Comments From a Simple Treedog

[Sycamore]

Well, she needs to be careful! If she keeps making me feel like this she might get the boot!

[Jarrtail]

 :D You know, I'm reminded of this quote I saw somewhere, I think it was the RFF; "An author is someone who creates loveable, believable characters, and then does horrible things to them."
More or less apt for Revel's situation, don't you think?

[Damask the Minstrel]

It was on the RFF... and Terrouge, I think.

[Cricket Argyll]

Aye, I think I used it for my own signature on Terrouge at some point.

[Jarrtail]

Hm. Excellant quote, nontheless. Do you know who's quote it actually is, though?

[Revel]

"An author is someone who creates loveable, believable characters, and then does horrible things to them."

Does that make me these things?  :)

[Jarrtail]

Most certainly. I really do like Revel, and her mannerisms are quite believable, with the obvious exception of the cannibalism. Though the way you present it as a nonforeign idea to her makes it seem almost logical.

[Sycamore]

The Wheel of Fate is Turning.

REBEL 1! ACTION!!!

Your points skyrocket for a BlazBlue reference.

[Sycamore]

I know this is a double post, but this came up in a discussion.

Tara or Rath, was that post a sub post or a post on the contestant board made live?

[Opal]

It was written by Rath, but his author was not available to post it up officially when it needed to be posted, so I posted it for him.

[Sycamore]

*sigh*

Okay, guys, I'm sorry. What follows is going to be a post written entirely out of annoyance and aggravation.

I got a little behind, and I'm catching up for voting. I just finished Venril's post, and I'm a little peeved.

It's blatant to see that every one of you is waiting on each other to post. I'm jumping to this conclusion because we had an extension of the week and you all posted no more than one time each. I'm cool with that. It's not the rate I'd like to see, but I don't care about that (too much). What I'm upset about is the disorganization that's going on here. If you're going to wait on each other, then please figure out some sort of schedule and order of events, because right now it's completely jumbled, and it's giving the impression that nobody knows what's going on. Let me tell you what I see:

Damask's post. Cool! He lets his character catch up with the rest of you, and doesn't spend any time flash-backing or backtracking. Kudos to you!

Eliza's post. Fantastic! You're regressing in your style and I adore you for it. Let me make this clear. Lines like:

After an indeterminable interval...

With any luck, the element of surprise would give the revolting revolters an edge over the deplorable sea rubbish.

... the ambushers themselves having been ambushed ...

Ach! *love*

I've forgotten that you write like this because it's been absent or at least I haven't noticed, but that's okay because I've still enjoyed your posts and its not what makes them fantastic. It just ENHANCES their fantastic-ism.

Moving on, Bellona's post. Cool! Plot development in the form of moving creatures places. I enjoyed it. Unfortunately, this is where things spiral downhill.

Deadtail's post. Wait, what's going on, now? Oh, I see--this is what happened earlier. Okay, I can dig that (teehee!). Hmm, I've reached the end, and... where are we? Isn't there supposed to be a cave-in happening? Or at least something about stalagmites? What's going on?

Venril's post. Now we're... back to the beginning of Bell's post. Trudging along, trudging along. All right, all right--I know what's going on; I followed it earlier. Ah! Fresh action, new perspective! Character development! Sweet.

... And now we're back to following Bell's post. Hrmm... Ah! There it is! Mr. Weasel gets impaled for a second time by mean old Mr. Stalactite.

Sorry, Venril, but I did a word count. Out of 2640 words, you spent 1565 retelling what I already knew from Bell's post. That's more than half. And, again, I apologize, but only about 400 of those 1500+ words were necessary. Maybe even less.

Yeah, this is biting criticism, because I feel as though I just wasted a lot of time and paper. That's right--I printed the post out because it looked long. In any case, this is what should have happened:

Deadtail posts. Bell posts, taking us up to the "blood and vinegar" line. Venril picks it up, and he and Bell play off each other until Mr. Weasel dies one time and one time only. It's more exciting jumping between the chasers and chased anyway. Ups the intensity and all that jazz.

So get it straight. It's clear you (all the writers, now) are more focused on telling a good story than overrunning each other to put your character more in audience favor, and that's fantastic! You're working as a team, and a lot of camaraderie is going on here. The story will flourish because of it, but only if you let it.

I'm sorry, guys, but this is sloppy.

[Damask the Minstrel]

I'll show you sloppy! *smites some tasty karma*

"It's clear you (all the writers, now) are more focused on telling a good story than overrunning each other to put your character more in audience favor, and that's fantastic!"

Mind, I have a backstage seat, but I can't stress this enough. Su's still back here, helping us out with some ideas from her perspective. People are assisting with pre-posts backstage to make sure you all get a nice, finished product. We're worrying about over-arching plot themes, but most of all--

We're not treating this as much like a contest, than a co-written story, it feels to me. I realize it has fallen flat in some places -- with 8 writers, it's bound to happen eventually -- but we're trying to work together to make this a better experience for you folks. So, I hope you take that into account when you see a low post volume. I might post twice in a week compared to someone's once, but I won't run up more than one more than anyone else (if that made sense), because it's just... not right.

[Sycamore]

Nuuu!!! I need that karma for sustenance! *withers away and dies*

It's good to hear a confirmation on that statement. I reached that conclusion (again) because of the post count and week extension. It's hard to believe that eight writers are all too busy to post no more than one chapter a week, and I'm sure the only reason Revel posted was because she was getting flak for supposedly not posting within the Week Two Board, because it's been made readily apparent that her third Week One post counted for this week. I realize that sentence is incredibly long-winded.

Back to what my griping was all about, that's nine pairs of eyes (ten including Tara) that is checking the order of events and the like. Please be more attentive. Unless Bell went away for 5 days, there's no reason Deadtail couldn't have posted before her. It was only a day later that he posted after she did, and after that there was silence on the board for three days.

If nothing else, with the time and gaps between each post, I'm led to believe that these chapters should be near spotless, with plenty of input from everyone involved in the story. A back and forth viewpoint between the slaves and vermin during the chase scene would have been SO COOL. But that's just my opinion. ^^

[Damask the Minstrel]

Daww, I didn't take your karma, don't worry.

Well, maybe you'll get coolness like that in the future. Just remember to say please. ^.-

(Like how awesome would two writers doing 500 - 1000 word posts back-and-forth for a chase be? Extremely awesome. That would be, in fact, Awesomesauce.)

[Sycamore]

I hope that's not like, just a reiteration of what I desire but in fact a promise of things to come!

That would be more awesome than awesome.