fen's à la carte critique thread

[Fenris]

hey yall im fen and im here to talk about your children

basically the idea here is: sign up with one (1) of your children and pick two (2) things from the list below for me to discuss. i probably won't be writing more than a paragraph for each, possibly just a couple of sentences depending on my feelings on the topic. this isn't a super serious critique thing this is kinda more just for funsies but i promise to be honest! i'm also for the most part trying to stay Positive here so unless u pick the one Negative option i'm going to be keeping things light and smiley and shit. i haven't done this before and tbh have no idea how long these are gonna take me to do or how long i'm gonna want to keep this up for but YEAH

rules and stuff:

• i'm starting with a queue of five; i won't add anyone else to the list after 5. i might expand the queue if this turns out to be easier than im expecting but i'm sticking wtih 5 for now
• only one kid at a time; u cant take up 4 queue spaces with all your kids lmao
• only two questions at a time
• you can rejoin the queue with another kid once it clears
• you can also rejoin the queue with the same kid and different questions if you really wanna (or if you only have one kid)
• please dont pick a pregame-related question for a kid who has no pregame i feel like thats obvious but i wanna say it anyway
• i reserve the right to not answer certain questions for certain kids for whatever reasons (aka either because it spoils my own v7 plans or because i just dont have a good answer) in which case ill probably poke you on discord to ask for a different question

and here is ur list of à la carte options:

1. What are you doing well with this character?
2. What's my favorite scene/post/thread so far with this character?
3. What in pregame from this character would I like to see come up on the island?
4. What did I expect from this character from pregame, and how have they lived up to that expectation?
5. Who do I want to see this character interact with?
6. What do I hope this character does moving forward?
7. How do I think this character would kill someone?
8. How do I think this character might die?
9. How well would I expect your character to do in SotF (ignoring rolls)?
10. What is something I don't like about this character? (this is the Negative Zone: i reserve the right to be kind of a bitch if you pick this one so pls dont pick it if you dont want that)

and HERE is the QUEUE i love lists obviously

• Julien Leblanc (3, 6)
• Adele Jones (1, 4)
• Ace "Beats" Ortega (1, 2)
• Cecil Salazar-Loveless (1, 6)
• Anna "Roxanne" Herbert (1, 6)

signups are open! feel free to just give numbers for the questions you want instead of typing them out or whatever lmao. after five people sign up ill start writing these things

[Emprexx Plush]

hi hello hi nona harte pls

1. What are you doing well with this character?

2. What did I expect from this character from pregame, and how have they lived up to that expectation?

[Sh4dE]

Layla, 5 and 10, please !

[Jilly]

Ah, the king of gossip. We meet again.

#1 and #4 with Desiree pls

[Somersault]

Kelly, 6 and 10!

[Deamon]

Arizona 2 and 10 please

[Fenris]

queue is closed! i owe posts but if i still have spoons once those are done ill bang these out. otherwise tomorrow lmao

[Fenris]

[+] Nona Hart

1. What are you doing well with this character?

nona makes me BIG SAD. like okay a lot of that is personal, nona hits a lot of personal notes for me re: anxiety and dysphoria so it's very easy for me to empathise and also hard for me to use female pronouns while writing this lmao, but i dont feel like the impact would go away if i didnt have that personal attachment to the subject matter. nona's just a person who spent her whole life on the verge of falling apart and now that she's in the worst possible situation she just cannot handle it and has retreated into total denial, and it's just really... sad. like i wanna shake her and i know that wouldn't even help. the short version is nona gets a big emotional reaction out of me and i think that's a powerful thing to be able to create as a writer!

4. What did I expect from this character from pregame, and how have they lived up to that expectation?

i gotta say i wasn't expecting the depths of denial that nona has gone to. i did expect some level of denial, trying to outrun reality, just because she's So anxious and dealing with the actual reality of the game would be too hard for her so retreating into something else would just be an easier route to take but i wouldn't have guessed it would be this unconscious thing where she seems genuinely unaware that she's doing it, i figured it would be a conscious coping mechanism. this version is sadder tho tbh

[+] Layla DeBerg

5. Who do I want to see this character interact with?

hmm. i don't wanna say "i can't answer this" but its hard to answer since layla's lacking in any pre-established relationships and hasn't done a lot yet. i would have said ron if you hadnt already gone after him in thread 2 lmao. i'd like for her to run into a friend, which i know is tricky because pre-established relationships etc, but just someone w/ similar interests that you can assume she has a prior relationship with, because i want to see how she reacts to someone that she actually cares for considering her default stance at this point has been somewhat scared and aggressive.

10. What is something I don't like about this character?
i don't, like, get what layla's deal is. like first she's hiding her weapon from ron, and it seems like its because she just doesn't want to reveal what her weapon is, which is fair enough. then she's startled and lashes out at ron which i guess is also fair in this situation, but then she just... stands there when he runs away and other people are around? like, if she's panicked, why doesn't she just run off? and then she Does run off after ron, supposedly because he seems less dangerous, but by the time she finds him she decides she's going to kill him??? and then when they start talking again she immediately pivots back to oh lets all be friends, which i get is probably a lie but Still its kind of like. all over the place. i have no idea what layla's actual motivations are and she hasnt even done much yet and i'm already kinda lost, ngl.

[+] Desiree Beck

1. What are you doing well with this character?

desiree is like a in human form and i approve of that. im tempted to link that flossing gif i used in her murder rating and make that the whole critique. this is more of a general "thing you're doing well" rather than one for desiree in particular but i seriously appreciate ur dedication to just btfoing your kids, and also ur commit to Comedy Despite Despair which comes across w/ desiree in a very deadpan, Depressed Gen Z sort of way, which is a mood even tho im way too old to be gen z woops. idk its just a very like. engaging tone you have going where even when desiree isnt doing much its still pretty funny, but the pathos is still there when you go for it. like i still feel bad for her but also like, memes

4. What did I expect from this character from pregame, and how have they lived up to that expectation?

memes

no seriously like i find the decision to have desiree have her stuff stolen immediately fascinating because it forces her to team up with other people right away when that obviously isn't what she prefers on a daily basis. like based on her pregame i would have expected her to have stayed on her own for as long as possible, just interacting with groups as they pass her by, or maybe teaming up with one person just for the sake of protection, but because she's literally defenseless she has no choice but to join a group and hey look she has friends now kind of sort of maybe. i unno if that was an intentional choice or not but it was a really good way to work around what i would have expected and give a real good reason for desiree to go in a totally different direction

[+] Kelly Nguyen

6. What do I hope this character does moving forward?

im really into this sketchy manipulative thing kelly's leaning into right now. like i appreciate the day one arc of kelly being her sort of kind, wishy-washy self and then getting booted off a fuckin yacht and schlepping across the island and watching basically an attempted murder in progress and then being like "yknow what! fuck it!" and just leaning full-tilt into trying to manipulate a boy she knows is a good person into potentially dying for her sake because she knows he'll do it. that's pretty hardcore but its a fair jump, considering what happened to her. i dunno if you have plans with bryan set going forward but whether its with him or other people i'd love to see her keep going with this strategy, see where it does or doesn't work, and keep adapting with circumstances. adapting has kind of been her watchword so far, and seeing her adjust her tactics to fit her prey going forward would be Dope especially cause she knows people well enough to stick them where it hurts potentially.

10. What is something I don't like about this character?

okay i feel like i already bitched about this a little bit in chat when it happened but jeez that jump from the yacht to the memorial garden kills me. like i know people are leaping around the island in improbable stretches of time all the time, but this one drives me crazy just cause its a wakeup thread and it just doesn't add up and also kelly doesn't really add anything to the scene. like i'm enjoying her interaction with bryan now but i feel like it's an interaction she could have had with someone else in another thread that makes more sense without losing anything.

[+] Arizona Butler

2. What's my favorite scene/post/thread so far with this character?

prom! with! jonah! can i count both the pre-prom and the prom scenes because they're both very cute. idk, arizona's just such a hard-edged character and i love that about here, i love how strong she is and yet how insecure she is because she isn't The Best even though she's already great, and there are several scenes that show that off in various ways, but even though that insecurity is a vulnerability its a vulnerability that she's constantly protecting. the prom scenes display a different kind of vulnerability for arizona and also her and jonah are just fuckin cute as hell and i really appreciate the realistic level of like, crushing happening interspersed with mild teenage awkwardness. its Cute

10. What is something I don't like about this character?

i feel like this is a copout answer but i really like arizona but my biggest issue with her is just that she hasn't done a lot yet? her pregame is primarily about her feelings re: basketball and the team, which don't really change over the course of pregame. the prom threads are a good change of pace, and then she's in one slow-moving thread on the island so far, and it just isn't like... a lot to work with yet, which bums me out a little cause arizona has a ton of potential. like for point of comparison forrest has Also been in one slow-moving thread on the island so far but i feel like she's done more emotional work in that thread to get me invested despite the lack of action; arizona right now is just kinda there outside of her first couple of posts. i recognize this is kind of a problem that's just gonna be solved with time but like. yknow. i like arizona >_>

queue is cleared, signups are back open, etc

[Endellion]

3 and 6, please.

[Somersault]

hahahaha oops but uh

Adele Jones, 1 and 4?

[Buko]

We will go 1/10 for balance

[LeslieFranc]

1 and 6 for Cecil please?

[Yugikun]

Hm.

Roxanne, 1 and 6.