HMD

[gamemakers]

HOW'S MY DRIVING?

Anon is enabled, don't be an a jerk.

This is not a love meme, however, that also doesn't mean it is a hate meme. Someone's driving can be good, feel free to say as much! Just try to give them an idea on how.

Also please make sure if you are asking for crit you are also giving it. If everyone only posts for themselves, no one will get any feedback. You don't need to comment to everyone, but please be sure if you comment to reply to at least 3 other people. We'll be keeping an eye on this post to make sure everyone's commenting around.

There are some helpful crit questions posted here if you are feeling lost on how to word yourself.

Comments

LENZ -- JAY // OC

[amourtician]

first off, i know i've been kind of flaky with tags. i'm working on it -- i'm very ill right now and i've had a string of bad day lately, in terms of pain and fatigue. that said, i'm actively pursuing treatment and my flakiness will improve in the coming months

if it doesn't, feel free to kick my arse

jay is an OC and i know it's hard to crit OCs, so here are specific questions:

1. what sort of person does he come off as? i need to know how he's reading so i can compare it to my intentions for him and know whether i'm on the right track
2. is he consistent? he's a bit of a mess, i know, but is he a mess that makes logical sense?
3. am i handling exposition and introspection well? i do worry about divulging information about jay's world and his background, since that might bog down tags and logs instead of being interesting and substantial

finally! i am ESL and i currently do not live in an anglophone country. how is my grammar? my vocabulary? do i make any consistently nonsensical word choices that cannot be explained as jay's style of speech being a tad off-kilter?

other commentary welcome. anon is fine, harsh is fine. i have a screened, anon-enabled, untracked HMD post, too, if you're not comfortable being public with crit.

[knifewithnoname]

I really like Jay, he is interesting and I always find myself reading all your tags to learn more about his world and life. From what I've read and played against he seems consistent as well!

I'm not one to really be judging grammar and words but from what I can see it all looks good to me and nothing doesn't make sense!

Re: LENZ -- JAY // OC

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

I feel like in a lot of my threads with Jay, and the network posts especially, I'm getting the lewdness and overt sexuality at the expense of other characterization. I personally would love to see you divulge more information about Jay and his homeworld, because at the moment I feel like if you asked me to name traits about Jay, I wouldn't be able to come up with much more than 'crassly sexual', 'flamboyant' and 'obnoxious' (ICly for the latter). I can tell he's really rounded out in your head because of the way you talk about him, and I would really love to see that come out in your prose. He's a fascinating character and I feel like I'm only getting tidbits when I want a full meal. Does that make sense?

Your grammar and vocabulary are great; I would have no idea you're ESL if not for you telling us. :)

Re: LENZ -- JAY // OC

[amourtician]

right, i see your point -- for what it's worth, it's due to jay choosing to play a certain role for the capitol, which means he's going out of his way to be an obnoxious diva and not much else. experiencing an actual arena is going to knock that out of him, as he realises playing a provocative airhead isn't actually gaining him any support, like he hoped it would. so he's going to get a fair bit more rounded very soon!

that and i need to get more confident about showing more depth to him, i guess? his backstory could be obnoxiously manpain if i played it wrong and i get tentative sometimes.

Re: LENZ -- JAY // OC

[akingalways]

I do have to concur with Lisa on this. My own characters have barely interacted with his, but from just looking, I also feel that at the moment, Jay is "that one obviously bisexual at the least guy who calls everyone sugar and honey". It seems stereotypical and one-note to me.

TD;LR: seeing more layers of the cake would be more delicious than getting sick on just the icing. And now you all want cake. My work is done.

Re: LENZ -- JAY // OC

[wantsajetpack]

Jay's beautiful. Pep wants more CR with him!

And your grammar and is good to me (but I have horrible grammar so...

Though I will second the fact it would be nice to get more background on him. Though really I find him fun in his crass behavior.

Re: LENZ -- JAY // OC

[the_hit_list]

1. I'm going to echo what other comments have stated in that he seems a bit one-note, and unfortunately, that note strikes me as stereotypical. Some of his comments are funny in an 'oh snap!' sort of way, but he can cross the line sometimes.

For example, you play him as someone who likes things to be beautiful and is (or pretends to be) cultured, and yet he made comments about Damian's balls dropping. To me, it didn't gel and was fairly offensive, given that Damian is one of the youngest characters in the game. There were other ways to imply that he was an infant without going to that extreme.

I understand the difficulty of playing someone who has chosen a role to present for himself. I'm doing the same thing with Tim. It's not easy, but I let Tim's level of "on" waver. He never says anything anti-Capitol or anti-Games, but his reactions to some things (like his initial post after the bombing) aren't exactly the "Who cares? They treat us like kings. Have some respect." routine that he normally goes with. It's hard for anyone to be 100% 'on' all the time - it's too much stress.

2. N/A really, see above.

3. I wouldn't worry about this so much, particularly if his homeworld has had an affect on who he is. I try to keep Tim very much in Panem, but I don't hesitate to have him compare things to Gotham or think of characters that aren't here if it's pertinent to the scene that he's in. Our characters didn't pop into Panem out of nothingness. I haven't logged with Jay, so I don't know how much you do or don't show. If you have been avoiding it entirely, maybe letting some of it slip in here and there will help bring out other sides to the character.

Re: LENZ -- JAY // OC

[amourtician]

the thing is that while he likes things to be beautiful and pretends to be cultured, he's a childish and crass at heart and in the heat of the moment, he says pretty terrible things on purpose, to rile people up. He felt cornered by damian and tim and he said the first retort that came to mind -- he doesn't have much of a conversational filter, really.

he's not "on" all of the time, either -- his conversation with wyatt, his panic after the bombing and his panic after the execution and he's currently freaking out at neffa in the arena. he's "on" all the time on the network, sure, but ... that's just the network. i think he's a bit less one-note in logs, but that's just me.

EDIT: your crit is valid and i'm going to work on those points, yes. i didn't mean for this post to come across as overly defensive, whoops.

Re: LENZ -- JAY // OC

[backinakidflash]

(Still me).

I should have pointed out that I can only comment on what I read - and generally speaking I make it a point to not read other logs because I don't want to have OOC knowledge leak out. Since I haven't threaded with him, I can only judge by the network.

I wasn't bothered by the response - I'd rather have someone actually take the time to explain things, as you did, then just say "I'll keep that in mind" or "Thanks" or something. I don't read it as defensive so much as showing that you're actually thinking about it.

[mannersmatter]

Having seen a little bit of Jay's other personality, there's a lot there to pick open. In our thread, I think you were doing well at it peaking in in tags, and that you should continue in that line to bring it out as suggested on plurk.

I also had no idea you were ESL. So you're doing something right.

Re: LENZ -- JAY // OC

[lessthanelementary]

you asked for crit, so here goes! :D I hope it's helpful.

-don't be afraid to talk about his home world or his past! Corinne put it really well below (I'm going to be using this as my tl;dr-o-meter forever) - it provides context for his actions. It also fills in for a continuity that other players have no way of accessing otherwise - as he's an OC, everyone starts off canonblind, so justifying his actions in the context of his storyline is helpful, not burdensome. I think putting more in your tags about where he comes from would also help with the problem of his sometimes coming off as one-note in conversations.

As a sidenote, that aspect of his and Neffa's introductory thread is seriously my favorite part of it - you have a colorful and interesting world, and all the details about it Jay divulges just make the tags more interesting to respond to, in my opinion!

-I think you've achieved a good balance of his good and bad traits in logs. With body language attached, it's very clear that he's got no regard for personal space and is aggressively forward, without having to cross any dialogue lines, but also that he can be lively and funny.

-grammar, spelling, prose are all A+. I actually really enjoy your writing, it flows very well.

general crit: more tl;dr pls, I seriously do love what little I've gotten to see of Jay's world and would love to see how living there has influenced who he is!