InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "The human world is a mess"

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

Entry tags:

mod: hmd, mod: plotting

Game-wide Plotting/HMD
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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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