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

Swearing and obscenities encouraged. >:D

[alphatar]

Sker
Character Name: Korra
Canon: Legend of Korra
User Name: alphatar
Focus: ALL OF IT.

[angermanaging]

I do have one piece of crit for you! No obscenities, though! lol.

I absolutely love the level of enthusiasm you bring to Korra-- it's perfectly appropriate for her-- but I feel as if sometimes you'd be better served to keep a more conversational flow to your tags. I seem to see you responding methodically point by point to everything that's said, when in real conversation there's a constant sort of ignoring of things that are found uninteresting or immaterial. Essentially, I'd encourage you to try to make your tags more streamlined and cohesive in purpose as opposed to addressing everything said. Not necessarily shorter, but narrower in focus?

The grain of salt here is that I haven't threaded with you very much, this is just what I've seen from stalking. But uh... yeah, that's my two cents!

[alphatar]

HOW DARE YOU-

not tell me you've been stalking my threads until now. /chinhands

So instead of verbally responding, I should have it be more of an expositionary reaction? (Is expositionary even a word?)

Or just cut that out entirely? I don't know why I like to cram as much character response as I can into threads, but I can see if it's too much.

[angermanaging]

I HAVE ABSOLUTELY BEEN STALKING YOUR THREADS from like the second you apped. And it's been awesome. 8D I love Korra as a character so it's been great seeing her.

I don't think you need to acknowledge it at all, to be totally honest! Let me see if I can explain... There's a certain rhythm to actual conversations that can be hard to duplicate in text. But when you're actually speaking to someone, you tend to hone in on the part that you care about most and almost immediately discard the rest of what they said. More methodical people might do this less, but there's usually still a certain element of that.

So yeah, just my personal preference, but I think it keeps the thread flowing nicely if it's geared more toward a natural conversational flow -- which, by necessity, involves ignoring what people say a lot. XD

[alphatar]

WHICH IS YOUR FAVORITE SO I CAN FOCUS ON ONES LIKE IT? <3

Wow, I don't do that at all irl. I'm a listener when people are talking to me. All right, I'll try to break from word lingering and stick the main gist when she's doing conversations. Thanks!

This is the kind of input I need, because I'd just steamroll on otherwise.

[angermanaging]

UMMMM I love the stuff with her and the TMNT turtles a lot. Pretty much all of that has been fabulous, especially the confusion over them being spirits and bending and so forth. IC miscommunication is a lot of fun to read! And I liked her network post about learning English-- that was inventive and fun and you handled the huge tag load well.

LOL really? That's pretty rare in my estimation and makes you like... a conversational unicorn. Listening is a skill (just look at the extensive amount of self-help books on this) and most people have to learn it.

Steamrolling has its uses. 8D YOU ARE WELCOME. Go forth and conquer!

[alphatar]

I did have a lot of fun with that one! I feel like the TMNT cr she has is almost like a secret because they like their privacy, so she doesn’t get to mention them often. I have no idea how you managed to read all my crap, I can barely keep up with it myself. And I’m writing it! XD

I had the right teachers in school I guess? I shall conquer all the tags!

And I look forward to Raimei and Bruce cr!

soon.

[lostundercover]

Unfortunately I have no crit for you.

So, uh, I guess just keep on keepin' on in bed.

That's the best I got.

[alphatar]

I'll take those words to heart.

And you too need to give it your best in bed.

[jirk]

I really love your Korra so much. She's the perfect balance of enthusiastic teenaged girl and Avatar. I think you bring everything you've got to the table when you play her, and she is so fantastic and dynamic to read. You put a lot of thought into every tag, and I feel like you are amazing at reaching out to everyone and pulling them in ICly and OOCly both! It's amazing to see and I love having you in the game even though we don't have much in the way of CR, if I come across a thread you've done in someone else's post I almost always stop to go over it and it always puts a smile on my face.

My crit is actually pretty minor - I've noticed you confuse homonyms sometimes? (you're, your, etc) and although not a big thing, it's maybe something you could watch out for in the future.

[alphatar]

I want CR with your characters so badly, but I have no idea how to start it and don't want to overburden your inbox with more tags.

I try to catch my mistakes in edits. But yeah, sometimes I don't see them until after a response and I'm all "NOOooo, it's supposed to be "their" not "they're"! /facedesk

I tend to miss some words while I'm typing too, then when I go back I just see
"KORRA LIKE FRIEND."

THANK YOU~ I will try to hold in my eagerness to post and actually proofread stuff.