InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Later."

MarinaNova Mods (marinanova_mod) wrote in marinanova_ooc,
@ 2014-01-01 13:41:00

Entry tags:

mod: hmd, mod: plotting

Game-wide Plotting/HMD
Welcome to the MarinaNova HMD! This is optional, but encouraged.

• List your characters for which you'd like feedback. We have a form below if you like forms!

• Leave your tactful and considered thoughts, questions, concerns, praise, suggestions, etc. for others.

We strongly encourage you to make this a dialogue. Find out what went into actions, decisions, and characterization and you may come to understand it better. Hopefully, you'll also be in the best position to clearly communicate your own concerns. Results will be more satisfactory for everyone if one person isn't on the offensive while the other is on the defensive.

Avoid leaving someone a wall of text. This can be intimidating even with the most careful of wording and best of intentions.

Don't gang up on someone. You may have a different way of wording something, but unless you have something new to contribute, consider letting it go if there are already others saying it.

Be constructive and considerate.

• Since there is no plotting meme during months with an HMD, please feel free to do that here too.

• Contact a mod if you have any problems.

Anonymous commenting is on. It will be turned off if there is abuse.

Please feel welcome to leave game and mod feedback and suggestions here.

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thisiscalm
2014-01-02 11:44 pm UTC (link)

Player name: Rica

Character: Spencer Reid | Criminal Minds |

thisiscalm | ☑
Comments: I feel like Reid always has a million things to do and he's involved in everything forever, which can be... treacherous because I play him so much that I don't know if I'm still playing him right. It's literally been forever since I last canon reviewed, so any comments or crit on how I play him/his voice/habits/choices would be more than welcome, seriously!

Character: Aidan Reilly | original character |

redclayheroics | ☑
Comments: Aidan's been through a lot lately and I'm a little concerned that I'm writing him too mopey — is this the case or do I still strike a decent balance between depressed with an undertone of PTSD and his actual, happy-go-lucky personality?

Character: Spike | Buffy the Vampire Slayer |

chipswiththat | ☑
Comments: With the Scoobies gone I've tried to hit his villainous side a bit more rather than the moral ambiguity that I've played with since I apped him. Is this working? Is he bad enough? Too much? Any ideas for evil plotting is also more than welcome!

Character: Charlotte Charles | Pushing Daisies |

pushedback | ☑
Comments: I was seriously contemplating dropping her before Christmas and then I canon reviewed and yeah no, she's staying. I would like to hear some words on whether or not I do her right, especially in regards to the idle flirting she's been engaging in lately. While I intend for it to be harmless and playful, I'm a little worried that it's not coming across as such but instead something more serious.

also if you have anything to say about Conscienti (

ai_conscienti ), Mary Wesson (

muliebrities ) or my rp skillz in general I am one giant ear! Come at me, bro!

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bendthekey
2014-01-03 01:09 am UTC (link)

I don't know Reid or Charlotte's canons, so I will start with the two I'm familiar with. I've read quite a bit of the information about Aidan on his journal, but if I'm interpreting something incorrectly or missed something, please feel free to tell me!

So first: Aidan. I think that you have done really well with balancing out how he's been dealing with the negative things recently (canon-update, then losing friends, then losing Helix) with his normally cheery and optimistic attitude. There is a bit of jadedness to him now and it's subtle but there if you pay enough attention and I love how you didn't just shove it in everyone's faces. The "undertone of PTSD" is actually almost unnoticeable majority of the time except for when Aidan is around certain characters, so if you're trying to keep it really lowkey you're doing a great job. I do think he's sad, but I wouldn't really call him "mopey" as he's not trying to even draw attention to it. Overall I think his behavior makes a lot of sense for what's happened and where he's at mentally and emotionally right now.

Now Spike: I think what you've done with his is really awesome. Even while he had the chip in there was this edge of danger to him and I think ever since it was removed and he started to lose the Scoobies, it's been an interesting progression back to his old habits. Seeing him threaten and even attack people as shown that he's not the nice guy he keeps hearing about but at the same time, he's not completely bloodthirsty. He's playing it smart while also toying with people. I've loved watching his progression.

I do think at times maybe he's playing it safer than I would have expected, being a bit too passive at times, but he knows that the Defense Force is around and watching so it's not completely surprising either. I find his relationships with the different characters who refuse to think of him as the terrible person he wants them to see as really interesting to (and I admit I am somewhat biased about that), but I wonder if maybe he shouldn't be a little more manipulative with them, like he was with Harmony.

Onto Reid. Now I don't really know much about his canon besides hearsay and a couple minutes of watching, so everything I have to say is mainly on what I have seen in game. He's changed from how he was at the beginning of the game, no denying that, but I don't think the changes have been big enough that he's unrecognizable from who he was when he first showed up. I won't deny that at times I wondered about how fast things progressed for him in the game, but time is kind of relative in a game where people spend so much time together and around each other. Still, he's only been in the game for a little more than 100 or so IC days which is not even three and a half months. This doesn't mean I think everything so far has been OOC, but if you're worried about how "right" you're playing him maybe consider thinking about the speed of the game and if developments are going faster or slower than you think they should be?

Charlotte has been pretty interesting to see and I don't know her canon, but she's fun. The flirting hasn't been entirely subtle, but also easy going and not serious, in my opinion, so if that's what you were going for, you're doing okay. I admit she's the one I've followed the least, so I don't have as much to offer about her and how she's doing, but I think she's enjoyable to tag with and still getting settled into the game.

Any and all of this is purely from my own observations and I don't claim to stalk any character 100% of the time, so I could easily have misinterpreted something due to not seeing a thread that lead up to it or not realizing it was meant to go a certain way. I'm just putting things as I've seen them so far and hoping maybe it helps even a little bit.

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thisiscalm
2014-01-04 02:29 pm UTC (link)

First of all, thank you for taking the time to respond! I'm going to, uh. Ramble a little I guess to explain why I do things or what I intend to improve on in the future, so if this comes across as justification or dodging the crit please remember that it's not intended as such!

So... Aidan. I'm really glad that you see it that way, because that is pretty much exactly what I wanted to accomplish. He's always been a character that shoves his own personal problems under the rug, so to speak, so even with the depression and PTSD that he's going through it shouldn't be all that noticeable unless you're one of the very few that he feels he can be that open with. He does similar things in his canon over a long period of time (one I'll share through canon updates, if possible) so I'm very happy that it's coming across in this environment!

Spike. Okay, to tell you the truth I do want to do more villainy things with him. I think the reason why I play him as safe as I do (and I do, definitely!) is two-fold: on one hand I don't want to shoot myself in the foot and make him either unplayable (too much of a baddie) OR progress events too quickly so I can't push them in the (soul-retrieving) direction I want them. The events that pushed him into the character he is at the end of s7 were crippling to the monster side of him (he spent years with that chip in his skull, whereas it was only about a month in Marina) and I'm not really sure how to go about that here. With the Scoobies gone — especially Buffy and Dawn — it's difficult to play up that uncertainty the way I did in the beginning. No one here knows what he really becomes and why, so logically he should be free to be William the Bloody as much as he bloody well wants to. It's a tricky thing.

The other reason is sort of... lack of opportunity. He doesn't have much to gain in Marina and so he doesn't have much of a reason to manipulate all the gullible ladies (and there are a few by now) into doing... whatever it is he would want them to do. It's more a slow burn and he does have moments where he's painting himself out to be more of a classic tortured misunderstood Angel-type of monster (ew) in order to gain sympathy for future transgressions, so I guess I could push that harder? It's just difficult to push him into too much of a villain when he has more to lose than he has to gain, especially when the motivation behind it is difficult to find.

Chuck — Chuck is never subtle about anything so that the flirting doesn't come across as such is a good thing! A little background story: she has a boyfriend back home. Love of her life, she's loyal to a fault and believes in their relationship with the strength of a thousand shoujo heroines. The thing is that they can't touch each other or she dies, which is a constant stressor on said relationship and has also led to her exploring (and eventually dismissing) other possibilities, like polyamory. She also rarely left the house until she was 28 for Reasons so being in Marina is bringing her a lot of opportunities that she up until now never had. She can be open about herself and what she is, she can toy with the idea of romantic entanglements even if she doesn't intend to make good on them and not worry about making Ned jealous or threaten the relationship she very much wants to keep intact.

She's also mad at him because he kind of killed her dad when she was 8. Sort of. Accidentally. So that brings a little crack in her resolve to only ever be with him, which may... well, you see the picture. It's a fine balance to walk between actively flirting in a serious manner and more... play-flirting. With that in mind, do you think I'm hitting the right note?

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2/2 wow okay I had many words

thisiscalm
2014-01-04 02:29 pm UTC (link)

Reid — okay so, first of all I've always found it odd to receive crit on progression because there's very little that can be done about it in retrospect. It's difficult to dial back and I've always been more focused on whether or not the development makes sense with the events that progressed rather than the time — after all, most movies, books and tv shows do the same. Believable character development is also kind of part of my job description irl so I'm not really worried about that — as long as I can go through the timeline and feel that the pacing is believable in relation to the event and how they would've affected him, I'm good. Thank you for bringing it up tho!

I think the problem with Reid — and this is more me being in my own head for the past two days, chewing this over — is that I've played him for two years and I haven't actually rewatched canon in all that time. He's developed a lot with good reason, perhaps so much so that I feel a disconnect from his canon self. A canon review is definitely in order and I have some other plans for how to get him back on track. It's just a matter of doing it, haha!

Again, thank you for taking the time to point these things out! It's very much appreciated and I hope I didn't steamroll you too hard with all the thoughts and feelings I have up in here! <3

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foreverjack
2014-01-03 11:22 am UTC (link)

You know how much I love you and your characters, right? :-)

I think Reid is sounding absolutely fine. Since you and Lena and everyone else got me interested in Criminal Minds, I've been watching it a lot lately, because they've been showing it, like, every day over here, so I've now seen S3, 4, 5 and half of 1, and have the rest of 1 and 2 and then 6 to watch. After that, when I've made some room on the recorder, I'll try and catch up with 7 and 8! But anyway, yeah, your Reid sounds perfectly in character to me!

Aiden I can't comment on because I haven't read any of his threads. I wish I had more time to just read!

As for Spike, well, he is absolutely perfect! I love how he's getting all evil again and yet still so conflicted about it, which is so completely IC I can't even say. I think Kathrine is possibly right and Spike could go a bit more evil, but obviously there's only so far you can take that in a game like this so I feel you're pacing it pretty well to get as much fun out of it as possible before it inevitably has to end!

Charlotte... I need to find time to tag Charlotte again, because she's so much fun! The boys definitely ought to have her over some time or something!

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thisiscalm
2014-01-04 02:37 pm UTC (link)

I'm glad you think so! I, uh... I still feel like I'm in sore need of a canon review since it's been a good 2 years since I last saw beyond s2, so that will happen very soon. Starting today, actually! You deserve perfection with your resident genius profiler and perfection is what you're getting!

Honestly, I would love to snag a thread with Jack and Aidan sometime even if it's just the one. I think he could blow Aidan's tiny little mind with the liberal sex ideas, which is always hilarious to watch.

As for Spike, I cannot begin to describe how happy I am with the way Jack and Ianto CR has gone lately. I do wish I could have him do more evil things, but the setting doesn't exactly lend itself to the kind of schemes he's used to pulling and without a Slayer around there's not as much need to antagonize as previous. I also feel like I don't want to push him so far that I can't reel him back in again, although I suppose a staking is as good an end to a character run as any...

Yes to everything neighborly with Charlotte! She talked to Ianto recently about the vampire problem and would like to say that she's very worried about you boys and a little bit of a heads up wouldn't hurt next time!

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foreverjack
2014-01-05 12:55 pm UTC (link)

Reid - having glanced at your comments above too, you've obviously got the same problem going on there as I had with Jack in my last game, where I'd been playing him continuously for 3 1/2 years and he had grown *way* past actual canon due to the relationships he had around him. It can be really hard to fit that back to actual canon. I've always gone with just trying to make sure the character *feels* right, and that what he's done feels IC. Obviously, at Marina, Jack has already gone through some *incredible* changes, but I feel I can justify them IC, even if someone walking in without having read the background might not recognise him now! And Reid has obviously had similar changes here, especially due to his relationship with Kitty and so on, so he's not going to be the same character as he is in canon. But I still feel like I can hear his voice when you write him, and he does still feel IC to me. :-)

Aidan - I am absolutely up for that. Things should start calming down for me now Christmas and son's birthday party are out of the way, so hopefully I'll start finding some more time to tag new people soon!

Spike - yeah, I get the constraints of being evil within the game. I, personally, would hate to see him staked, though obviously if you did decide to go that way we'd do our best to send him off with the biggest bang possible! That said, I know you're aiming for redemption, so if there's anything I could do with Jack to help that along, do let me know. I have to admit, neither he nor I are quite sure how to proceed on that front at the moment, especially since there are no other Buffy characters present that Jack could find out about the soul thing from.

Charlotte - aww, sorry for worrying her! I feel bad when Jack and I just don't have the time to notify everyone about everything. Though it is at least kind of IC for Jack! *g*

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notrosesshadow
2014-01-04 04:12 am UTC (link)

Reid: I know nothing about Reid, but I'd like to have Martha talk to him more. I'm feel like our last few threads were bad on my end because I was trying to decide if I was going to keep Martha in game or not. But I think I've found her again.

Aidan: I haven't noticed him being too mopey, granted, Mal's talked to him all of twice, once with alcohol and once involving raptors. But the two of them seem to be getting on all right.

Charlotte: Thank you for saving Sarah. Sarah is probably going to need more help. She's not sure how to live like an adult human.

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thisiscalm
2014-01-04 02:42 pm UTC (link)

I'd like that too! Reid is a Doctor Who fan so technically he knows who Martha is... but I tend to play that very low key because while he's a fan, I'm not. ;) Either way I'd love to get some more threads going with them, even more so since Reid is a friend of Sam's. There's a good chance I'm going on a full hiatus come February (death by school work, essentially) so maybe something before then?

Adore adore adore Mal and Aidan. Seriously, the raptor thread made me so happy I can't describe it. Mal's added some much needed manly support in these trying times, let me tell you.

I really liked Chuck and Sarah's thread and would love to do something more with them soon! It brought out a caring side in her which is so present, but hasn't really gotten a chance to come out and play until just then. <3

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cptn_tightpants
2014-01-05 04:37 pm UTC (link)

I'm up for anything with Reid and Martha at any time.

Mal and Aiden is... somehow very hysterical. Because Mal's not exactly the most stable or supportive of people, but it's working somehow. I don't know. I love it either way.

And Sarah needs all the caring and help she can get. She's been a teenager wishing for independence for so long, but probably not really understanding what it means to be independent. I expect some massive disaster cooking or something.

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