the Rift


[JUDGED] killing in the name of [ Nymeria vs. Rikyn spar ]

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Stallion :: Equine :: ::
Official
#10
By my verdict: NYMERIA is the winner!

RIKYN
Realism [+3]

I thought you did a good job noting their surroundings, adapting to how Nymeria altered the environment. I especially liked how you made sure to note how the shallow water around them would have been affected by their movements and injuries!

You also did well translating the attacks into damage in your posts, with only one exception. Nymeria’s first attack rolled a 1 for damage and I found the damage caused by her bite a lot more realistic for this number than the effects of her magic pulling on his blood. It was described as agonizing but with such a low roll I would have thought it would be more irritating than anything. It's also suggested, particularly in the end of P2 and beginning P3 that the water is stained more with Rikyn's blood than Nymerias but again with such a low roll, would he have lost that much blood in comparison to the gash that Nymeria received from his horn?


Emotion [+2]
I thought Rikyn’s reaction to Nymeria throughout the fight was great - what I would expect from a young stallion confronted with a pretty strange mare asking for a fight! Right from the start when she showed up in this part “My smirk is lopsided as I look her over, sudden in the display of her magic, where it had been a straight line of condemnation – of her blank forehead, and my desire to bury my face into the thick locks splaying down her shoulders.” to later on with “Our bodies press together in the dance, a fire exploding in places fires shouldn’t be while fighting (but my veins are alive with testosterone, the added lure of her scent pervasive).”

They’re both so determined to come out on top of each other that I had fun reading it to see who would be the eventual winner!


Prose [+2]
A few things stood out to me that made some of the posts a little bit awkward to read.

Incorrect word use
P3 paragraph 1: “This kisses of her teeth ache, the memory of her magic throbbing, a tight pulse in my head that throbs in rhythm with my heart.” should be: the kisses

P3 paragraph 2; “I hadn’t expected the buck to strike true, compensating for the lost speed by telling my hooves its time to accelerate, hard.” should be: it’s

Awkward phrasing
P3 paragraph 1: In P2 paragraph 3, “This kisses of her teeth ache, the memory of her magic throbbing, a tight pulse in my head that throbs in rhythm with my heart.”  I think the repetitive use of ‘throb’ in one sentence contributes to making this sentence (list of injuries?) confusing


Readability [0]
I'm not very familiar with Rikyn's writing style and it admittedly took me a while to get used to it. It was poetic in some places but I found some of the long, winding, run-on sentences hard to follow and read - particularly those heavy with commas. I had to re-read a lot of them to puzzle out what was being said and how it related to the battle.

Some examples:
P1: “The result is that, hopefully, I’ll end up in an off center, italicized T with the woman, my horn the connecting point between the two of us, so that the secondary forward bound (initiated as my head pulls back to the left, eyes eagerly searching through the tangles of my mane for the floating trail of blood spilling through the air, signifying success) following my initial strike might send my broad chest slamming into her own.”
P2: “The poet within me thinks of the water misting against her as we meet, her water, because it had been ice until she bid it to flow” Instead of a comma separating meet and her, a period or semi-colon would have been a better choice to separate the thoughts.

I also found the comma placement confusing in some parts as a lot of sentences are peppered with them. For example, this sentence in P1 “Her smile is devious, a familiarity to her amber gaze and mask adorned face that escapes me, for the time” I think a semi-colon or a colon would suit better in place of the first comma and the second comma should not be there at all. Also the word 'being' is missing to complete the phrase 'for the time being'.

Other spots where commas were unnecessary:
P2 “and while she does not groan, or whimper”
P3 "to pull far enough away to use my magic on her, or her dragon."

Finally tally: 43.5 + (7*2) = 57.5 HP

*******************************************


NYMERIA
Realism [+4]

I thought you did a good job incorporating injuries into your posts, like in P3 where her injuries force her to move slower than she intended, as well as translating the damage taken from the rolls. Great to see some previous experience with unicorns being pulled on to make her wary of his horn in this part in P1: “Logically, she knew he had a whole body behind it—that his hooves and teeth and shoulders could serve as less graceful but just as adequate weapons—but it was his horn that demanded attention,”

Parts of the environment were mentioned and used, especially the water, but the chilly temperatures and high winds weren’t mentioned often and could have played a roll with visibility.

Emotion [+2]

I liked Nymeria’s desperation, like she needs to win this random spar to prove something to herself and others, even though by her own admission it’s just a spar and not something that holds a lot of weight. It was set up right at the start and I couldn’t wait to see how it would cause her to act throughout the spar!

She also showed a good range of emotion throughout the spar - fear, annoyance, anger, desperation, lust - which I loved.

Prose [+3]
I didn’t notice any significant spelling or grammar issues throughout your posts. Towards the end of P2 there were a couple introductory words to sentences that could have used a comma after them “Instead she thrusts her weight towards him, attempting to hit him leading with her left shoulder. Ideally she would hit him when he was” (after instead and ideally).

And in P2: “no doubt destined to be a gristly (if fleeting) reminder of their time together” I’m wondering if it should have been grisly (meaning bloody or disgusting) vs gristly (meaning stringy and sinewy)


Readability [+2]

Overall I found these posts easy to read and understand. There were just a few mix ups with punctuation that I noticed:

Missing a period between the sentences at the end of P1 “...would win She refused to consider any other option.”
Incorrect placement of period in P2: “(even in battle.)” - should be outside of the bracket
And with the brackets in this sentence towards the middle of P3 “Petty words lash against her sealed lips (fuck you! Or maybe you’ll fucking lose, loser!)” The exclamation marks closed off the phrases inside of the brackets but the sentence outside is left unfinished with no punctuation. To avoid this you could add a but after the bracket and combine it with the sentence that had followed it, therefore completing the thought.


Finally tally: 45 + (11*2) = 67 HP


Messages In This Thread
RE: killing in the name of [ Nymeria vs. Rikyn spar ] - by Official - 06-23-2016, 08:53 PM

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