Ok so while I'm writing up a helpful guide for how to play females, I need some help here myself. I'm writing up an action fight scene for my fanfic between two fourteen year old Zandri girls. Here is the thing, it's not a steriotypical cat fight in which hair is pulled, it's one girl with friends who is literally killing herself controlling 'friends' while trying to murder another girl who is trying to defeat the first girl. It's done in a battleground type arena setting with a massive large audience in what is known as The Palace of Heesora, the last remaining Zandri temple to Sseeara Laaveenae with large amounts of Ice/Snow singing ((think Avatar the Last Airbender and Ice Bending but larger and they sing to the snow))
I don't feel like I'm capturing the action as well as I want to, it seems a bit dull. I'm trying to get the Zandri audience as well as my readers into it like they were actually there but what I have feels...stagnant.
My solution would be for one of them to quickly shoot the other while lost in the flow of the moment, and then endure years of psychological torture at the hands of their subconscious.
As the crowd watched on in earnest as the fight culminated to it's climax between the two female warrior knights who clashed with the sharpest of steel blades from two different corners of the world, silence fell shortly after a loud clang as Baee's sword was knocked from her hands by that of the slightly quicker Nell. Baee could only glare in her last moments of defiance as Nell, encouraged by a bloodthirsty crowd, swung her blade for her final moment of her fight with Baee before her steel found it's mark in her flesh as Nell impaled her competitor through the heart, watching as the life essence drained away quickly and mercifully.
The point I'm trying to make is that I'm trying to get the maximum amount of action for an arena type fight, like Roman Gladiators that fight with a mixture of ice blades so sharp they can cut through steel and many other metals while at the same time being able to conjure up a snowstorm or snow sculptures ((like Grey Fullbuster from Fairy Tail)) to use in their fight against an opponent. Zandri can go completly invisible in their natural enviroment of snow, and so fall my battle scene seems flawed. Like not good enough.
There are a lot of ways to do combat, but the way I figure is best is to just do a blow for blow description of the action, with lots of description to keep things from being dull.
Sort of like.
"Jimmy spotted his nemesis, Roberto, near the hot dog stand. His blood ran hot at the sight of his smug face. That man had slept with all of his girlfriends since third grade. He had etched a crude penis into the side of his first car when he was seventeen, forcing him to pay for the damaged. Last week, he shaved all of the squirrels in Jimmy's backyard, causing them to scratch at his windows in a desperate gambit for warmth. It ended today.
Grasping a stainless steel soda cup, Jimmy dashed toward Roberto. Sweat streamed down his forehead as he screamed the man's name.
"ROOOOBEEERTTTOOOO"
He swung the might of his soda down upon his enemy. Roberto spun on his heels and blocked the assault with a mustard-splattered hot dog, sending Jimmy to the ground with a painful thud. Humiliation, again. Jimmy would not stand for it. He hopped back onto his feet before Roberto could break him with the weight of his flopping wiener. A swift kick to the shin caused Roberto to fall into the dusty path. His hot dog landed in dog shit. Though it could no longer be eaten, the crafty Roberto grabbed one end of it and whipped it against the air, sending a spray of canine feces at Jimmy's face. It found it's mark. Jimmy's eyes burned from the unsanitary poo and he fell to his knees in tears.
"Don't mess with my sausage" Roberto exclaimed triumphantly. He placed a firm grip at the center of the hot dog and tossed it forward like a mighty javelin. The wiener pierced Jimmy's shoulder, causing his blood to flow out of him in dark streams. Agonizing defeat. He went pale as his life drained from his body. His final breath was to be spent cursing the God's."
"Might Thor!" he cried, the words struggling from his mouth. "What the hell, man?"
My solution would be for one of them to quickly shoot the other while lost in the flow of the moment, and then endure years of psychological torture at the hands of their subconscious.
There are a lot of ways to do combat, but the way I figure is best is to just do a blow for blow description of the action, with lots of description to keep things from being dull.
Sort of like.
"Jimmy spotted his nemesis, Roberto, near the hot dog stand. His blood ran hot at the sight of his smug face. That man had slept with all of his girlfriends since third grade. He had etched a crude penis into the side of his first car when he was seventeen, forcing him to pay for the damaged. Last week, he shaved all of the squirrels in Jimmy's backyard, causing them to scratch at his windows in a desperate gambit for warmth. It ended today.
Grasping a stainless steel soda cup, Jimmy dashed toward Roberto. Sweat streamed down his forehead as he screamed the man's name.
"ROOOOBEEERTTTOOOO"
He swung the might of his soda down upon his enemy. Roberto spun on his heels and blocked the assault with a mustard-splattered hot dog, sending Jimmy to the ground with a painful thud. Humiliation, again. Jimmy would not stand for it. He hopped back onto his feet before Roberto could break him with the weight of his flopping wiener. A swift kick to the shin caused Roberto to fall into the dusty path. His hot dog landed in dog shit. Though it could no longer be eaten, the crafty Roberto grabbed one end of it and whipped it against the air, sending a spray of canine feces at Jimmy's face. It found it's mark. Jimmy's eyes burned from the unsanitary poo and he fell to his knees in tears.
"Don't mess with my sausage" Roberto exclaimed triumphantly. He placed a firm grip at the center of the hot dog and tossed it forward like a mighty javelin. The wiener pierced Jimmy's shoulder, causing his blood to flow out of him in dark streams. Agonizing defeat. He went pale as his life drained from his body. His final breath was to be spent cursing the God's."
"Might Thor!" he cried, the words struggling from his mouth. "What the hell, man?"
Despite the randomness of this, you have written some wonderful info for battle type scenes, thank you so much <3
Those are extremely sad scenes. I teared up a bit watching them the first time around.
I teared up the third/fourth time though.
Sledge seen's some hard things and done some hard things. And now he has to fully reintegrate. Meanwhile the only folks he knows that understand are his brother, and his Dad.
Sledge seen's some hard things and done some hard things. And now he has to fully reintegrate. Meanwhile the only folks he knows that understand are his brother, and his Dad.
Yeah, I remember his mom's reactions about him "acting like a boy." Meanwhile, now that the war is over everyone has kind of lost support for the troops coming back.
Plot: There is really just one thing I have to say about plots and even with the chance of getting an infraction: ING HAVE ONE! I have seen several threads with great characters and settings die because the DM had no plot other than here is some stuff now go, or the plot lost its momentum because the DM hadn’t thought it out that far.
Meeting people: Avoid the “hello dump” you know what I’m talking we all did it at some point we said hello and the next thing you know you just dumped your entire bio on the first person you met.
Character creation:
Avoid amnesia, just don’t use it. Most people (in my experience) use this to avoid immediately making a bio. It's better to make the bio before you start, it lessens the temptation to metagame later in the story by making your background around the challenges that come up.
The fog of ages on the other hand is entirely different. IFF your character is exceedingly old missing large chunks of memories is almost expected, however make sure that you at least have an outline of what happened during these missing spots.
Don’t put to much of yourself into your character. It's okay to base your characters personality on your own, it makes decisions come faster and feel more natural. Just be sure to change things. I read into a character once that the owner had based on themselves just a little to much and with one little psychological jab had the person in tears remembering past events. (In my defense at the time I was trying to create a little tension in the room to promote passive rp and didn’t intend to actually mess with peoples heads)
Mental illness: It has always been a general rule of mine to never include a mental illness as a dominant character trait unless I have had it or I have experienced it first hand. That being said I have a few comments on two of them.
ADHD(I was diagnosed with this pre-elemetary school and trust me I am not a false diagnosis.) : The list of symptoms posted is good except for a few things. In the list item 7 day dreaming happens, confusion tends to be not from understanding but from having different though processes than most people (not better or worse just different), and moving slowly is a no. A few thing to add to this list are making random noises (that are relevant to current thoughts or stimuli), referencing past conversations with no indication of what is being discussed, every thing that appears to be random is in fact a tangent from something else if you cant make a logical connection between two “random” things you want your character to do you probably shouldn't do them. Also a little known fact people with ADHD can control it entirely by will, its just that we forget after a few minutes >.>
Depression: Depression is a fuzzy topic because it comes in many many different types. I've seen people that sleep for 18+ hours a day because they don’t want to deal with life, and I’ve seen people just seemingly out of the blue decide to suck on a shotgun. But the theme that I always seem to notice is depression is not just sad, its not even exceedingly sad, it is an entirely different thing from sad. The best way I can think to describe it to people is: It's that feeling you get late at night, when your stressed out from exams, or the fact that you need a job, or what ever, and your brain for what ever reason, starts going through all your mistakes, all the times you ed up, that time you said that stupid or inappropriate comment, or that time when you accidentally shared just a little bit to much of how you feel. You know that feeling? And no, it's not the embarrassment, not the regret, not even that feeling in the pit of your stomach that makes you wish it would all just go away and never have happened. It's that other feeling, the one you barely even notice, or pretend is not there, the one that at first feels like dread but you can tell it's worse. It's that tiny, little, fragment, that whispers in a quiet little voice “I wish I was dead”. Only with depression it's not just there late at night, when your lying in your bed, it's there when you're grocery shopping, or reading a book, or watching TV, and it's not just there when your stressed, it's there when you're having the time of your life, or when your mad as hell, or when you're bored out of your mind. It's always there, always following you, always nagging away at your life. And it's not just that quiet little voice in a far off corner of your mind being a little annoying. No. Oh no, it's in your face, it's yelling and it's handing you a rope and pointing to the rafters before going off to get a chair. That is how depression feels.
Emotions: There all overplayed or under used, either way I think everyone could use a bit more subtle emotions.
I think I should write a column about how war is less Die Hard and more sitting around in trucks taking forty-five minutes (and several thousand blindly-fired bullets) to kill one dude.
I think I should write a column about how war is less Die Hard and more sitting around in trucks taking forty-five minutes (and several thousand blindly-fired bullets) to kill one dude.
This is more dependent on style. I'm well-aware of the way war is nowadays, and I still prefer action movie scenes.
If for anything else, good job guys. Personally, I really appreciate this work.
And if you have anything to contribute then please do. The more the merrier!
My DeviantArt, so sexy
I don't feel like I'm capturing the action as well as I want to, it seems a bit dull. I'm trying to get the Zandri audience as well as my readers into it like they were actually there but what I have feels...stagnant.
...
Yet including Ice Singing, simalar to waterbending ((though remove the music it's bad and sorry for the grainyness))
...
Example: Nell then stabbed Baee with her sword
Or:
As the crowd watched on in earnest as the fight culminated to it's climax between the two female warrior knights who clashed with the sharpest of steel blades from two different corners of the world, silence fell shortly after a loud clang as Baee's sword was knocked from her hands by that of the slightly quicker Nell. Baee could only glare in her last moments of defiance as Nell, encouraged by a bloodthirsty crowd, swung her blade for her final moment of her fight with Baee before her steel found it's mark in her flesh as Nell impaled her competitor through the heart, watching as the life essence drained away quickly and mercifully.
The point I'm trying to make is that I'm trying to get the maximum amount of action for an arena type fight, like Roman Gladiators that fight with a mixture of ice blades so sharp they can cut through steel and many other metals while at the same time being able to conjure up a snowstorm or snow sculptures ((like Grey Fullbuster from Fairy Tail)) to use in their fight against an opponent. Zandri can go completly invisible in their natural enviroment of snow, and so fall my battle scene seems flawed. Like not good enough.
...
Sort of like.
"Jimmy spotted his nemesis, Roberto, near the hot dog stand. His blood ran hot at the sight of his smug face. That man had slept with all of his girlfriends since third grade. He had etched a crude penis into the side of his first car when he was seventeen, forcing him to pay for the damaged. Last week, he shaved all of the squirrels in Jimmy's backyard, causing them to scratch at his windows in a desperate gambit for warmth. It ended today.
Grasping a stainless steel soda cup, Jimmy dashed toward Roberto. Sweat streamed down his forehead as he screamed the man's name.
"ROOOOBEEERTTTOOOO"
He swung the might of his soda down upon his enemy. Roberto spun on his heels and blocked the assault with a mustard-splattered hot dog, sending Jimmy to the ground with a painful thud. Humiliation, again. Jimmy would not stand for it. He hopped back onto his feet before Roberto could break him with the weight of his flopping wiener. A swift kick to the shin caused Roberto to fall into the dusty path. His hot dog landed in dog shit. Though it could no longer be eaten, the crafty Roberto grabbed one end of it and whipped it against the air, sending a spray of canine feces at Jimmy's face. It found it's mark. Jimmy's eyes burned from the unsanitary poo and he fell to his knees in tears.
"Don't mess with my sausage" Roberto exclaimed triumphantly. He placed a firm grip at the center of the hot dog and tossed it forward like a mighty javelin. The wiener pierced Jimmy's shoulder, causing his blood to flow out of him in dark streams. Agonizing defeat. He went pale as his life drained from his body. His final breath was to be spent cursing the God's."
"Might Thor!" he cried, the words struggling from his mouth. "What the hell, man?"
Or even:
My DeviantArt, so sexy
Despite the randomness of this, you have written some wonderful info for battle type scenes, thank you so much <3
...
Those are extremely sad scenes. I teared up a bit watching them the first time around.
I teared up the third/fourth time though.
Sledge seen's some hard things and done some hard things. And now he has to fully reintegrate. Meanwhile the only folks he knows that understand are his brother, and his Dad.
My DeviantArt, so sexy
Yeah, I remember his mom's reactions about him "acting like a boy." Meanwhile, now that the war is over everyone has kind of lost support for the troops coming back.
Adding.
My DeviantArt, so sexy
Plot: There is really just one thing I have to say about plots and even with the chance of getting an infraction: ING HAVE ONE! I have seen several threads with great characters and settings die because the DM had no plot other than here is some stuff now go, or the plot lost its momentum because the DM hadn’t thought it out that far.
Meeting people: Avoid the “hello dump” you know what I’m talking we all did it at some point we said hello and the next thing you know you just dumped your entire bio on the first person you met.
Character creation:
Avoid amnesia, just don’t use it. Most people (in my experience) use this to avoid immediately making a bio. It's better to make the bio before you start, it lessens the temptation to metagame later in the story by making your background around the challenges that come up.
The fog of ages on the other hand is entirely different. IFF your character is exceedingly old missing large chunks of memories is almost expected, however make sure that you at least have an outline of what happened during these missing spots.
Don’t put to much of yourself into your character. It's okay to base your characters personality on your own, it makes decisions come faster and feel more natural. Just be sure to change things. I read into a character once that the owner had based on themselves just a little to much and with one little psychological jab had the person in tears remembering past events. (In my defense at the time I was trying to create a little tension in the room to promote passive rp and didn’t intend to actually mess with peoples heads)
Mental illness: It has always been a general rule of mine to never include a mental illness as a dominant character trait unless I have had it or I have experienced it first hand. That being said I have a few comments on two of them.
ADHD(I was diagnosed with this pre-elemetary school and trust me I am not a false diagnosis.) : The list of symptoms posted is good except for a few things. In the list item 7 day dreaming happens, confusion tends to be not from understanding but from having different though processes than most people (not better or worse just different), and moving slowly is a no. A few thing to add to this list are making random noises (that are relevant to current thoughts or stimuli), referencing past conversations with no indication of what is being discussed, every thing that appears to be random is in fact a tangent from something else if you cant make a logical connection between two “random” things you want your character to do you probably shouldn't do them. Also a little known fact people with ADHD can control it entirely by will, its just that we forget after a few minutes >.>
Depression: Depression is a fuzzy topic because it comes in many many different types. I've seen people that sleep for 18+ hours a day because they don’t want to deal with life, and I’ve seen people just seemingly out of the blue decide to suck on a shotgun. But the theme that I always seem to notice is depression is not just sad, its not even exceedingly sad, it is an entirely different thing from sad. The best way I can think to describe it to people is: It's that feeling you get late at night, when your stressed out from exams, or the fact that you need a job, or what ever, and your brain for what ever reason, starts going through all your mistakes, all the times you ed up, that time you said that stupid or inappropriate comment, or that time when you accidentally shared just a little bit to much of how you feel. You know that feeling? And no, it's not the embarrassment, not the regret, not even that feeling in the pit of your stomach that makes you wish it would all just go away and never have happened. It's that other feeling, the one you barely even notice, or pretend is not there, the one that at first feels like dread but you can tell it's worse. It's that tiny, little, fragment, that whispers in a quiet little voice “I wish I was dead”. Only with depression it's not just there late at night, when your lying in your bed, it's there when you're grocery shopping, or reading a book, or watching TV, and it's not just there when your stressed, it's there when you're having the time of your life, or when your mad as hell, or when you're bored out of your mind. It's always there, always following you, always nagging away at your life. And it's not just that quiet little voice in a far off corner of your mind being a little annoying. No. Oh no, it's in your face, it's yelling and it's handing you a rope and pointing to the rafters before going off to get a chair. That is how depression feels.
Emotions: There all overplayed or under used, either way I think everyone could use a bit more subtle emotions.
This is more dependent on style. I'm well-aware of the way war is nowadays, and I still prefer action movie scenes.