How's My Driving | July 2013

[ironwood]

Three months have already passed since the last HMD? You betcha! This means that it's time to kick off the fourth quarterly gamewide HMD here in Tu Shanshu! Things are getting structured a little differently this time, so read on for details.

How's My Driving?
While each and every character must have an HMD page available, we offer a gamewide HMD once every calendar quarter. This is an opportunity to get together and discuss IC interpretations and portrayals in a respectful, beneficial fashion. In a nutshell, it's a chance to see how we're doing in the grand scheme of things.

There are a few ground rules to cover off before we can start:

• Participation in the quarterly HMD is 100% optional.
  
• Be respectful, anon or not. It's a lot easier to give and receive crit if all parties are making it a discussion of it rather than an argument.
  
• IP logging is off and anonymous commenting is on. You can offer crit signed-in if you like, but the option's there.
  
• New! We ask that each concrit provided consist of one positive and one constructive bit of feedback. Bring up something that you like about that player, and in the same comment provide something that you feel they could work on. This is to help round out the feedback and provide a better experience all around.
  

That's it, that's all!

And, to make things easier, here's a handy-dandy codeset:

<big><b><i>Player Name</i></b></big> <i>Character Name:</i> <i>Canon:</i> <i>User Name:</i> <I>Focus:</i> Optional. Do you have particular concerns about your portrayal that you'd like to be the focus of crit? You can link any threads you'd like a second opinion on here. If you're looking for structural feedback, or would prefer things like grammar not be mentioned, put it here.

Comments

[alpha_squad_leader]

Eric
Character Name: Victor Borkowski
Canon: Marvel 616
User Name: alpha_squad_leader
Focus: I'm on hiatus until the 14th to help fight a bit of burnout and hopefully recharge on Vic's usual energy and activity levels. I needed a bit of a break from Vic feeling mostly frustrated and depressed over some events. So any comments appreciated.

[dustonmyfeet]

K
Character Name: Toph Bei Fong
Canon: Avatar: The Last Airbender
User Name: dustonmyfeet
Focus: Nothing in particular I guess, but I always want to make sure her voice is coming across strongly. She's a new muse, and I'm loving exploring with her, but being very careful to have her actions and voice sound Toph-like.

Character Name: Amelia wil Tesla Saillune
Canon: Slayers
User Name: willofjustice
Focus: I'm really struggling with Amelia right now. She's a pretty old muse, and last time I had to let her go, it was due to burnout. In previous games, she evolved so much from canon baseline that it's surprisingly challenging to nail her voice back to that point. I'd be curious to know how she's sounding and would particularly appreciate ideas on how I could better get her involved . . . most things I've tried so far have petered out or failed utterly, and the combination of voice problems and difficult involvement worries me.

Chiqui | Marius Pontmercy and Leo Valdez

[saisamour]

Chiqui
Character Name: Marius Pontmercy
Canon: Les Miserables
User Name: saisamour
Focus: Mainly how I've been handling Marius since the disappearance of Cosette. Whether he's too out and about, or too little of him in action? It's admittedly been difficult to gauge what his next actions would be aside from COSETTE IS GONE MY LIFE IS WORTH NOTHING so feedback on where I've been taking him so far is much appreciated. :3

Character Name: Leo Valdez
Canon: Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus
User Name: fotia
Focus: LOL idk

And in general, any feedback on my activity or writing or ooc behavior whatever else you have in mind? :3

[urbanmagic]

Reine
Character Name: Traci Thirteen
Canon: DC Comics
User Name: urbanmagic
Focus: Am I making Traci too friendly? Too flighty? Too anything? I admit to being worried about her either knowing too little or too much about things, (Too little of the superhero community and too much about other stuff to be specific) Is her voice off, etc? Comics is kind of weird to me since Traci is supposedly Asian with a British accent but apparently her personality is more forged by America so yeah, she's a weird one for me and I'd love all the help I can get.

I'm currently on hiatus, but despite that I am aware of my tendency to have fluctuating activity levels. (Some weeks I am in the mood, then some weeks I disappear entirely) This is mostly because of constant RL burnout, so no need to point that out.

[constants]

Crit for Jim! Because he's the only one I know well enough to actually crit.

Let me just start off by saying that I had things to crit you on and then went "well I should just go check that handy dandy thread tracker and make sure my crit is valid!" And then it, you know, wasn't because you were doing all the things I thought of. Because you're just sort of flawless like that. So I'm going to start off by saying that I really love your Jim! I think right now he's really solid on being sassy and hitting on women (esp. sassy with the bit running into the bar in the thread with Spock and Castiel and then commenting about the blacksmith)(yes I did actually scan or read all the June activity posted to your thread tracker, sorry for being such a creep I swear it's all in the name of crit and love). I'm not sure if all your June activity is in there, but at least from what I noticed it looks like you might not actually be carrying through the weight of his known future enough? Certainly he'd still be all funny and stuff, but except for the log right after and the thread with Bruce, I didn't notice a lot of it coming up. Again, this might be because the post isn't up to date/complete.

I'm sorry for that giant paragraph of text! Bottom line, I really like your Jim and he's fantastic and you're fantastic! Depending on if your thread tracking post is up to date or not you might be able to add a bit more Into Darkness induced emo into his character.

[loveandloyalty]

Nekky
Character Name: Arthur Curry
Canon: DC Comics
User Name: relentlesstide
Focus: I had some OOC issues around the beginning of the month/end of last month, and I know I flaked out with Arthur a lot. Said issues kind of dropped my motivation to tag with him to 0 and drove my anxiety up, but I'm trying to get over that and get back on ball.

Character Name: Bucky Barnes
Canon: Marvel 616
User Name: beganwithamask
Focus: I'm generally pretty comfortable with Bucky so I don't think I really have much of a focus with him, but if you think there's anything I'm off on, please do let me know!

Character Name: Renly Baratheon
Canon: A Song of Ice and Fire
User Name: loveandloyalty
Focus: Still settling into his voice, whoops. This is the first time I've played a character experiencing this much "what is technology and indoor plumbing" culture shock and I'm also still reviewing and working on speech patterns. That said, any specifics that I should work on are welcome! He hasn't been super out and about yet because it's been an adjustment, but that should change.

Kate → Costigan, Johnny Storm, Hayley Stark

[faceofthe4]

Kate
Character Name: Billy Costigan
Canon: The Departed
User Name: lostundercover
Focus: PLEASE CRIT ME.

Character Name: Johnny Storm
Canon: Fantastic Four (MCU)
User Name: faceofthe4
Focus: I know I need to add more introspection/motivation to him.

Character Name: Hayley Stark
Canon: Hard Candy
User Name: everylittlegirl
Focus: PLEASE CRIT ME. I'm worried about the balance in expressing her introspection/motivation. I try to reveal things like that she might be lying or might see similarities, but generally don't mention that she wants to murder them or that she's completely playing them or the like because I worry that such unpleasant ooc commentary can reduce the quality of an ic interaction. Any feedback on that would be particularly appreciated.

[jirk]

Do you mind if I ask what the things you thought of were? Because I'm def interested!

And yeah, my big concern is not over-doing the ID trauma so I tend to go vastly the other way, I don't really like drawing attention to my character's problems and I get nervous and jittery that people might think I'm running around looking for attention when I do it, haha. I did update my thread trackers though, since... I didn't realize I hadn't, oops.

The trauma mostly surfaces in threads with his close CR (a lot of the threads with Kyle and/or Spock touch on it) and it's almost all introspection, since Jim tries to project this aura of 'bulletproof' to everyone around him, but I'm glad to know I'm not pushing it too far in the direction I was worried about, and I'll try to make it a little more visible.

<33 ty bb you are fabulous and ilu.

[wallcrawler]

Saint
Character Name: Peter Parker / Spider-Man
Canon: Spectacular Spider-Man (Animated)
User Name: wallcrawler
Focus: Any and all, though any input on whether or not I'm doing a good enough job keeping Spidey's voice distinct from Livewire's would be a plus. Since they both get kind of snarky and informal.

Character Name: Livewire
Canon: Superman: The Animated Series
User Name: shockjock
Focus: See above! Also, definitely hoping for more crit with her, since I'm still fairly rusty with her.

Chel

[angermanaging]

Chel
Character Name: Bruce Banner
Canon: MCU
User Name: angermanaging | Anon-enabled HMD
Focus: I did receive some very helpful input recently to the effect of not overanalyzing so much, and have been attempting to work on that. Otherwise, I'm really always interested in hearing how I'm doing with him! Sometimes playing a character for too long gets you overly comfortable with them and you sort of lose focus on the original characterization, and I don't want that to happen.

Character Name: Raimei Shimizu
Canon: Nabari no Ou
User Name: anomia | Anon-enabled HMD
Focus: Most of the game is canon blind so I'd ESPECIALLY love characterization or voice input from those that do know it. But canon blind people are very welcome to talk about how I'm doing with her more generally as well. She's super new and an unusual character type for me.

[angermanaging]

I actually really enjoy your Temeraire. Admittedly it's been ages since I read the books, but since way back when I first apped I loved stalking you and thought you had a great handle on him!

That said, if you're concerned about it, maybe try to curb his longwindedness a little? I'm pretty sure I remember that being an IC trait, but tightening up / narrowing the focus of his dialogue to be more concise might help you feel less like you're struggling. I think you do a fantastic job making him sound period appropriate and my recommendation would really be just to keep an eye on getting too rambly when more involved topics come up.

... Though we haven't actually threaded and this is purely from stalking you, so, grain of salt? Haha. And I SO want to fix that and thread!

[imaginate]

Zee
Character Name: Kyle Rayner
Canon: DCU
User Name: imaginate
Focus: I have an anon-enabled HMD on my journal if that's a preferred venue, but otherwise, the floor is open.

[kvarterskommissarie]

Rica
Character Name: Johan Gustav Dååhd
Canon: Anno 1790
User Name: kvarterskommissarie
Focus: Any and all crit is more than welcome! How's my tagging speed? Do I branch out enough? Am I describing Johan well enough for those (most if not all of you) unfamiliar with his canon? Do I give enough to go on in the tags or could I work harder on leaving hooks?

[subject223]

Brandy
Character Name: Steve Rogers
Canon: Marvel 616
User Name: subject223
Focus: Open to any and all crit!

Character Name: Justin Hammer
Canon: MCU
User Name: hammer
Focus: Open to any and all crit!

Marie || Bart Allen

[backinakidflash]

Marie
Character Name: Bart Allen
Canon: DC Comics (pre-boot)
User Name: backinakidflash
Focus: I've been deliberately using a fractured writing style for Bart's speech, chopping participial phrases off of sentences with periods and trying to avoid compound sentences when possible. I do know that it's not grammatically correct, but I'm hoping it gives everything a rushed feel. Additionally, I tend to tag on my iPhone so sometimes a tag unfortunately gets an autocorrect or is missing an html tag. I am trying to work on this.

Karin | Lord Henry and Una

[epigrammatical]

Karin

Character Name: Lord Henry Wotton
Canon: Picture / Confessions of Dorian Gray
User Name: epigrammatical

Character Name: Una Persson
Canon: Michael Moorcock Multiverse
User Name: una_persson

Focus: My concerns are not so much character-specific as just kind of a general RP flailing/malaise. I feel like I've been struggling with my threads and that my tags are stagnating, and as a result I've been getting very anxious about interacting with people and developing more relationships. I feel like tagging in to anyone else is imposing on them, and I feel like I'm boring people. This hasn't got anything to do with anything anyone has said or done; just a creeping sense of my own inadequacy. I want to build more stuff for my characters, but I can't work up the nerve to do it.

ETA: to echo something I said on plurk: I'm hoping some crit will help so I have a better sense of whether this anxiety is justified or in any way fact-based, or whether I'm just flagellating myself, as is my wont.

Bride of ETA: said plurk discussion also engendered the idea that maybe I need to do more activep plotting rather than just letting things happen to my characters. So any thoughts along those lines too would be helpful.

ETA Meets Abbott and Costello: Here's the plurk discussion; feel free to jump in there. And both Una and Harry have anon-enabled HMD posts on their journals.

[angermanaging]

I know when I played Brian, I didn't mention it ordinarily at all, but I would slide it into his narrative smoothly when I did. He's kind of a blase` character when it comes to his murderous tendencies, though, so idk how that'd work for Hayley? But I found it pretty effective to wait for a more pivotal moment and then just toss it in there cavalierly like it was nothing out of the ordinary. They're both supposed to be "human" monsters and I find that creates the effect much better than trying to create a dramatic reveal about it. And I did find that other players loved getting these hints of creepiness.

People tend to like creeps in fiction, so I wouldn't be concerned about reducing the quality of IC interaction, though I appreciate where you're coming from with that because it is slightly nerve-wracking.

Just my two cents, though. And idk how constructive that really is, given how vague I termed it. lol

Lari | Javert

[inseine]

Lari
Character Name: Javert
Canon: Les Misérables
User Name: inseine
Focus: I don't have a specific focus, but any general tips or critiques would be great. I know I have been really busy IRL lately, so it has been difficult to respond to absolutely everything I want to in a timely fashion. In fact, if anyone has any tips for juggling IRL and "RP-time" more effectively so I can achieve a good balance, I'd take that, too! THANKS!

[angermanaging]

I THOUGHT UP CRIT FOR YOU, though it's not really criticism, more of a suggestion. If you're concerned about her being unapproachable, maybe try to intentionally insert her in situations that are outside of her comfort zone? I know we've been edging into that a little with our threads, and that's been hugely successful in getting them effective CR already, in my opinion.

So maybe attempt that elsewhere, and try to see if anyone else would be interested in cooperating with you on it. Obviously this is easier with more outgoing characters to drag her out and do things (Raimei) but you could potentially find IC motivations for her to have to get outside of her comfort zone (depowering thread with Bruce).

[angermanaging]

One tip for juggling time with RP that I've taken to doing is setting myself a minimum amount of time spent on tags for the day. Trying to do a minimum number of tags can be daunting (at least, for me, given the amount of prose logs I tend to get into), so time is a more approachable goal. I typically pick something I would consider very low for me, maybe an hour, and I just sit down and shut everything else and do one solid hour of nothing but tagging. As long as I achieve my hour, that's all I needed to do, regardless of "amount" done.

idk if that would work for you but I thought I'd toss it out there since I've been thinking about that lately myself. XD

[inseine]

No, that does help. I have the same issue and propensity for tl;dr in all of my tags. What I think I need to do and just haven't yet is shut everything else off and focus solely on tags so I can think and create properly.

By the way, this is completely unrelated, but I've been eyeing your Bruce Banner for awhile, and though I have been intentionally keeping my thread count a little low so I can stay on top of them all, I would really like to play with you sometime.

HURRRHHH LATE EDIT TO ADD

[inseine]

Something that just occurred to me, sorry folks!

How am I doing with Javert's mental state? He has a rather knotted and confusing mind, and sometimes it is difficult to keep track of exactly how he is feeling about life, the universe, and everything, if you know what I mean. On top of that, he tends to internalize most of his thinking, so the most that manifests is a vague stare off into the distance or a severe twist in his expression at odd moments. Is there something else I should do to emphasize just how much he is flying by the edge of his seat and/or show his confusion, or would it be too much to take it further than I have? Really, it's only when his hot button issues come up in his daily affairs that he'll start to crumble a bit more obviously, but it is rare that this comes up, unfortunately.

[imaginate]

From that thread we had it seems to me that she tends to talk only when absolutely necessary? i.e. when other character she's talking to doesn't understand her, similar to someone speaking slowly and clearly to someone not fluent in their native tongue. If this was your intent, it's coming across perfectly fine. Maybe the only issue that might come up is that
tags could get slow and repetitive if the other character has to ask a lot of questions to work out what she means?

[andaway]

Player Name Al
Character Name: Clark Kent / Superman / Kal-El / The Man Of 1000 Aliases
Canon: DC Comics
User Name: andaway | In-journal HMD < Anon on, IP tracking off
Focus: I have gotten bit of crit about how he should be more visible in game, so any crit and advice on that would be awesome! I'm also forever worried he doesn't sound American enough /how do I USA

Character Name: Frank Zhang
Canon: PJ:HoO
User Name: iguanasolution | In-journal HMD < Anon on, IP tracking off
Focus: I had never played Frank in-game before so any crit at all is welcome with him, thanks!

[constants]

UHH I'm pretty sure they were doing more network tags (I feel like Jim would be that one person on Facebook who likes every status and comments on at least half of them), hitting on more girls, uuuuuh there might have been one more but I forgot overnight.

And I went and skimmed some of the newly added stuff (on my phone so that slows me down and I couldn't touch all of it) but I think that the stuff added rounds if out pretty well. And yeah, I get that be wouldn't really bring it up with other people, but I was thinking a bit more on how it internally affects his day to day choices too. Like, what has shifted? Has anything shifted? Or is he trying to sort of just make decisions without that information? I don't think I'm doing a great job of getting the idea in my brain across, but that's sort of it (its now 6AM and I woke up sometime before 5 so brain is nooot functioning at 100%).