All right, so let's talk about Danesfort Zygmunt. His original handler, BadWolfWho, only made 9 posts with him before being handed off to Solitair for another 10, so being such a short-lived character is either a blessing for not being really involved in V3 proper or a curse for not being active enough. Probably somewhere in between, but let's go for it. I'm not the greatest at giving feedback, but I'll give my lame opinions as I read through the legacy of Dane.
- [+] Profile
- I'm willing to say that Dane's profile is pretty okay by pre-V4 standards, there's some eyebrow raising stuff but if there was a lot more detail I think it could be justified. Details like his exact height and weight would be a good start, but we just have qualitative details so we just gotta work with what we've got when trying to picture Dane when he does stuff.
The core of Dane's character history is related to a boating accident that resulted in the death of his mother, and his dad becomes a Sad Dad and moves himself and Dane to America to escape that past... which kind of doesn't make sense to me, but we also have no clue what his father does for a living other than that he becomes a workaholic. This is probably the most "thinking emoji" part of his profile, but again if there were more detail on how the accident affected Dane or even something like more exposition on his relationship with his parents it wouldn't feel so much like the accident is the one defining trait about Dane with like 90% of the rest of the profile being just fluff.
Dane is a bit of a renaissance man with athletic, artistic, and humanitarian pursuits; again, this is fine, but it feels like throwaway interests when only one sentence is devoted to each hobby, if the hobby even has a sentence to talk about why it's relevant to Dane in the first place.
I guess the biggest thing is that, after reading the profile, I don't really feel like I have a good idea of what to expect from Dane as a person. The last paragraph talks about how he keeps to himself and is hard to warm up to but then mentions his good sense of humor, which is a vibe I would not have gotten unless it was directly mentioned. But this is what the profile says, so it's what I'm going to have to assume he will be like come V3.
tl;dr Details make the world go round and lead to a better and happier character profile for a young adult who's gonna die soon anyway.
- [+] Pregame
- N/A (rip)
- [+] Game
- First off: For the love of God please fix your damn thread links when your character comes in or out of a scene or I will come for you myself.
*ahem*
Since there's two handlers responsible for Dane I'm going to give my opinions in both the BadWolf era and the Solitair era.
- [+] Badwolf
- I want to like Dane, I really do. Mostly because in any group situation I know I'm always the pessimistic "I don't know about this plan, guys" kind of guy too so I can kind of relate. He has some good inner dialogue that made me chuckle (which I hope was intentional). However, Dane's biggest problem, in my opinion, is that he just kind of "exists", and stuff happens near him rather than stuff happening to him. Being a support character isn't necessarily a bad thing, but at the same time Dane's internal monologue is usually so dry and barren that he's just not a very compelling read; I'm more interested in the overall arc with the SADD escape group that Dane's a part of rather than wanting to read more of Dane's posts, if that makes sense. No scenes would change if Dane wasn't around; he's wallpaper, which really sucks because I really do want to like him. I can tell he's good boy with his interactions with Dennis and Dominica, so it's unfortunate that Dane doesn't really have much of a push to stick with his story.
This isn't entirely BadWolf's fault, though. In Dane's first thread the only plot-relevant thing that happens is that he meets up with Dennis, Reg, and Dorian and moves over to the Lookout Tower with Dennis and Dorian, and that's about it. And then in the second thread where the SADD escape group comes into play Dane is completely pushed into the background by the stronger personalities like Neil and Dominica (also as a side note I really, really don't believe that the terrorists wouldn't have just instated capital punishment for intentionally destroying cameras from the beginning, let alone destroying multiple like SADD does in A View to a Kill. I know the punishment is delayed and given in the next day's announcements, but still I don't believe the terrorists wouldn't just kill the perpetrators then and there. Early SOTF is weird.) And then Sound and Fury is just a chaotic hot mess – also not Dane's fault as a character. Maybe if Dane had more activity going on in the threads he's in, or if he didn't get sucked into the SADD vortex he would have had a chance to really shine but as it stands I wouldn't recommend him other than being an outsider perspective to part of the SADD plotline.
- [+] Solitair
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Solitair takes over at the end of the very thrilling ride that is Sound and Fury. I think I like the original interpretation of Dane better in comparison, but something I do like about Solitair's version is that his posts have a lot more internal dialogue to them. He visibly starts breaking from the first thread, and when he emerges in Kimmy, Kimmy, Candy Eater he's pretty banged up while searching for Dennis, now his only real motivation to keep fighting.
...But again, Dane is still pretty much wallpaper where nothing would change in most of the threads he joins if he wasn't there. The first and only time he has a real impact is in his death thread Death and All His Friends. Dane is a lot more impulsive and, frankly, stupid, possibly from change in handler or possibly from being delirious because of sleep deprivation and blood loss from getting caught in a bear trap earlier. At least his death is kinda metal; getting sliced by an axe and shot at the same time sure is a way to go.
New child, s'il vous plaît!
