The V3 Read-A-thon Redux
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Ruggahissy
- Posts: 1593
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:13 pm
Jilly: Sloan Henriksen
Yona: Corbin Arlen
Rugga: Evan Angler
Brad write up tomorrow when I'm less tired.
Yona: Corbin Arlen
Rugga: Evan Angler
Brad write up tomorrow when I'm less tired.
?At age 4, he lost his mother in a terrorist attack on her workplace, Applied Technology Corporation. The only memories he has about the attack are that it happened when he was 4, he lost his mother in it, and a sketch of the perpetrator, who was of vaguely Eastern European descent.
???He was taken on his first hunting trip at age 10. It was readily apparent that he had no problem killing animals; whether he'll have a problem killing humans remains to be seen, but it's likely that he won't. He started drum lessons at age 11. Again, it's highly doubtful that this will have a whole ton of bearing on the situation.
????????????????????????????His friends (who, aside from Jimmy Trejo, don't appear to have boarded the plane) have called him a smartass. They're right. Sloan's the kind of person who would die flipping you the bird if he thought it would piss you off. Sloan's the kind of person who will make smartass remarks at people who would murder him brutally in a heartbeat.
His closest friend, who did not board the plane, said this about him: "Sloan's a good guy, but he's fucking disgusting. When most people say they want to kill a motherfucker, they mean they want to shoot them in the head. When Sloan says he wants to kill a motherfucker, he means he wants to slice all their limbs off, mutilate their face, cut their intestines out and leave them there to rot. Fortunately he doesn't get like this very often, hence the good guy comment."
Ok so with that profile jank out of the way, I’m gonna be honest. I kinda like Sloan...... at first. Heavy asterisk by that.
Is he good? No. Is he quality? No But is he worthwhile? No. But he is fun, in a kinda wack and early SOTF sillyness way.
That being said.
Sloan is a great lesson about reading the room, both from an in-character and out-of-character experience. His last thread, At a Loss, is even one of the historic reasons why death threads are (usually) private, or at least it’s why wandering into and disrupting very serious scenes is considered a HUGE faux pas.
Imagine you have a heartfelt but tragic scene set up, with a reunion cut very short by a gunman hiding in the (murder)bushes. Imagine you have it set up to where the shot character will die in the arms of another, and the gunman who also got fatally shot tries to crawl his way over to apologize for his massive mistake (not like that would change the situation but like, ya know, besides the point).
Then imagine some jabroni wanders in when the bodies haven’t even gotten cold, asking you to let him and his companion who may or may not exist by, in an open area where someone could, say, easily just go around them. Imagine the jabroni does everything in his power to more or less escalate the situation, a situation he himself knowingly wandered into. Imagine said jabroni dies, and his last two posts have out-of-characters notes about how, why yes, he just referenced Gurren Lagann and Unreal Tournament, how could you tell?
All I can say is OOF. Sloan’s wiki page says he got rolled so I have no clue how soon that happened in coorelation with him wandering into Jake Henkie and Jeff Thorne’s death thread, but like. Wow. I really am speechless at the audacity for someone to completely derail a scene like this. Like, I know it’s kind of a meme about how people used to just wander in to throw a grenade and leave, especially in V3 days, but I think this kind of situation is somehow worse. And it’s not a great look on Sloan as a character’s part either, like I was kinda into him and vibing along in his first thread but this last one made my opinion on him do a complete nosedive and soured the whole thing.
So, do I recommend Sloan? HARD NO. He has no real value other than as a case study on how important, important, important it is to read the mood of the room before going wandering into any threads, even if they’re technically open. Please don’t be a Sloan.
….Give me another kid, please.
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Ruggahissy
- Posts: 1593
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:13 pm
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Ruggahissy
- Posts: 1593
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:13 pm
I have finally finished.
BRAD
RABD
DARB
Hello. I’m here to talk to you all about Brad. Let’s begin.
FINAL THOUGHTS: This character seems to have been missed as one of the trademark crazy ones back in the day, but it is only because his insanity is subtle. The narrative is constantly pushing this idea that Brad is all kinds of things. He’s a wronged victim, he’s actually a badass from his jail time (joining every single gang), he’s in love with Serentiy despite talking to her twice. I’ll say I started to forget how much I was frustrated going into the escape threads because he becomes so flat that there is nothing objectionable. But it comes back so strongly in the epilogue. The epilogue goes as far as to have other characters tell him that, no, he is good and kind. But all the evidence I’ve seen shows him to be a selfish jerk. I like the parts of the game where he acts like a crybaby and a doofus, because that feels truer to who he is. But he’s so god damn invested in this awful nonsense prison storyline that it makes the character concept almost unsalvageable because he insists on going back to it over and over. His last act is one of extreme selfishness and it’s somehow not played that way? This is a case of the writer trying to push a narrative of a kid where his actions don’t match up and that makes me mad. He’s not as bad as some of the way bonkers characters, but I think that almost makes him worse? He’s not even fun. I hope he never leaves his poop vegetable slave farm.
BRAD
RABD
DARB
Hello. I’m here to talk to you all about Brad. Let’s begin.
FINAL THOUGHTS: This character seems to have been missed as one of the trademark crazy ones back in the day, but it is only because his insanity is subtle. The narrative is constantly pushing this idea that Brad is all kinds of things. He’s a wronged victim, he’s actually a badass from his jail time (joining every single gang), he’s in love with Serentiy despite talking to her twice. I’ll say I started to forget how much I was frustrated going into the escape threads because he becomes so flat that there is nothing objectionable. But it comes back so strongly in the epilogue. The epilogue goes as far as to have other characters tell him that, no, he is good and kind. But all the evidence I’ve seen shows him to be a selfish jerk. I like the parts of the game where he acts like a crybaby and a doofus, because that feels truer to who he is. But he’s so god damn invested in this awful nonsense prison storyline that it makes the character concept almost unsalvageable because he insists on going back to it over and over. His last act is one of extreme selfishness and it’s somehow not played that way? This is a case of the writer trying to push a narrative of a kid where his actions don’t match up and that makes me mad. He’s not as bad as some of the way bonkers characters, but I think that almost makes him worse? He’s not even fun. I hope he never leaves his poop vegetable slave farm.
if you're a james/nope/trash kid in v3-4 that usually means that you'll be in a thread and not posted with for several months before wandering into your death, so let's see if hayden continues the pattern:
profile
hayden's profile paints him as a trash loser who plays too much online gaming and who still gets his hair cut at his mom's hairdresser, to which i say most of us can relate at points. it's a good profile for v3, no complaints here. he also has no character conclusion because it was during that transition point of v3 where profiles were just t-shirt gunned into v3 like many a shirt sailing towards maude flanders so who has time for those
pregame
this also means he was made during the game and as such has no pregame! moving on!
v3
hayden is introduced in media res, as one was wont to do in v3, where he reveals he's been hiding for days and is looking for a gun to defend himself. he hears the gunshot happening in the active thread he's in and hides, but this just means he goes several months without a post and his next post is him having fallen asleep at some point, after which he wakes up and runs off.
he then ends up in a thread with james brown, trish mccarroll and danni champney gee i wonder who's going to be the side character here. anyway, he's gone crazy, tried to eat bark, stripped mostly naked and caught a fever, so naturally he attacks trish before being body blocked by danni and is then subsequently shot and killed by trish.
in conclusion
hayden was a james/nope/trash kid in v3-4 that was in a thread, not posted with for several months, before wandering into his death. if you're reading james/trish/danni you'll encounter him so no real point in reading him on his own.
another child please!
profile
hayden's profile paints him as a trash loser who plays too much online gaming and who still gets his hair cut at his mom's hairdresser, to which i say most of us can relate at points. it's a good profile for v3, no complaints here. he also has no character conclusion because it was during that transition point of v3 where profiles were just t-shirt gunned into v3 like many a shirt sailing towards maude flanders so who has time for those
pregame
this also means he was made during the game and as such has no pregame! moving on!
v3
hayden is introduced in media res, as one was wont to do in v3, where he reveals he's been hiding for days and is looking for a gun to defend himself. he hears the gunshot happening in the active thread he's in and hides, but this just means he goes several months without a post and his next post is him having fallen asleep at some point, after which he wakes up and runs off.
he then ends up in a thread with james brown, trish mccarroll and danni champney gee i wonder who's going to be the side character here. anyway, he's gone crazy, tried to eat bark, stripped mostly naked and caught a fever, so naturally he attacks trish before being body blocked by danni and is then subsequently shot and killed by trish.
in conclusion
hayden was a james/nope/trash kid in v3-4 that was in a thread, not posted with for several months, before wandering into his death. if you're reading james/trish/danni you'll encounter him so no real point in reading him on his own.
another child please!
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Ruggahissy
- Posts: 1593
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:13 pm
first post: eheheh i'm gonna hide, unlike that idiot Jeff who is being killed by the Poison Angles
second post killing him via dangerzone/staff: oh no I have fallen down the well and can't get out, fuck
---
uhhhh yeah. I guess his first post had a bit of a biting voice and the death is notable, but....well, c'mon, lets not kid ourselves here. short v3 profile + no pregame + only two posts is fairly easy Read-A-Thon math to solve.
one more?
second post killing him via dangerzone/staff: oh no I have fallen down the well and can't get out, fuck
---
uhhhh yeah. I guess his first post had a bit of a biting voice and the death is notable, but....well, c'mon, lets not kid ourselves here. short v3 profile + no pregame + only two posts is fairly easy Read-A-Thon math to solve.
one more?
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Ruggahissy
- Posts: 1593
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:13 pm
Alright, there isn't much on Michael's handler as his profile been deleted and Michael was the only character he had according to the wiki. Gunblazer 42 their name was. We will remember thee.
So Michael's profile is both good and bad, sort of. His appearance is filled out and I can picture this guy in my head pretty well. And there isn't any weird messing with the format.
Now the gist of it, his biography. There's barely any history here, as it mostly covers Michael's personality. So you get a good sense of that, but not much about his parents or family for that matter, school, grades, future plans etc. And since there isn't any pregame to him either, all character is given on island.
His advantages/disadvantages is all about the fact he's albino, no seriously.
"Advantages: Being an albino, he is legally blind and nearsighted. As such, he usually sees things others would miss since he has to get up close to see them. He also likes to make the use of the environment to create mental landmarks to prevent getting lost, or to remember where important things were located. And being nearsighted, his other senses make up for the lack in vision. Not to the point of being superhuman, but they're somewhat better then normal people's. He likes thinking rationally and tries to plan out his moves, as well.
Disadvantages: Being an albino, he is legally blind and nearsighted. As such, he can't see that far off, and will usually miss things others can see. He can make contrast very well though, so he knows that something's there. But if there's text, he won't be able to read it unless it's very large. And, of course, there is also the issue of the sun and the fact that he turns beet red if exposed for more than 10 minutes. So he likes, or has to, to stay in indoor or very shaded areas."
Got a lot of mileage out of that, he did. It's pretty bad honestly, like he couldn't think of something not involving him being an albino for his advantages/disadvantages to use. Bits of it even looks like it got copypasted actually.
Right, getting sidetracked. Michael has 4 threads. His first is a oneshot and the rest are normal threads. Luckily none of them have gone to the obnoxious length Dennis's thread was so this won't take long.
Michael starts out on the fifth day, having decided to stay in the jungle due to the sunlight. I'm so glad we don't do the characters show up during the course the game anymore, so people don't have to fish out excuses like this. It's very hackneyed writing.
It's mostly about him being stuck in the jungle, bemoaning his weapon (a wrench) and the fact he's alone. After a while he decides to make his way to the airfield after doing head and tails with a wrench for his decision making.
Shows up on the last post on the second page, making me have to read Sloan where there is no punishment severe enough for. Honestly, nothing happens for him in this thread. He plays heads and tails again with his wrench, searches a hangar for a bit before leaving. It's obvious he was hoping to interact with Anna and Sloan, but both bail pretty quickly in some short posts. Then he leaves as well.
Oh, four pages. Oh dear. I have no problem reading a lot of stuff, but since this is V3 I'm curious how much of it is just people going in and out instead of making a new thread.
Ok so this wasn't noted on his wiki, but Michael's been adopted at this point by Pigeon Army. Looking them up on the wiki in V3 they had other than Michael, Dorian Sanders, Leo Curtis and Kathy Holden. I've read all three of them, they all seem pretty good. Their also known for their V4 work with Maf Tuigamala, Dustin Royal, Max Neill and Rachel Gettys. So from the body of their work I'm looking forward to this.
He meets up with Evan Angler, Dawn Beckworth and Abel Williams at the swinging bridge. Things look to start cordially enough until almost immediatly after Evan's post greeting him and warning him not to spook Dawn suddenly with his appearance since she's deaf, Melina Frost comes out of nowhere and shoots at Michael. Poison Angels ( I think their name was?) rolling into the thread --- Interlude: Laz getting yelled at for not reading the thread he wants to join --- And then everything kind of goes crazy for a second with guns being pointed at people and people leaving and post order along with activity has gone to full shit judging by the ooc notes. (one of the aspects we've lost with the migration being the time of posting so I can only judge by those unless I want to trek back to the forbidden land)
Both Evan and Dawn leave during this, more ooc notes on where characters are at occur and finally Michael leave the thread with Abel.
Michael's final thread starts with Eddie Sullivan so I've got high hopes now. Abel and Michael enter after Eddie falls asleep thinking of the people he'd met and start befriending one another proper. For some reason sweet home alabama is playing in Michael's head, apparantly because Abel's country as fuck? The two start dancing and singing it, but not before tragedy strikes with one misplaced footstep from Michael sends Abel crashing head first into a few rocks, killing him.
Michael's reaction is to run around in panic until he runs into a tree and knocks himself out.
Eddie wakes up, finds Michael and tries to check up on him. More people join, in this case Jimmy Trejo and Lyn Burbank. An entire conversation ensues between the three where Michael pretends to still be unconcious. Mid convo Lyn finds Guy Rapide's body along with Mary's dead baby fetus. And Mary's body made to look like a...homunculus according to the thread here?
And now you know why staff won't allow pregnant girls anymore.
All three leave pretty quickly after that. Michael gets up and reveals he's lost his memory of the previous events. He doesn't know he killed Abel.
Enter Bobby Jacks.
Michael immediatly accuses him of killing Abel, seemingly apes Princess Bride and attacks. In return, Bobby shoots, but misses and hits a...landmine?! Blowing that up which doesn't kill Michael, no, instead it unleashes another trap --- A swinging log that smashes Michael's neck to pieces, killing him.
So, after all that can I recommend Michael? Unfortunatly, I wouldn't. While there's nothing wrong with him writing wise, Gunblazer 42's writing with the character was fine, just unfortunate timing on their part and Pigeon did better elsewhere in V3 and would do better work circa V4. There's also very little happening in his story. His first two threads have nothing happening in them and while stuff starts happening to him in his last two. OOC reasons for the third keeps it from being good and the last gets a bit too contrived for my tastes.
So Michael's profile is both good and bad, sort of. His appearance is filled out and I can picture this guy in my head pretty well. And there isn't any weird messing with the format.
Now the gist of it, his biography. There's barely any history here, as it mostly covers Michael's personality. So you get a good sense of that, but not much about his parents or family for that matter, school, grades, future plans etc. And since there isn't any pregame to him either, all character is given on island.
His advantages/disadvantages is all about the fact he's albino, no seriously.
"Advantages: Being an albino, he is legally blind and nearsighted. As such, he usually sees things others would miss since he has to get up close to see them. He also likes to make the use of the environment to create mental landmarks to prevent getting lost, or to remember where important things were located. And being nearsighted, his other senses make up for the lack in vision. Not to the point of being superhuman, but they're somewhat better then normal people's. He likes thinking rationally and tries to plan out his moves, as well.
Disadvantages: Being an albino, he is legally blind and nearsighted. As such, he can't see that far off, and will usually miss things others can see. He can make contrast very well though, so he knows that something's there. But if there's text, he won't be able to read it unless it's very large. And, of course, there is also the issue of the sun and the fact that he turns beet red if exposed for more than 10 minutes. So he likes, or has to, to stay in indoor or very shaded areas."
Got a lot of mileage out of that, he did. It's pretty bad honestly, like he couldn't think of something not involving him being an albino for his advantages/disadvantages to use. Bits of it even looks like it got copypasted actually.
Right, getting sidetracked. Michael has 4 threads. His first is a oneshot and the rest are normal threads. Luckily none of them have gone to the obnoxious length Dennis's thread was so this won't take long.
Michael starts out on the fifth day, having decided to stay in the jungle due to the sunlight. I'm so glad we don't do the characters show up during the course the game anymore, so people don't have to fish out excuses like this. It's very hackneyed writing.
It's mostly about him being stuck in the jungle, bemoaning his weapon (a wrench) and the fact he's alone. After a while he decides to make his way to the airfield after doing head and tails with a wrench for his decision making.
Shows up on the last post on the second page, making me have to read Sloan where there is no punishment severe enough for. Honestly, nothing happens for him in this thread. He plays heads and tails again with his wrench, searches a hangar for a bit before leaving. It's obvious he was hoping to interact with Anna and Sloan, but both bail pretty quickly in some short posts. Then he leaves as well.
Oh, four pages. Oh dear. I have no problem reading a lot of stuff, but since this is V3 I'm curious how much of it is just people going in and out instead of making a new thread.
Ok so this wasn't noted on his wiki, but Michael's been adopted at this point by Pigeon Army. Looking them up on the wiki in V3 they had other than Michael, Dorian Sanders, Leo Curtis and Kathy Holden. I've read all three of them, they all seem pretty good. Their also known for their V4 work with Maf Tuigamala, Dustin Royal, Max Neill and Rachel Gettys. So from the body of their work I'm looking forward to this.
He meets up with Evan Angler, Dawn Beckworth and Abel Williams at the swinging bridge. Things look to start cordially enough until almost immediatly after Evan's post greeting him and warning him not to spook Dawn suddenly with his appearance since she's deaf, Melina Frost comes out of nowhere and shoots at Michael. Poison Angels ( I think their name was?) rolling into the thread --- Interlude: Laz getting yelled at for not reading the thread he wants to join --- And then everything kind of goes crazy for a second with guns being pointed at people and people leaving and post order along with activity has gone to full shit judging by the ooc notes. (one of the aspects we've lost with the migration being the time of posting so I can only judge by those unless I want to trek back to the forbidden land)
Both Evan and Dawn leave during this, more ooc notes on where characters are at occur and finally Michael leave the thread with Abel.
Michael's final thread starts with Eddie Sullivan so I've got high hopes now. Abel and Michael enter after Eddie falls asleep thinking of the people he'd met and start befriending one another proper. For some reason sweet home alabama is playing in Michael's head, apparantly because Abel's country as fuck? The two start dancing and singing it, but not before tragedy strikes with one misplaced footstep from Michael sends Abel crashing head first into a few rocks, killing him.
Michael's reaction is to run around in panic until he runs into a tree and knocks himself out.
Eddie wakes up, finds Michael and tries to check up on him. More people join, in this case Jimmy Trejo and Lyn Burbank. An entire conversation ensues between the three where Michael pretends to still be unconcious. Mid convo Lyn finds Guy Rapide's body along with Mary's dead baby fetus. And Mary's body made to look like a...homunculus according to the thread here?
And now you know why staff won't allow pregnant girls anymore.
All three leave pretty quickly after that. Michael gets up and reveals he's lost his memory of the previous events. He doesn't know he killed Abel.
Enter Bobby Jacks.
Michael immediatly accuses him of killing Abel, seemingly apes Princess Bride and attacks. In return, Bobby shoots, but misses and hits a...landmine?! Blowing that up which doesn't kill Michael, no, instead it unleashes another trap --- A swinging log that smashes Michael's neck to pieces, killing him.
So, after all that can I recommend Michael? Unfortunatly, I wouldn't. While there's nothing wrong with him writing wise, Gunblazer 42's writing with the character was fine, just unfortunate timing on their part and Pigeon did better elsewhere in V3 and would do better work circa V4. There's also very little happening in his story. His first two threads have nothing happening in them and while stuff starts happening to him in his last two. OOC reasons for the third keeps it from being good and the last gets a bit too contrived for my tastes.