence capitalized, as such:
“Here. Safer f-for every...” he noticed the pain in his comrade’s eyes, “everybody. I cannot...I can’t...He could not bear to utter the words.

Aw snap, cero blade.

This collab was great. All the details about the hollow, how it reacted to things were good. There were a lot of emotions running throughout the fight, and I felt the ending could have gone either way. Ketch gave out a spark of hope, and you extinguished it. From the buildup to the talking during the fighting, it was rife with sadness and desperation. This was sad, but really good. The ending turn from both characters just really hammered the feels in.

I'll just end my comment of this collab with this: Rad Bromance​


Bob
30 Div Bonus
Collab, Chains: 83
This part:
...Is that not what symbolizes what we are?” He asked again.

Should be:
...Is that not what symbolizes what we are?” he asked again.
He asked again is part of the same sentence, that's why it is not capitalized.

“Kill it.’ He said through clenched teeth.

Should be:
“Kill it," he said through clenched teeth.

This is all one sentence, so the dialogue ends in a comma and the following part is not capitalized. Also you had a single quotation mark at the end there.

I won't say I fully get what's going on here, but Captain's get all the interesting stuff, even helping restore a zanpakutou spirit. It was certainly an interesting collab, and I enjoyed how it all played out. I enjoyed getting a look at a shinigami finding his spirit.​


Moon
60 Div Bonus
Chapter, Interference: 180
Was that first paragraph a "previous on" section? It was useful, and I liked it.

And did you just add a "next time on" section? You dog, you.

Now then, onto the technical stuff.

This:
“So you’re my two contacts huh?

should be: "So you're my two contacts, huh?"
When word changed the sentence from a statement to a question, it'll generally be preceded by a comma.

Also, there were a few paragraphs you forgot to put a space in between.

I feel like you feel the need to denote all dialogue with some variation of he said.

For instance:
This was a small bright spot as far as Mariko was concerned. She might have a chance to get away. Ideally she’d get back to Cerberus in time to warn Zakki and halt this whole operation. Of course there was one thing she had to know. She said, “I would indeed like to get right to business. I do have a question because Oni was vague about it. When is the first wave of attacks meant to happen? I only ask because of planning considerations.”

This one would be entirely fine without the She said. I know who's speaking, and it's not as if you're going into more detail than just she said.

Another case:
The Chairman raised an eyebrow and said, “So basically this is all designed to seem as though Cerberus was responsible. Well we’d better start dealing with the first wave now. I’m not sure how much we can really do about the Titans but if we know they’re coming, we can handle them.”

This could go without the and said. Just have him raise an eyebrow. Next sentence is him talking.

Also, Jones smiling isn't really directly describing how his voice/tone was. I think it would work better as: Jones smiled. "We will set off one..." I think this came about because you always include some form of he said with your dialogue. It's proper, but readers can fill in the blanks as long as you've carefully hinted at what the characters are doing.

You are missing a few commas before conjunctions. Basically, if the part before a conjunction is a complete sentence and the part after it is a complete sentence, it should have a comma.

I really liked these two chapters. This was a very Earth way of dealing with problems, and all the mystical stuff took a backseat to good old fashioned undercover work. I got a good sense of Ceberus operations and enjoyed how basically, the characters couldn't fireball their way out of a situation. It's cool to see that powers aren't an end-all solution to everything.

I hope Ono wasn't shot too badly, because the ball joint is in the shoulder. It's pretty hard to fix that area. And I think it would have been nice if she continued to help Zakki in this mission. Magical terrorism sounds like a fun thing to stop.​


Collab, Old Fashioned: 108
It feels weird for a character to use the word tourney. It feels a lot like typing shorthand to me, but I guess people are starting to use that in colloquial speech, too.

If you really want to go for more human/shinigami interactions, you should probably go for a captain, or something. There were plenty around at the tournament. Nothing against Udo, with all due respect no disrespect.

Man, it kinda felt like you two were thugs jumping a guy for his bling. And I find the image of Ulrich just shuffling off while you two talk funny.

I still think Zakki does too much of this stuff himself. Even he thinks that. But I do like how he forges relationships, all friendly-like.​
 
GROUP TWO GRADING

Rob:

83/87 - Breaking Free From These Chains [3465]

Not a bad piece, but there are a couple of pacing issues about the time you hit Ukiyo no Kohon. You lapse into this unfortunate problem of leaving your turns without material to respond to naturally. It forces the other writer to be formative, without being reactionary. It stalls the collab and to be honest goes from the lightning-fast development of events to a slow, plodding measure of Nana being very bare-bones as Lucas has to continually (and exhaustingly) try to get the slightest idea of what's going on.

Your dialogue and grammar is stellar, but this is a very glaring issue.​

Beaks: + 100 Division Bonus

63/63 - They Would All Deceive You [1253]

This was a really, really good piece from you Beaks. You took the time to set up events, give them time to settle, and then started introducing the twists and turns.

Tsubaki acknowledging how often her soul seems to sway and change was a nice touch, and cast a little comedy into the otherwise dramatic piece. I feel like this chapter is the culmination of a lot of things for Tsubaki - including the long-standing troubles you've had nailing her down to a core motivation. My hopes are high, and this chapter brought my expectations up as well.

A couple quick things: ellipses are usually a stylistic choice in prose, and their actual purpose is supposed to be in omission, buuuuuut that's not what I'm talking about. Put a space after your ellipses the same way you would put a space after your periods, basically.

All in all this was a surprisingly good character piece, and went lengths to show that underneath the pop culture references, Tsubaki is a character. She has developed, and will continue to do so until the time she ceases to exist. Whether that ends now, or much later, I look forward to seeing.​

Thana:

100/104 - Snakes and Liars [2085]

Comprehensive critique to come.

- Spacing errors with paragraph breaks (-1)
- Needs to introduce character and character appearance more quickly (+/-)
- Dialogue errors; end with comma when describing a manner of talking in basic sentence. End with period when moving into narrative. (-3)
- Pacing tanks with whiplash to flashback. Needs to introduce more organically with less intrusiveness. (+/-)
- Pacing issues for finale. Comes too quickly, has very little pay-off with very little tension built thus far. Needs to portray danger and emotion on a surface level; physical reactions almost non-existent. (+/-)

105/110 - Animal I Have Become [6619]

Comprehensive critique to come.

- Dialogue errors, see previous. (-3)
- "...Inhaled at the rush of pow..." Incomplete sentence. (-1)
- Not sure if Cero or Bala. If Cero, it's a beam not a ball. If Bala, disregard but make more clear next time. (+/-)
- Lots of pacing issues associated with three-man collabs. Introspection needs to be on the same page as everyone else to avoid bringing down tension and flow. (+/-)
- Another really sudden ending. Needs to allow for more organic denouement and conclusion. (-1)​

Guest Grader: Katie:

Nada.​

Raph's Links For Week 307:

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I still haven't heard from most of you about the future of the Tenth Division.

Dys
Wanna send me a first turn for Ani/Adele Onsen Adventure? I also wouldn't mind involving you in a Christmas collab?

Sibling Arguments and other stories
If Sev was less busy we could resolve things and not be so stuck doing 'over there' chapters, but I enjoy yours. Speaking cat is still weird, but it kinda makes sense that Tabby would speak Cat. Get it? Tabby? But seriously, that chapter added such shipping fuel. The siblings heading toward Tenth seems to be a bit of a jump, but it might ho somewhere interesting so let's see what happens next, shall we?
107/107


Gloam
You get 100% of bounty kan.

Bounty
What a strangely misogynistic first turn. Also, I noticed some odd phrasing ("I guess I like that, I guess,") did sort of distract from your purpose here. You also jumped into shikai pretty fast considering the judgmental way you addressed Resh's eagerness to release. Also not sure you would have time to incant Soukatsui, but I'm not objecting to that. This is mostly nitpicking, little things I noticed and was in a half-empty-glass mood so I decided to harp on.
148/151


Drag
You get 100% of bounty kan.

Bounty
Playing a hollow isn't particularly challenging. Making a hollow compelling is. You played hardcore defensively which is interesting and not often done, but also makes a high-risk high-stakes combat a hard goal to attain. Even when you tried to bring it, I didn't feel a huge amount of pressure. Either the PCs were overreacting or the hollow wasn't a big enough bad. Either way, it didn't feel right. Not sure what's to blame for that, so I'm not hitting you too hard.
70/74
 
Thana

Animal I Have Become [108/110]


I kinda feel like Miya was playing the role that Zakki did in her own pit training. I’m not all that sure that she was necessary in this collab even though you did write her well. I didn’t want to dock too many points for that reason but I still feel as though maybe Miya was superfluous.

Ketch

The Blade of a Hero Will Kill All Monsters [131 /136]


Ketch! You have been cured of thesaurus syndrome! I didn’t find anything to indicate that you were going to overdo it. The writing was crisp, concise and flowed well with Doc’s. I mean you guys always did have good writing chemistry and this is no exception. However...there were a few things. One of them was “Manzou, Manzou, Manzou” over and over again. I think you could describe him in other ways. The other was that in a few places it felt a bit like Doc was carrying the collab more than you were.


Val


Shuku TV [73/78]


So what I liked here was the interaction between Gekijin, Daraku and Shukumei. That all worked nicely together but I felt like the whole learning Garganta Liar was a bit...anti-climactic really. It didn’t feel like you made as strong a representation of the challenge of that event as you might have but you really are very good at portraying the interactions of your characters. That’s what I enjoy most about your pchaps! I just think maybe you rushed this a bit.

Masked Accommodation [78 /78]

I couldn’t find a lot that was wrong with this at all. In fact it really gave you a chance to show the sadness that was inside of Shukumei and the pain he still contends with every single day in knowing all of those that he has lost. Writing-wise it was quite good and you and Bunz do nicely together as writers. It really has been smooth in everything you two have shared.



Animal I Have Become [108/110]


I guess that I can’t really expect this to bring out Shukumei as much as other things you’ve written with Bunz, given that a) Thana was involved and b) it was pretty much her show. However I kinda felt like maybe you lagged a bit here. However it wasn’t enough to get docked mega points or anything at all.



Bunz


Masked Accommodation [78/78]


I promise that I’m not being lazy when I say that most of what I comment on with Val is also applicable to you. You did an excellent job of portraying what Toki has had to face. The fact that she’s had something painful confirmed despite knowing it in her heart, was quite well conveyed. Also my comments about flow are applicable because it really did flow nicely together.


Animal I Have Become [105 /110]

I think that while you’ve done a good job of generally characterizing Toki, in this case, the combat writing was a little shaky. I think you got more repetitive than necessary and there was a bit much tipping of the balance in favor of description over action. It can be a hard thing to do but I just thought there were parts that needed more speed of action and less description. The repetition was a bigger problem though where phrases that were really similar got used. On the plus side, you still kept her in character all along!
 
Abridged grades. Blurg life. I’ll take penalty.

Jewelry Retrieval
Pho [100/102] + 50 Div
Lambo[100/102] + 50 Div


So yay no training collab. I do really like how both of you split up the NPC duties as opposed to loading it on the same person. Oddly enough though, I feel by doing that the relationship between the NPCs was better fleshed out rather than between Udo and Okita. That was a bit disappointing, since they did seem to have a sort of interesting dynamic. Everyone’s so mean to poor Okita. Otherwise, solid work all together and great job. If this is one of those missions with points, take all. I know Eighth has some mission system.

(P.S Pho. Satisfy my OCD and label collabs with another 8th div member [8th/8th/...] kthxbai <3)

Pho
Kneecapping [107/109]

Still totally feel like Zakki should be able to get lackies to pull this stuff off. Either way, Udo is totally racist mang. All sassy against Quincies and Vizards. Psssh. Anyway, that random tangent aside, good work all around. The confrontation seemed a bit rushed in my opinion, since it barely was more than like 2-3 turns. I do think that part could have been either removed or fleshed out more. I did like the early character development and the two meeting up again, and honestly to me that was way more interesting in the end.

Raph
GRAND FINALSSS [148/148] + 50 Div

I’ll be honest, when you told me you and Will were writing blind I was concerned. However, I think you two are used to writing each other enough to not try to pull things out of left field on each other. In a way, this really made the whole thing fun to read. Mouko’s a slippery gypsy and Kyu’s abilities will always be badass. Hecatonchires vs Dai Arashi was the best scene ever. There’s nothing bad, outside of that aforementioned tech shenanigans, so I’m just going to compliment how well the entire thing turned out. It was fluid, really exemplified what the tournament was supposed to be about and altogether a great success overall.
 
Will - 155/155

I hope you don't actually expect more comments because that would just blow your ego. There's nothing left for me to add but more compliments upon compliments. You wrote a fight that embodied the entirety of the World Tournament. Because yes, Will, you are that BAMF. It's just what you do.

Grand Finals - 155/155




Hiren - You missed Reshin, so Bob is going to take care of it. No penalty this week, but you have a warning.
 
Renshin - 120/147

Alright, so this was the first time I have read any of your stuff and I will be blunt and honest. I wasn't really impressed or feeling it. Here is why.

Reading your character feels dry, almost cut and paste. A lot of your sentences have no flow and feel very stop and go as if I am reading a series of actions in bullet form. I'd like to see more flavor, more feeling in your writing. The way you write fights is highly lacking as well. It seems you take a lot of the fights into your own hands, border-lining god-modding. Even at the very start the hollow got the jump on you, and I feel it was an over exaggeration for him to shunpo close, block the attack and make a riposte at him, as later you mentioned how much faster the hollow was than either of you. I feel that you did not leave a lot of room for the Hollow to react.

Your writing shows promise, and you have a good understanding of the systems and how a story is to develop. You just need to refine it a bit, so the story actually flows in with itself. Some of the best stories I have ever read are those where I tell myself, one more page, one more chapter, and in the end I spend another 2-3 hours reading because everything is in place and I lose track.

Other than that, i noticed a few oddly worded sentences and some with extra words in place. They're not glaring issues but they are noticeable and do impede the flow, because when I hit them I had to stop and read them several times to figured out what was wrong. Best way to fix that is to just reread your turns even say them out loud to catch where the speed bumps are.
 

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