Wow.

[Sycamore]

Eliza?s glass of ruby liquid had scarce been set before her when an overzealous ferret jumped atop his table and bellowing something about paying for everybeast?s drinks.

As the inebriated mob vied greedily for the barkeep?s attention, an emaciated hogwife detached from the crowd and made a beeline for the stoat.

?Oh, thank the Fates I found you!? gasped the hedgehog. ?I?ve been lookin' all over... Are you drinkin'??

The stoatess peered at her full cup. ?Not yet.?  

?But, but,? stammered the hogwife, ?You... you shouldn?t be drinkin' in your condition...?

With a huff, the stoat snatched up her grog and disappeared into the crowd. The nagging hog followed her, whining fearfully.  

As this is written, the hedgehog (Suellyn) is addressing Eliza.  Therein lies the mistake.  

My comment about being drunk is that Suellyn should have been addressing Revel.  Again, as the story is written, there is a period of time passage since Revel's post, otherwise they would still be at the tree home of the hedgehogs.  Suellyn shouldn't mistaken Eliza for Revel.  Yet as this post reads, that is exactly what happened.

How, exactly? Eliza is a pine marten, and Revel is a stoat. Where are you getting the impression that Susie is addressing Eliza?

Also:

I stand by my definition of this as a mistake by Eliza until a subsequent post clarifies this passage.  Of course, since the contestants have the ability to edit their posts, that confusion written by Eliza may now be clarified and any subsequent commenter will be claiming I edited the contestant's post when I made this remark.

When has this ever happened before?

[Eliza Lacrimosa]

Umm... Turns out Syccy said it for me.

*steeples fingers* But, yes. Suellyn is not addressing Eliza. Suellyn is addressing Revel. The narration refers to "the stoat." If it had been meant to be Eliza, it would have read "the pine marten." And since Eliza hates common woodlanders, she would have responded with insults.

Hope that helps!

[Venril]

Thirded.  I was also about to say that this doesn't really seem all that difficult to understand to me.  There really is no way that "the stoat" could mean anyone else, as no other stoats have been featured in this post.  Venril's off on the other side of the tavern talking to Rath and Keane.  I realize there is no use of Revel's name, but in a context like this species should be enough.

[Suellyn]

As the inebriated mob vied greedily for the barkeep?s attention, an emaciated hogwife detached from the crowd and made a beeline for the stoat.

?Oh, thank the Fates I found you!? gasped the hedgehog. ?I?ve been lookin' all over... Are you drinkin'??

The stoatess peered at her full cup. ?Not yet.? 

?But, but,? stammered the hogwife, ?You... you shouldn?t be drinkin' in your condition...?

With a huff, the stoatsnatched up her grog and disappeared into the crowd. The nagging hog followed her, whining fearfully. 

Eliza's not a stoat. It says three times that the hogwive is addressing a stoat.

[Damask the Minstrel]

Well, to be fair I've often confused different mustelids within a Redwall book for each other when they are only referred to by species.

[Eliza Lacrimosa]

A very good point, Mister Damask. Unfortunately, Eliza doesn't know Revel's name yet, so I couldn't call her that. :/

[Damask the Minstrel]

See, this is where Narrator v. Eliza gets weird. If you called her by name, then people would cry foul. When you didn't, people cried foul.

The only solution I can think of (now, after the fact), would be if you prefaced the whole encounter with a clunky phrase like, "Blah, blah, blah scene unfolded before Eliza's eyes:"

[Cairn Destop]

Considering the character of Eliza, she shouldn't have even seen the hedgehog or the stoat.  As an upper crust aristocrat who perceives the world as revolving around her, the hedgehog and stoat are beneath her and have no value.  Since the chapter is from her POV, why would she even mention somebody who doesn't directly affect her?

The only characters she should perceive are the bartender (her servant), the fool jumping on the bar offering free drinks (he was right in front of her and hard to ignore), the character who offered her a drink (her insulting him was in perfect character) and the one who accosted her at the end of the story (direct confrontation).  Everyone else wouldn't even be noticed as they didn't affect her.

At this point, Eliza's one concern is Eliza.  Her wants and feelings are all that concerns her.

[Revel]

POV is a dangerous subject to tackle. Almost all our posts are done in the third-person limited perspective. This means Eliza can't know Revel's name, and while it may not be in character for Eliza to take notice of it, it's still a part of the world around her, and worthy of being described. Keeping narration entirely to a character's internal viewpoint is difficult and could easily break the story. Eliza might not take notice of the bar, but would you complain if she described the scratches and dents in it?

The narrator is not the character. Events happen that the character does not take notice of, but which the narrator must. I would agree with you if it was in first-person, but it isn't, and the narration is firmly outside of Eliza's head with frequent visits inside, but we must not always stay there.

To put it another way, if Eliza didn't notice Revel she might have sat on her thinking her a stool.

[Vlaine]

Aha! So we now have a post from Sir Ferret. There are a handful of awkward phrases (particularly in the third paragraph - I'll put them down to Rath's groggy state for now), but I enjoy the overall tone of the piece. As a post, it does its job, establishing the new setting of the ship and creating further links between some of the characters. We do see a little more of Rath's character - the way in which he is both desperate to adapt and not necessarily capable of doing so is highlighted in his reaction to the Captain - accepting the job of guarding the brig without understanding exactly what it is.

It must be borne in mind, though, that this competition started last Monday, and you really do need to be able to complete the whole post-per-week thing. Not posting once in a week is instant death once the story is off the starting blocks.

Also, it was nice to see the contestants ganging up on Cairn. Not that I have anything against Cairn, but hey! Team spirit!

[Vlaine]

I wasn't completely convinced by Damask's first post, but Exeunt Omnes is very impressive indeed. The tension between Sailpaw and Damask (and Sailpaw and Deadtail) is entertaining and believable, and Damask simply radiates nervousness. There's a lot of plot in this post without undue rushing, and we've now established a group for Deadtail (and it's one that makes sense, too, given his greyness). Oh, and simply exquisite writing. Voting is going to be simply agonising. This puts you up with Deadtail and Eliza by my reckoning.

[Cairn Destop]

On the other writing site your comment would be known as a "fluffy," which isn't a compliment.  My read didn't come up with such superlatives, though I do agree with you regarding how he maintained the tension and pace.

[Vlaine]

Ah well, I'm trying for that rarely achieved feat, being nice on the internet. If by "the other writing site" you mean Terrouge, then you might well be right. I completely missed QB5 while it was running, but from some of the forum threads I glanced at the standard mode of criticism seems to have been being a giant prat. The fact is, I'm really enjoying this competition - probably more than any competitions I've read since QB3. None of these characters are Torry Steggins (yet), sure, but they're all creative, or at least being used creatively.

That said, the opening of Revel's post is a little odd in its similarities with the opening of Rath's. The whole sniffing thing is hopelessly (and hilariously) overwrought; the stoat's obliviousness is a nice touch. Other than this interaction, however, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot going on. We learn something of the positions of various other characters, certainly, but Revel doesn't really do a lot. Perhaps that's the point, and you really did feel the need to fill in time before she snaps. It certainly leaves us nicely set up for an elimination.

[Damask the Minstrel]

Thankee much, sir. Some fluff is good for morale. All criticisms can wear one down. ^.^

Though there is a criticism there if you read between the lines (helps that Cairn pointed it out in PM, too). The tension is between Damask and Sailpaw. Sailpaw's an NPC. Our interactions have to be with Bellona, as she's a contestant. Else she'll be overshadowed by her NPC -- lethal, that condition. And we don't want to kill her, she's too fantastic!

[Opal]

I completely missed QB5 while it was running, but from some of the forum threads I glanced at the standard mode of criticism seems to have been being a giant prat.

That...really does sum it up, sadly. For the most part. There was some constructive criticism too, don't get me wrong (pretty much everything Cairn said was wrong with Nadine--and even Linny/Fidge in their one PM review I got--was right on the button, but well, you know, I didn't really have time/energy/tolerance to fix everything :P), but in some threads you reeeeeaaaaallly had to search for it. And it seemed like as the story progressed there was more inter-audience arguing than actual reviewing.

Can I just say I really appreciate everyone's reviewing styles here so far? And that no one has just lost it and declared their undying loathing for a character and that their one goal in life now is to vote for them until they die a horrible death? And that the reviewers have stayed relatively civil with one another and no heads have been ripped off? Yeah. I like that. Please carry on. ;)

(Then again, the contestants are all awesome, so I think it'd be hard to hate one of them. Even though not all of them made my personal top nine I must say I've been super impressed by everyone's writing so far. :))