GAUCHO
Realism [+4]
You really did stellar in this fight. The only thing that really brought your score down was that you didn’t respond to Buce’s attack at Mara in his first post, when he tried to bite her and pull her out of Gaucho’s antlers. Otherwise all of your attacks and defenses and timing were on point, and I especially enjoyed you using your fire magic in creative ways to help you, using Mara as your eyes but not over using her so at some times Gaucho was still blind, and also using the scenery to help you understand where Buce was when the sand would move. I also liked your speed reference! Great job!


Emotion [+2]
I got a good amount of emotion from you in this fight, but I think you were focusing a lot more of your words and time on realism, and this fight wasn’t really an emotionally charged one for Gaucho.


Prose [+4]
Beautiful writing.


Readability [+3]
Easy to read. No grammar issues that stood out to me,


Finally tally: 74+(13*2)= 100 HP


BUCEPHALUS
Realism [-2]
You have some good attack choices, but I think you need to work on your timing and your injury descriptions to help bring the realism more into place. For instance, in your first post the rearing at Gaucho’s attack, and how you explain it’s a normal reaction to shy away, all make sense and are great. Then you go and do something completely opposite, which is be stabbed by Gaucho’s spike necklace, and rather than move away from it (a normal and expected reaction) you stay with it - this could have been realistic to me if you had convinced me with your writing. Did Buce stay with it because he knew it’d give him a better opportunity to attack? Was he trying to show off for Gaucho? Was this how he was trained/has he experienced something like this before that taught him to go beyond his base instinct to run away from pain/pressure?? Much less be stabbed, go with it, AND use your front legs to attack your opponent which are tied to the shoulder, thus creating more pain and injury. That just wasn’t realistic to me. I’m also not sure how the spikes his Buce’s shoulder if he reared up and the shoulder was Gaucho’s original aim - if Buce reared that means the shoulders should have struck lower.

Continuing with your first post, I’m not sure how you were able to turn your head to bite Gaucho, and that caused Mara to miss. She was aiming for his neck, not his head, and with his rear and following fo Gaucho’s momentum, he made himself less able to evade her. You also never fully say when his rear ends, so that was confusing to me. I did however like your attempt to bite Mara, especially your reasoning being that it was Gaucho’s weakness, although I’m sad to see this was not your continued motivation throughout the fight. I also appreciated that you continually brought up your shoulder pain in this post, though I would have liked to see it in the other posts as well.

Moving onto your second post, diving under the flaming dragons is plausible, but given that fire/heated air causes things to rise, I was looking for some explanation of how that didn’t happen for him - you wrote it as if in just the right time to dodge them Buce dove, which to me meant he was too close to them to really dive, their heat would have affected him - granted Buce tucked his wings to dive, but I wanted more of that description for realism sake. Additionally the burns Buce received were not well described as an injury, just that they hurt. Because Gaucho only rolled a damage of 1, Buce really should have just gotten singed hair, not a burn, however it was hard for me to tell if you took appropriate damage since it was so vague. Again, these burn injuries didn’t seem to hinder you much through the rest of the fight, when an injury to your back would have affected your every movement.

Finally, your third post, I really didn’t get a sense of a critical miss. You said you missed, and you had your shoulder pop, but there was no emotion about it (not scored here, just saying), and it didn’t seem like the injury occurred because of the miss. In fact I don’t really understand what a popped shoulder even means, how much it hurts (because he was still flying), and how he even got it. A critical miss damage can easily be explained that because your attack did not land, your momentum carried you too far since you were expecting resistance, causing an over exertion and strain. I’m also not sure timing wise that Gaucho’s joke could have been the cause of him missing, because the joke happened so far back. Furthermore, the next injuries he receives from Gaucho, are too severe for the 3 damage that Gaucho rolled, mainly the pulled muscle that occurs, not to mention a kick shouldn’t in and of itself cause a pulled muscle, it’d cause bruising, swelling, maybe cut the skin, maybe further injure a spot already injured etc.

I’m glad to see your exhaustion, but it came really abruptly, especially given Buce’s endurance is higher than Gaucho’s. I would have liked to see more size and stat differences taken into account, and though the air doesn’t offer much for scenery, at least mention it (I did like the cold wind making his burn hurt more though). As a final note too, horse’s cannot vomit, so the bile in Buce’s throat isn’t realistic.

Overall you have some great potential, just a little rough around the edges, but practice makes perfect!


Emotion [+1]
I was really expecting more emotion from Buce, especially given how he kept missing and was struggling so much against a blind opponent. I enjoyed the anger over the feather thing, but in comparison the other posts felt very forced with emotion and I was often told how Buce felt rather than shown. I’m also only somewhat familiar with Altan, so I would have liked more explanation of that, and if it is an inner voice or an alter ego, he didn’t appear very different from Buce. You also didn’t seem to have him “leave” at the end of your third post, but it felt very much like Buce was back.


Prose [+2.5]
You have writing that reads nicely, however your sentences could be choppy and at times so could the thoughts/themes throughout the post.


Readability [+1.5]
Although your posts were understandable and you usually explained your character in relation to your opponent, there were some distracting grammar issues, mainly with your sentence structure choices.

P1:
“He would not loose so horribly this time.” (lose)
“ He would not loose so horribly this time. Of that he was determined. “ (....time, of that…)
“...lashed out, and the black felt the…” (don’t need comma there)
“.... this fight. And he….” (...fight, and he…)
“...his wing and his leg. But his anger overrode it.” (...leg, but…)

P2:
“Problematic. But, nothing he wasn't prepared for.” (problematic, but….)

P3:
“...never seem to get used to it.” (seemed)


Finally tally: 25.5+(3*2)= 31.5 HP