Rizu [RP JOURNAL] ([info]ophelial) wrote,
@ 2010-09-18 07:07:00
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Entry tags:crit post

CRIT POST
If you'd like to comment on my characterization with any of the following characters, please leave word below. Constructive is best, of course, so I can consider it and better analyze the way I play and better take things from your suggestions.

Anonymous is on, IP logging is off, and comments won't be screened, so you can know I'm not hiding anything people have brought to my attention. If you think it may benefit you, check out my most recent character check. There, I mention things I think about playing certain characters/where I think I've taken them, etc. If may be that we feel the same, or I'm already working on something you want to bring up, or something else, you never know. Either way, here.

At [info]polychromatic;

♟ Nemu | Bleach | [info]sciencedaughter
☯ Tianzi |Code Geass | [info]justasystem
☠ Grell | Kuroshitsuji | [info]deathbutler
☄ Anew | Gundam 00 | [info]innovatorgps
♘ Xerxes | Pandora Hearts | [info]knaveswitness
❀ Mozu | SIDOOH | [info]thebutcherbird

At [info]amatomnes;

♛ Cirucci | Bleach | [info]105th
♚ Beast | Kuroshitsuji | [info]worthdisgracing
☪ Astaroth | Trinity Blood | [info]pravosuddia
☄ Havoc | Darker than Black | [info]disasterdream


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(Anonymous)
2008-10-21 02:56 pm UTC (link)
Re: Charles? What several anons at RP!S said, and in enough detail that it doesn't need to be repeated.

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[info]ophelial
2008-10-21 04:06 pm UTC (link)
I did read their comments, and I'll try to take from them what I can. If you/they have any more, I'd appreciate hearing them here. Of course, while being in RP!S doesn't invalidate them, I would very much like a chance to present my own opinions and interpretation, a chance to defend myself, in a sense, however one could disagree with it/think I'm wrong.

I hope you will see an improvement with him in the future.

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[info]argiano
2008-10-25 08:32 pm UTC (link)
Frankly, I didn't want to say anything because as someone else who plays him and is stupidly possessive of him in general, it would look elitist and catty, and probably would be, and I apologize for that.

But since that [info]roleplaysecrets post and my subsequent asking others familiar with the canon -- both friends and otherwise -- their opinions on how you play him showed that I'm not the only one uncomfortable with how you play him, I thought it appropriate to give a detailed, signed critique.

Your portrayal of him just seems shallow too often. I realize that there would, of course, be large discrepancies between how you portray him and how I do, since I always play him post-death; much of his development does occur in those last pages and therefore isn't something you would include, and much of how I play him after that is naturally speculative without solid canon evidence. But it sometimes feels like you don't do much beyond try to recreate lines from the manga in a new scenario.

Your actual posts for him are generally good, but the only one I've seen in which the majority of his ensuing interactions read smoothly and logically was in his moth post, which is a relatively easy one to work with. There doesn't seem to be enough distinction between the way he speaks to different characters, whereas in the manga, he shows a slightly but noticeably different version of himself to almost everyone he interacts with.

You've made a lot of posts for him in a short period of time, and it seems like in a lot of these instances, you're just choosing either an allusion to the manga or an obvious aspect of his character to play up in each post, and that when it comes to conversation you don't yet have enough of a handle on his thought processes to make his replies or mood changes believable. I always end up just kind of frowning in confusion after a few comments because I can't imagine he would misread some of these comments so terribly that he would have these sudden mood shifts in response to them or make such outlandish, bizarre comments in reply -- that "Oh, so you fancy Van?" thing in reply to a girl who clearly didn't know him was probably the most baffling. It sometimes looks like you're just saying things for the sake of extending threads as long as possible, more for the shock value than for actually doing anything with him as a character.

I don't quite understand where you came up with this depiction of his relationship with Diva, either. As her Chevalier, I'm sure he does still love her and have an ingrained sort of admiration for her, but in the Vietnam flashback, which I'm assuming you read since you have icons from it, he treats her almost like a younger sister, playing the part of the overprotective brother (though presumably he would still view her with some reverence). He was Diva's favorite in the manga (I'm sure he doesn't know this, of course, although it's clear to Amshel and Van) because he was the one she could play with. He was well aware of her unworldliness and wasn't afraid to scold her when she broke Amshel's rules.

The anime version of Diva is obviously very different from her childlike manga counterpart (which I think Charles would have definitely noticed and concluded that she wasn't really the same person after some conversation rather than think she was just tossing him aside), but it seems like he should have at least had what little we see of their canon relationship still in mind upon first meeting her here. This kind of almost fanboy-worship of her I keep seeing from him is much more suited to James or Amshel than to any of her other Chevaliers. Charles should love her and be protective of her (and be especially sympathetic as a fellow test subject), and obviously their relationship would change dramatically due to this Diva's different canon, but immediately jumping into this blind worship doesn't follow. You gave some brief thought to the issue of whether he would be willing to give in and become her Chevalier again, like Solomon had accused him of wanting, but I haven't seen much conflict since then, and I think it would be an ongoing identity struggle for him that you should deal with more often.

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[info]argiano
2008-10-25 08:33 pm UTC (link)
As far as diction goes, your taking lines directly from the manga and repeating them, particularly in places where it makes no sense for there to be an allusion, makes you look lazy, as does the constant reuse of the exact same phrases. Branch out from "sack of meat" and show you have any grasp on his voice by coming up with alternatives. He says that once in the manga; being an exceptionally well-read character, there are plenty of other pejorative terms he could and would come up with to describe the worthlessness of humans.

The swearing has been covered already, but to reiterate, while he flings out insults frequently and I sincerely do doubt that he would be above using more traditional curse words in common speech, he does not resort to excessively vulgar insults often, at least not publicly. I wondered for a while why I was still surprised every time I clicked "expand" on one of your threads and saw the word "cunt" once again, and then realized it was because it was something he wouldn't say unless he was addressing Saya or was angry/upset/riled up enough to let his facade of superiority crack. Given the title of his journal and your introduction post, I think you just enjoy and rely on this aspect way too much to see that it doesn't fit with the vast majority of his canon dialogue.

Admittedly, I think some of the characterization issues might just arise from the format and nature of Poly in general; the game doesn't seem especially conducive to close interaction or development, and you have still managed to achieve a little of that with Diva, but I like to think you could still find a way to improve on what you have to work with. And I'm sorry for how incredibly bitchy and awful and holy GOD long this is, but I hope you decide to take at least some of it into account.

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[info]ophelial
2008-10-25 11:57 pm UTC (link)
First of all, let me thank you for coming to me about this. I know that can be hard, especially logged in- So, thank you, for that. I know you play this character, so you have strong opinions and experience with him, so, I do appreciate it.

I feel like it may be odd/silly/nitpicky of me/what have you to go through each point you've brought up and address it one by one, so I'll only go at a few, (unless you'd like I address all of them, that is, in which case, just say so and I'll lay my cards out on the table). I do feel as if I'm sort of shaky with Charles, as of all my characters, he's the one who is most affected by coming in to this setting from his own, and from your comments, and RPS, it seems that may be more than true. I'll be rereading the canon I have before doing much more with him (I suppose it may be worth mentioning, since rps mentioned it, that I do only have the first three volumes, as 4 and 5 obviously aren't published here yet, and I've been unable to find scanlations of them online. If you have them, and think my characterization could benefit from reading them, I would truly appreciate some points in the direction of procuring them.), and trying to take your advice in to account. I'd hate to just concede "oh, I'm kinda ooc, so I should just drop", so, I hope you can bear with me as I try to improve with him.

As for some of the things you addressed, it seems like the one thing I may think about him that you may not, (or at least, didn't mention, not saying one is or is not true, just my interpretation), is that Charles' anger is also based not just on hatred, (like how he becomes that much more course with Saya, as you pointed out), but on his control. It seemed to me like his behavior had to do also with how in control of a situation he was. As long as he was totally in control, (with Van deferring to him, bossing others around, etc), the calmer and more sophisticated he was, as opposed to when he realized others were in higher positions of control than he, (like Solomon, etc), in which cases he grewmore and more agitated and such. I feel that, in the POLY setting, he's all too heckled by the idea that he's not top man on the food chain, and that makes him more prone to snapping and becoming irritable or rude. However, this is only my opinion.

Diva, too, is something I felt a bit insecure about, as... obviously, that was something he never expected to have again, and then, upon arrival... bam. Another place I may differ in interpretation is here in Charles' potential for denial. I think while he's noticing his Diva and this Diva aren't quite the same, he's still too... fkewnflw over it being DIVA, I think. I may try and, in the future, utilize strikes or private portions of his entries to better convey his doubts and issues- I think this may better communicate what I believe him to be dealing with, and not leave it up to just looking like I haven't put any thought in to it.

One last thing I guess I'll address is the copying of manga instances... this may sound utterly stupid of me, but I hadn't really thought I was doing much of that. The instance capped for the RPS secret, sure, but in a sense, I think the copying/recreating label doesn't quite fit for that time, as I quoted it as such because Charles was reflecting on that exact instance. I suppose it may have seemed like... just throwing it out there, and it may be my fault for failing to explain it properly. Either way, I'll try to take a step back and analyze what I post/comment for him in the future before I do it, so hopefully people won't get the shallow/lazy feeling from him in the future.

... Sooo in the end, um. Thank you for your crit, really, and for confronting me with it. I really hope that, in the future, you see a lot of improvement in Charles, and, if not, well. Then please leave me another note here, and I'll consider if I really am just... getting it wrong and it's uncorrectable for some reason. As is, I'll definitely take your advice to heart. Thanks again.

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[info]soi
2008-10-26 01:58 am UTC (link)
As for 4 and 5 not being translated, there are still raws of them both scanned and up online for download that you can find if you Google hard enough. Just looking at the pictures gives you a pretty good deal to go on, really, particularly concerning Diva. And if you just know hiragana/katakana but don't have a big Japanese vocabulary or really know any kanji, even if you just have a chart of hiragana/katakana that you've downloaded, you can basically translate it yourself by typing every unfamiliar word into an online dictionary and piecing it together -- which is a ridiculously long and painstaking process, but that's what I did in many cases as I went through and translated every scene that Charles, Riku, or Van appeared in or were mentioned in because I was determined to get everything right. If you aren't up to that, I'd assume that as someone active in manga RPing, you probably have at least one friend who knows a little Japanese who could help you translate some scenes.

Yes, I think he does have issues with control and reacts more strongly when he feels he doesn't have it -- so do I, I think that's true of a lot of people. But to look at a specific instance you mentioned -- Solomon. Charles hates him almost as much as Saya and doesn't have any control of the situation when Solomon or Amshel comes to dominate the scene, but if you read the scene in which they interacted, Charles did keep his cool throughout it as far as speech went -- he cut off Solomon's hand but he never slipped into shouting or cursing or showing any emotional pain. Once Solomon has complete control over him, even, he puts on his cool facade again with that playful Laertes comment, and doesn't show his inner weakness until Solomon is gone. And Poly.... while also out of his control, isn't really even bad or harsh or anything. And hell, he's got Van and Diva here and doesn't have Saya or the other Chevaliers, so while he would understandably be frustrated by his lack of influence on the whole, I don't think there's much of an excuse for him to behave that way in most instances. He would probably be making more of an effort to keep up appearances to counteract the insecurity he's feeling, like he did with Solomon.

He also does have issues with denial -- I mean, lol, Van -- so I can certainly accept that interpretation, but in that case, if he was still refusing to believe this wasn't the same Diva he had known, I would think it even more important that he behave around her more like he had with the Diva he did know, which again, had him in much less of a worshippy role.

I think it did fit because it seemed odd for him to be reflecting on that at that point in the first place, and then having that exact same "Thanks for nothing, God" reaction instead of rewording it some to better accommodate the current situation and the events in between just seemed weird and thoughtless, like a terribly misplaced allusion to anyone who had actually read the manga. And that "sour grapes" thing in his post about the wine just... kind of made me stare in disbelief. The cocksucker/sack of meat thing fits into this category, really; you take a word or phrase that he says once in the manga and use it constantly -- CONSTANTLY -- rather than come up with an appropriate alternative on your own, regardless of whether the one you're using even fits in the context. (And as stated before, that first one really is a huge problem, because it was a lazy and poor translation in the official text in the first place, which yes, is sort of nitpicky, but even if that weren't the case, he only said it when Haji was getting in the way of his finishing his fight with Saya after a 30-year wait and when he had a knife in his eye.)

I'm really not crazy like this about other characters, but I've read this manga dozens of times and put more into this character than any other I've played so I'm probably always going to be kind of irrational on this front.

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[info]ophelial
2008-10-26 03:21 am UTC (link)
I can tell you have, so... I'm really sorry I'm not measuring up, but. I'm not really sure what else I can say. I will be paying more attention to how I'm playing in the future, and I will be trying to take all that you've said in to account.

I hope you see some improvement with him. Once again, if not, just... drop me another line here, and I'll reconsider if this character is just something I'm not able to pull off as well.

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[info]soi
2008-10-26 04:06 am UTC (link)
I'm sorry for how bitchy and harsh this is, I just. Wanted to be really clear and thorough. D:

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[info]ophelial
2008-10-26 04:09 am UTC (link)
It's fine, I just... couldn't really/didn't wanna really try and refute any of it? All I can really say is I read it all, and I agree that I will be trying to work on him. I'll probably have him on the dl in the next week while I re-evaluate/re-read, so, I hope he'll be better when I bring him back around.

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[info]ophelial
2008-11-05 12:55 am UTC (link)
Hey, there. I just wanted to let you know that after thinking about it for some time and having a re-read, I have decided to let Charles go. But I did want to thank you for playing Van against him, (I never would have imagined being able to play with a Van!), and for being honest with the crit you have. I do appreciate you bringing it to me, (as opposed to continuing on without anyone bring it up), and I just wanted to let you know, no hard feelings. I look forward to possibly interacting with your characters with others of mine in the future.

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[info]soi
2008-11-05 01:07 am UTC (link)
laksfjhgk o-oh, I'm sorry to hear that. D: And I'm sorry for never getting back to that last comment of his, I'd started to compile a list of observations but got distracted with other games and schoolwork augh. I fail at Poly.

Thank you for giving me the chance to play Van too, at least. ♥ It was a good experience.

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[info]stormcoming
2008-11-05 01:10 am UTC (link)
It's all goof, I had just re-evaluated my performance based on your crit after my re-read, and you had some really valid points, so, I'd rather take a step back and not like... hold on to him while I struggle trying to grasp better. Schoolwork owns us all. *kicks it*

Mm! Back at you. ♥

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[info]mypace_musume
2009-03-24 04:39 am UTC (link)
Hi, I'm Konata's player, unexpectedly involved in the Crowley plot as per here. Crowley is still scheduled to possess Medusa this week but the plot apparently needs an endgame - some sort of semipermanent body for him.

I was thinking of having Konata ask Nemu via Ichigo whether or not she's capable of making a gigai. Of course, this would be huge 4th walling on Konata's part, although that wouldn't necessarily be evident to Nemu if Ichigo was made to do the asking. Thoughts?

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[info]ophelial
2009-03-24 04:41 am UTC (link)
Hey, hey~ That sounds perfectly acceptable to me! :3 She's more than pleased to help out with things, and I don't mind 4th walling at all.

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