.svg/2000px-Google_Chrome_icon_(2011).svg.png){kind=icon}
01-28-2014, 12:27 AM
 S t o r m | E l s a - - - - - By my verdict ELSA is the winner. STORM -- post 1 (attack only) [Realism] - 2| Power Play: “The cremello mare stood rigidly still in front of her, as Storm broke into a fast spring.” - You cannot say what Elsa did. I know Elsa finished her post saying she was standing, but you can’t dictate that Elsa stays standing, especially once your character responds and starts moving around. Always remember your character is the only one you can control and state things for with conviction. + 1| Attack: charge & left feint - 2| Power Play: “...if the gray mare continued in a straight path towards Elsa's face, the cremello would easily side step” - Again you cannot predict what Else will do. Simply changing the word “would” to “could” would keep this from being powerplay, because then you’re saying that’s a possibility of Elsa’s actions, not that it is Elsa’s action/decision. - 1| Attack: right swerve & shoulder shove - you seem to get the directions and placement mixed up, because the two horses were facing head on when you started. In your middle paragraph you saying Storm feints left and then goes right, so this would put Storm as running past Elsa’s left side. You specify you ran past Elsa’s flank though, the backend of Elsa, but then in your next paragraph say you try to shove into Elsa’s shoulder (again saying you’re on her right side which doesn’t make sense). Additionally you described the snow in your opening post as being fetlock deep, so that would be something with poor tractiona nd slipping for such agility based maneuvers. [Prose] 0| Easy Read: some typos (lose not loose) - 1| Emotion: you say a few things like it being a friendly fight, recognizing Elsa and not being as fancy as her with the bowing, but I don’t feel anything I am just told these things. Why is Storm fighting? Is it possibly with her personality she’ll get too competitive and go beyond a friendly fight? How does she feel about the snow as they’re fighting? Bring in more details, especially with so much of your 800 word limit still available to use! Fights are a great way to push the limits with your posts and really make the reader feel like they’re watching the fight unfold. + 1| Flow ELSA -- post 1 [Realism] + 1|[i] Defense: moving to the left with Storm’s feint [i]- 1| Defense: getting kicked - you say that Storm “pivoted on her hindquarters” which Storm never described doing and that she kicked with her backfeet when Storm did not kick at all. I understand there was some confusion with which side Storm was on, left or right, but her attack itself as a ram was clear. - 1| Defense: shoved by Storm - what… I’m so very confused by this. This seems to be your response to Storm’s actual attack that happened, but you time it all very slowly. Assuming that Storm even did kick at Elsa and Elsa got kicked, Storm would have not had the time to feint again and shove into Elsa’s shoulder, and with as much preparation as you describe Elsa having for that move I would have suspected she’d dodge it more, albeit with difficulty due to the snow and pain from being kicked. In the end though none of this works with the timeline or Storm’s attack, please read your opponent’s post more carefully or ask questions if you’re confused. + 1| Attack: kick to Storm’s face - so much for the friendly spar! 0| Attack: circling around to land on Storm - I like the idea behind this attack, but your description fell short of making it plausible. If she had just attacked Storm then there’s a very high likelihood Storm is either preparing to retaliate with an attack, or will be on the defensive by keeping track of where Elsa is in the sky, and she will probably be moving, especially if airborne. So if you had described using cloud cover to hide your position to enable you to swoop in from behind, or doing feints or multiple passes/turns to confuse Storm to allow Elsa to swoop in from behind, that would have made it more plausible. Additionally using an opponent as a springboard in the air is a very difficult maneuver so I would have liked to have seen more description of Elsa straining to fly away from Storm, what will happen if she misses Storm (because she faces a high risk of making them both fall to the ground) etc. [Prose] - 2| Easy Read: I was very confused by the responses to Storm’s attacks. There was also a typo (it not in). I would also suggest using the characters’ names more. Saying “the mare” or “her/she” gets confusing in a fight, especially when both fighters are mares. Color descriptions like “the cremello” can help, but names are probably the easiest to follow and what I recommend, particularly in a battle post. + 1| Emotion: I really like you bringing up her training and her home so much. + 1| Flow STORM -- post 2 [Realism] - 1|[i] Defense: shoved by Elsa - I went back to re-read Elsa’s post and I still don’t see a section where she described shoving Storm, only yelping at her. [i]+ 1|[i] Defense: kicked in forehead - be careful of describing yourself as floating, not many birds can hover so for a pegasus especially staying in one spot, assuming it’s possible, would be very difficult, so floating goes along with that. I would suggest always staying in motion and describing using air currents when flying, especially in a fight being in motion gives you more plausibility for dodging attacks. [i]0|[i] Defense: hit in back - You do not need to take each attack, just as you should never dodge all the attacks. It is normally suggested to take a little bit of damage each time just because that’s usually more realistic, but in this instance, the way you described it, you could have done a complete dodge here and it would have been realistic. Instead taking the partial damage seemed less so, and was not explain as to how it still managed to occur. [i]+ 1|[i] Attack: four leg kick [Prose] [i]- 2| Easy read: I was very confused in several sections of your post. You describe the kick Elsa said you did in her last post, but which you never did in your original post. If you see your opponent respond to your post in a confusing way, or say your character kicked when you know you didn’t, contact the opponent or an Admin to get it sorted out rather than playing along, usually it’s just a misunderstanding on someone’s part. I would also suggest using the characters’ names more. Saying “the mare” or “her/she” gets confusing in a fight, especially when both fighters are mares. Color descriptions like “the cremello” can help, but names are probably the easiest to follow and what I recommend, particularly in a battle post. 0| Emotion: great job having her realize she’s out of shape after getting kicked! I’d still like to feel more of her thoughts and emotions as the fight post moves along. + 1| Flow ELSA -- post 2 [Realism] + 1| Defense: kicked by 2 hooves in rump + 1| Attack: landing strike 0| Attack: biting feathers - this is a good attack idea, but its execution is what makes it less plausible. You’re assuming too often that your opponent will continue to stand exactly where she said she was when she finished her post. After just having your character move around a lot AND attacked your opponent, it’s so very likely that the opponent has moved as well so you can only attempt to position yourself in a certain spot beside the opponent, you cannot say with fact that you have. 0| Attack: ram - you were supposedly just standing at her side so a ram would have practically no effect without distance to gain momentum. [Prose] 0| Easy read: some typos + 1| Emotion + 1| Flow STORM -- post 3 [Realism] - 1| Defense: complete dodge of Elsa’s dive - now this could have been a plausible complete dodge with a bit of a different explanation. If you described Storm as running/being in motion, dodging last second would have been realistic, but standing still and merely side stepping does not. You are a prime target when you’re standing still and Elsa’s speed grants her the ability to make small changes that can drastically affect her aim, meaning she could easily swerve to still hit you, where as if you’d been running Elsa would have had to be trying to aim that whole time and had more likelihood of missing. To dodge, at a stand still, last minute, requires crazy perfect timing, like a bull fighter. + 1| Attack: biting at Elsa + 1| Defense: wing bit and feathers ripped out - 1| Injury: no description of pain or explanation of injury sustained from wing being bitten. + 1| Defense: being hit by the ram - 1| Injury: no description of pain or explanation of injury from being rammed - 1| Attack: ramming back - you do this attack after/as Elsa is ramming you, so this means you didn’t have the space/momentum to really fulfill this attack and that since you took her ram attack you should have had limitations due to injury/pain at the time. It was not a realistic response based on timing or situation to ram attack back right then. If you saw her charging from a distance and chose to charge forward at her too, that would have been different. - 1| Attack: kick - this situation does not work because you say Elsa’s backside is facing you when Elsa ended saying she ran past Storm after the ramming and turned to face her, in which you describe this attack as directly following the ramming and do not describe Storm running/turning to be at Elsa’s rump/side in order to kick as you say. - 1| Attack: rear - “If Elsa's hind legs were still facing her, then she could his her neck, chest or legs.” I wasn’t sure if this was a separate attack or you describing how the rear would be more difficult if you were facing Elsa from behind. I chose to assume it was part of the read based on the rest that you go on to write, but if you were behind Elsa, then no you could not hit her neck, chest or legs because all those are far away from you on Elsa’s front end. For the rest of this attack though you do not describe which side you are nor describe much of the attack other than saying you rear up. - 2| Powerplay: “Storm reared up, looming over the woman.” & “Above her, Storm...” you cannot say you are looming over/above her, only Elsa can decide that. You can describe that based on your height you would loom over her, but not that you do. - 1| Attack: bite - you say you backed away but then are running beside her to bite her, which is it? It would have been more plausible if you better explained how you approached Elsa in order to deliver a bite. [Prose] - 1| Easy read: several typos and overall some confusing attacks and positioning. - 1| Emotion + 1| Flow ELSA -- post 3 [Realism] 0| Defense: jostled + 1| Defense: dodges buck + 1| Defense: hit by rear + 1| Defense: dull bite - you would not really see red lines like on our skin though due to all their hair. + 1| Attack: rears up - a good counter attack option. + 1| Attack: flails wings - nice! 0| Attack: biting hind leg - on the one hand I like seeing more leg biting because horses naturally leg bite in their fights, though more often stallions nip each others front knees, a hind leg is a dangerous place to try and bite since that’s a horse’s kicking powerhouse, and they can just as easily damage you by jerking their leg forward, so ultimately I feel this is not a realistic attack. Also I read it as they were more shoulder to shoulder, not head to rump with their positioning, particularly with your wing flailing which wouldn’t have worked if Storm’s body was right besides yours where your wings are. - 1| Attack: kick - Storm’s been on Elsa’s left side this whole time and you describe as kicking to the right. [Prose] 0| Easy read: some typos + 1| Emotion + 1| Flow STORM -- post 4 (defense only) [Realism] + 1| Defense: mouth jostled from rear 0| Defense: annoyed by wing flail - wings actually can do a good deal of damage, however Elsa did describe them as more of a distraction than an attack, but because of the situation I would have given you a point had you taken light damage from them rather than merely being annoyed by them. + 1| Defense: jerks leg back - 2| Attack: stomps hoof down - this is your closing defense post, no attacks permitted! - 1| Defense: complete dodge of buck - When Elsa dodged Storm’s kick it made sense since Elsa had described in her post prior as already moving away at the point you described making the kick. However in your post you say you’re standing very still next to Elsa the whole time, so being close Elsa doesn’t need much time to twist and kick, which does not give you the time to dodge the attack entirely, least of all when standing still, more plausible if you’d been trying to move away already, but even so partial damage would have been a better choice in this scenario. STORM [Bonus] + 1| Health [Injuries] None [Creativity] None Comments: You have some good attack ideas, but you really need to watch your wording to avoid powerplay. You’re just barely doing it, but still enough that it counts. Also make it more clear which side you’re attack on (left or right) and remember what you choose because at times you’d switch the sides even though your character was never described as moving, or even was in the middle of an attack. I would suggest to keep your character in motion more so that your dodges will be more plausible. You ended nearly every post with your character running off and turning around to look at your opponent, which is not how horses fight, they stay close, and interrupts the flow of battle and also limits your attack options because then you have to face them from the front again which usually leaves you with charging/feinting which you did do often. You started to show more emotion as the fight progressed, but really explore your character’s thoughts and feelings all throughout the fight to help your reader feel connected to your character. Don’t forget to mention surroundings and breeds! Fighting in snow offers a lot to write about as far as slipping, soft landings, stuck landings, spray you can distract your opponent with… and also Storm is a big horse, something you could have used more to your advantage to explain her height and power and how that enables her to attack or dodge differently from a shorter horse breed. Keep it up! ELSA [Bonus] + 1| Health [Injuries] None [Creativity] None Comments: You had some good attacks and dodges throughout the fight, but you also need to stay more clear about whether you’re attack/dodge is one the left or right of you or your opponent because there were some very confusing parts of this fight to try and figure out where everyone was in relation to the other. I would also recommend thoroughly reading your opponent's post and asking questions if needed. You did a fantastic job bringing up your injuries in each post however :) I just would have liked you to expand on that more describing at times if that injury kept you from being able to react as normal. For instance her hurt shoulder, did it slow down her turn trying to dodge and is what caused her to get kicked again? etc. You did great with emotion, just keep at it! I felt connected to Elsa, but not enough because you’d mostly toss in emotion at the beginning and end, and you only scratched the surface. I really want to feel whatever Elsa is and pepper it all throughout your post. I saw you trying to include surroundings and breed description, but they needed more elaboration to be scored as points. Don’t just describe landing in snow, describe what landing in snow does. Does she slide further than she wanted because it’s slick? Does it cause her legs to get cold and wet which makes her irritable or happy or numb, maybe helps with pain? Overall great job, just keep practicing! TOTAL STORM - 39 ELSA - 61  |
