GAUCHO
Realism [+2.5]
Your first post started off really strong, as you included scenery, breed differences and had a really good attack lined up with great explanations. However you seemed to struggle with injury throughout the fight.

For instance in both your second and your fourth post you took a kick to your hip/thigh, in both instances the way I read it, you should have taken the damage to your left side, but each time you took it to your right. I sat here for a while trying to figure out if I had read it wrong or if it was possible for you to take it to your right side, but in all instances it really had to have been your left. Additionally with your injuries you fail to go into detail about what kind of pain they’re causing or how they’ll affect you the rest of the fight, especially the kick you received in your second post - did it bruise, swell, does it impede movement, what? What about when Aurelia slightly burned you in your third post, was the skin raw, blistered, painful?

Otherwise I liked your inclusion of slipping on mud and injuring yourself in your second post and felt that all around you had good attack strategies.


Emotion [+2.5]
As always Gaucho has a lot of strong emotion that does a wonderful job of drawing the reader in, especially with his new hilarious idea that everyone is out to get him. I wasn’t particularly fond of the computer references in some of your posts - I didn’t take anything away because of it since it’s a personal opinion, but I felt it clashed with his primitive theme. It’s not that because he has a primitive theme he can never do anything fancy, but caveman and computer are such extremes that it sort of threw me off and distracted me, is all.

Fantastic job conveying all his thoughts and feelings though, the relationship between him and Mara is precious <3


Prose [+4]
There’s not much to say here, you have very strong prose, always maintaining a nice flow and style to your posts.


Readability [+2]
Your posts were definitely easy to understand, but in nearly every one there was a typo.


Finally tally: 58 + 11(x2) = 80 HP


AURELIA
Realism [+1]
I believe that you have the ability to write great attacks and defenses, but that to get there you need to explain how the attack/defense is happening. Especially considering in almost all your posts you still had some word cushion, so you could have filled that with being more detailed about your actions. Often you can make something believable, just by telling us why we should believe it.

i.e. you had Aurelia dodge Gaucho’s spikes in your third post, but got hit by the snake. As that stands, I don’t really believe it, because the snake and Gaucho’s spikes are probably around the same length, so when I read it was you wrote it:
“I skillfully dodged his spikes, but I am not prepared for what happens next. The usually still snake that hangs out in Gaucho's antlers is very much not still. She lunges at me, her jaw wide and fangs filled with venom ready to seep into my bloodstream. I let out a soft squeal as I feel pain lace across my neck. Mara has bitten me, and the pain is great, but I fear the poison more.”
Like this I don’t believe it’s anything more than you avoiding damage that should have been taken (given that you took the Snake’s damage). Especially when you say “I skillfully dodged his spikes…” tell me how you skillfully did that, and maybe then I’ll consider it believeable. Maybe if you flung your wing out to protect yourself, and Mara bit that, as you shied to the side, that’d make more sense.

This would also apply to Shilva abruptly appearing in your second post. There was zero mention of her in your first one, so I originally thought this timeline was happening after she had been killed already, and that Gaucho and Mara were looking for the snake simply because they didn’t know. I only thought this because you didn’t even mention her once. That’s almost a form of god moding then just having her appear, out of nowhere, in the perfect spot to land a bite on Gaucho considering him and Aurelia had been attacking and dodging all over the place already.

And my last example for this, in simply taking the time to describe something further, is your flame magic. When I first read your second post I thought somehow Aurelia was still on fire because of Gaucho, to which I went, huh??? I shouldn’t have to go into the records to understand your fire magic, you should clearly explain in your post that you are using your magic and it works like this _________.

I think taking time in general is something you want to consider, because I’d also like to see more inclusion of your previous injuries and how they affect Aurelia during the fight. For instance you wrote her receiving lots of blisters on her chest from being burned, and yet she’s galloping not a paragraph or two later. I would imagine that’d be far to painful to move that fast that soon! Similarly you responded to Gaucho rearing in your second post, when he never reared.

I think the damage that you sustain is pretty good, and I liked your realism in not having Aurelia fly away because of her injuries, so I think just taking the time to work on everything else and you’ll be an awesome fighter.


Emotion [+1]
I struggled with Aurelia’s emotions during this whole fight. I did see an increase in emotion in your second and third post which I liked, but each post was so drastically different from each other that it sort of distracted me. For instance you start in your first post seemingly fond of Gaucho, having him in your ‘book’ of possible child sources, but then for no apparent reason you hate him with ever fiber of your being in the second post and start screaming at him, to then in your third post walking away without so much as a single word. It all just sort of left me going, wait, what???

I’m sure all of those feelings were plausible, but they were so scattered that it was hard for me to believe in them. If you explain why those feelings shift so abruptly, it’d be easier for me and other readers to understand her. For instance, maybe she starts of loving Gaucho in her first post, but then she gets so angry at him in the second post because she can see he’s trying to injure her more, or because fighting alongside him reminded her of her time as a wraith which then causes those memories to combine with her current ones making her a bit crazy etc.


Prose [+1.5]
I thought you started off really strong! Your first post was great, however as you progressed your writing got a bit more choppy and was just harder to follow overall, it felt like a completely different person was writing as the fight progressed.


Readability [+0.5]
I found lots of typos and other grammar issues, and it just all around felt rushed and unpolished. Don’t forget to re-read your posts to catch this minor mistakes that can overall affect your score!


Finally tally: 34.5 + 4(x2) = 42.5 HP