HMD Meme (yes, we know it's a week late).

[powersthatbe]

HOW'S MY DRIVING CONCRIT MEME

This is Synodiporia's first HMD meme! (etc etc write intro if you like or it isn't necessary, your choice!!) MEME GUIDELINES ★ This meme is completely optional! If you're not into it, that's fine. ★ Comment here with the characters you play. ★ Post to other players that you have critique to offer. Other players will tell you how you're doing, too. ★ challenge While it is okay to simply praise others, this is not meant to be a lovememe and we ask you do not solely use it as one. For every good comment you post, post one thing that the player can improve on! If you choose not to do this, please remember this is meant to be a constructive cricitism meme. ★ There is a difference between giving concrit and just talking (without helpful advice), or saying a bunch of good things but not giving anything people can improve on. If you can't say why you like or why you want to praise someone's character or cannot offer suggestions for improvement, your commentary should be reconsidered before posting here. ★ Be polite on both sides. Present your criticism constructively rather than attacking or insulting (telling someone how they are doing things wrong but never explaining how they are doing it, giving examples, or how they could improve is not constructive criticism). If given criticism, please take it maturely and understand it is meant to see you improve with your character rather than try to be mean to you. We all want help here! Please feel free to use the code below to write your comment up! it's highly suggested you put your name in the subject line and then list your characters, but you may do it however you wish. <b>character:</b> CHARACTER NAME // SERIES <b>character journal:</b> <user name="journal"> <b>personal hmd:</b> if you have a personal hmd on your journal, feel free to link there as well to give people another option for communicating. <b>notes:</b> (here you can let people know if you are aware of things they may have concerns over such as being slow to tag back and if it may not be known, let people know you have been on vacation or busy etc. and have plans to improve on it. you can also ask for specific things you are worried on that you would like concrit, etc.)

code by fleeting

Comments

Cocoa

[nicotinized]

character: Toshizou Hijikata | Peacemaker Kurogane (AU)
character journal: nicotinized
personal hmd: http://pocketsfullof.dreamwidth.org/1863.html
notes: Toshi's been in the game for almost a year and a half now (since opening!) and I'm still struggling with getting few-to-no replies when I make top-levels for him. What can I do to make his stuff more interesting to other people?

character: Jyuushiko Ukitake
character journal: wavesandthunder
personal hmd: http://pocketsfullof.dreamwidth.org/1863.html
notes: None in particular, I'm still warming up to playing her again.

[detectivewonder]

I've been trying to figure this out for a while, because I've definitely noticed you making attempts to be more friendly. But I think part of the problem is that for most of the last year and a half, that's really not how you came off? First impressions matter, and for most older players in the game, you & Andy have been the loudest and most outspoken critical voices for a very long time.

Now. I do, honestly, value that criticism, whether I agree with it or not. It's been a check and balance for my modwork from day one. But obviously, while valuable, it's not a good way to make friends. While there's been a definite change, it doesn't erase past impressions. And even looking down this meme, it's pretty clear you're also still an outspoken critical voice, so it's possible that the first impression still isn't counterbalanced.

I've known you long enough & played with you long enough that it's pretty simple for me to shrug off how blunt and undiplomatic you can be. It doesn't in the least bother me personally. But for people without that baseline, your uncompromising approach is probably still a pretty big sticking point. I don't have any specific tips, and I wish I did, but I've been outspoken and tactless enough myself on enough occasions that I don't think I'm the ideal instructor on the subject by any means.

[professorwolf]

I'll second what Matt said, that your OOC demeanor has turned me off in the past to interacting with you. I can tell you're trying to be better, too, though, and so I've actually had a look at your top-levels in the past couple months, particularly during the last Jaunt, but what I'm seeing is they don't seem to have a whole lot of... hooks, you might say. Like a lot of "the character is here doing this thing, come seek him out" rather than "the character is here and says to another character, 'yo, this shit is messed up'" or "the character is trying to pick your character's pocket; wanna catch him?". The only one I can find of yours for the last Jaunt has him stalking about in the shadows, obviously trying to be stealthy, and while I saw it at the time and had wanted to reply, since it didn't have any replies at the time, I couldn't come up with to do with it :( Sometimes that's all you've got (see: Riddick, who is often a great grump), and you just have to hope for the best, but it DOES lead to a lot fewer replies unless you have some solid CR already who you've planned for.

Does that help maybe?

I also find that a lot of pre-plotting helps in getting people to hit up your top-levels, in my case. I'm fairly active in finding friends/interesting characters/etc to poke in CR memes, poke on plurk, or otherwise contact to specifically see if they want to plan a thread, relationship, or interaction. A lot of my replies-- probably about half of them, maybe more-- aren't surprises, but are ones we're expecting to do already, and even some of those that are surprises come from other current CR who hits up certain characters of mine a lot anyway.

So that might help you, too, reaching out specifically to people to make connections with your characters :)

Matt

[detectivewonder]

character: Tim Drake / DC Comics
character journal: detectivewonder
notes: Please remember that he's a postgame character with five years of character arc - but if you don't understand or buy his development, that is still totally valid crit grounds.

character: Remy LeBeau / Marvel 616
character journal: notinthecards
notes: Anything's good! Especially about his agenda/untrustworthiness, but anything's cool.

character: Joscelin Verreuil / Kushiel's Legacy
character journal: protect_and_serve
notes: My shakiest muse, so anything you can say that would nudge his character voice to canon complicity is especially good.

character: Seta Souji / Persona 4
character journal: fridgeninja
notes: Is he consistent in his voice? Also, anything else.

Re: Matt

[nicotinized]

Honestly - while what I've seen of your character voice is good, I kind of feel like I don't get to actually see much because a lot of your tags tend to be pretty short and insubstantial - one or two sentences at most, frequently with days between tags. I know the holidays have been particularly busy for you, but this has been going on longer than that - you seem like you might have too much on your plate?

Thomas

[neverfeltthatway]

character: Armin Arlert // Attack on Titan
character journal: neverfeltthatway
personal hmd: Personal, screened hmd here
notes: I realize I've been slow and flaky for the past half a year or longer. I was living in Turkey, then traveling abroad, then traveling domestically, then I did not have reliable internet, and then it was the holidays. Now that none of these things are no longer applicable, hopefully I will be able to be more reliable here.

Though all concrit is welcome, I would especially appreciate comments on characterization and voice, as that's something I'm always worried about - sometimes it's hard to tell how much is a character deviating from canon due to experiences, and how much is simply ooc behavior.

[nicotinized]

Armin seems to be growing into the sort of person he grew into in canon - less screaming helplessly, more trying to make the best of a bad situation. I know I was one of the people who came to you with concerns like a year ago now, and you handled that really well and dealt with the concerns!

Jessie -- Daneel

[thezerothlaw]

character: Daneel / Asimov's Robots
character journal: thezerothlaw
personal hmd: Here
notes: A lot of November kicked my ass and I've been slow to tag as well as not very often tagging out. Tagging out is hard and I haven't had a lot of spoons. I'm working on doing this more, though.

The Mod Squad

[powersthatare]

character: Trumps, Familiar Face NPCs, OOC action applicable for crit too!
character journal: powersthatbe / powersthatare
personal hmd: You're always welcome to email us concerns!
notes: We want to do our best by you guys, so lay it on us! But we are also human, so please keep the 'concrit' guideline in mind.

Re: The Mod Squad

[nicotinized]

It seems like there's a bit of disorganization behind the scenes, though from where I am I can't really say why - but a lot of the list updates have been lagging for months now, and mod posts and mingles are frequently late. Might it help to have a set time every week to deal with mod things? More communication? Not promising posts will be up by x day until they're fully written?

Also, I know in the past I've seen familiar face plotting happen on plurk, which isn't ideal, given that not all the NPC players have everyone in the game friended.

Bookie

[darkhourdear]

character: Phillip Santorini // Persona 3
character journal: darkhourdear
personal hmd: Here!
notes: My forever struggle with Phillip is trying to make him grow up in a consistent and believable way. He is a little bit more childish than some thirteen year olds, which is intentional, but if he seems waaaaay off the mark for his age then I would like to know!

character: Melissa Lyre // World of Darkness
character journal: stopinthenameofawe
personal hmd: Here!
notes: My hope with Melissa is that even though she is a bitch, she's an entertaining bitch. XD

Keri

[wholeheaded]

character: Ambrose | Tin Man
character journal: wholeheaded
personal hmd: here, IP and screening off, anon on as far as I know
notes: I am aware of my slowness and lousy tagging-out habits, as well as sticking with threads. I encourage anyone who wants to continue something I've lapses on to poke me on it, and I hope to be able to expand my CR going forward. However, in the next couple of months I will be moving house again and am bound to drop a number of balls as a result. I will try and keep tabs but get on me via the usual channels and I'll at the very least work out handwaving.

Re: Keri

[nicotinized]

It might help to make some top-levels that are more open to new faces? idk, I often get the sense that you're only really interested in playing with a handful of people.

I did really enjoy seeing all the plot-stuff you did for Lightning Age, though!

Birdie

[mysunnydisposition]

character: Stephanie Brown // DC Comics
character journal: mysunnydisposition

character: Lucifer // The Wicked + The Divine
character journal: ofinspiration

character: Pearl // Steven Universe
character journal: strategyandasword

personal hmd: http://mysunnydisposition.dreamwidth.org/665.html (I use this post for all characters, so just specify who you're talking about and we're good)
notes: Iiii know Pearl has hardly existed at all. Hoping to fix that in the next month. Everything else is fair game.

[awitchdidit]

Just saying I'm totally blind to Luci's actual canon but she's a fabulous jerk and I enjoy bouncing off of her so far.

Sparkz

[littleladyluck]

character: Monaco // Hetalia
character journal: littleladyluck
personal hmd: None at the moment. Sorry! PM or plurk me, maybe?
notes: I may be slow again due to teaching and the job hunt starting up again tomorrow. My situation is kind of governed by others' decisions, so I'll do my best with what I'm given.

Meta

[howexciting]

character: Leonardo da Vinci // Assassin's Creed
character journal: howexciting
personal hmd: N/A (although PMs to this journal are encouraged if you would prefer that)
notes: I know I am a rather slow tagger comparatively to many people in here. I am attempting to work on my speed. The holidays were pretty awful for me in terms of RP productivity, so tags have stalled for the time being while I try to get my other ducks in a row. Specifically, I would like to hear about how I'm playing Leonardo, and how believable his voice is.

Re: Meta

[nicotinized]

Your voice seems pretty solid for Leo, though I'm canonblind, and I've definitely seen you working on trying to stay on top of things and keep them managable! That said, you sometimes seem... really invested in making yourself miserable? Like the whole thing with the King in Yellow - people, myself included, were pretty willing to work something out so that Leo could move on with things, but you kept shooting down ideas on plurk. It's kind of off-putting when someone seems really determined to not have fun in RP, because it's a hobby that's supposed to be fun. You also seem to take stuff really personally and blame yourself too much, which I don't think makes anyone, yourself included, happier.

So I guess - be kinder to yourself, and maybe a little more accepting of ways to solve the problems that are getting to you?

Blue

[laceandcarnage]

character: Istas // InCryptid
character journal: laceandcarnage
personal hmd: Istas's HMD

character: Matthew Swift // Matthew Swift novels / Magicals Anonymous novels
character journal: comebewe
personal hmd: Matthew's HMD

Bix

[wickedestwitch]

character: Elphaba Thropp | Wicked (musical)
character journal: wickedestwitch
personal hmd: feel free to PM her journal?
notes: I'm still feeling a bit shaky with her concerning driving factors/motivations for getting in to plot things. She is a veteran app of both Questing Country and Nova Venezia and I've handwaved some of the development she'd have needed to be more social. I'm also concerned that I'm currently playing her a little too social.

character: Malik Al-Sayf | Assassin's Creed
character journal: loyalrebel
personal hmd: Here! (screened comments)
notes: I'm fairly concrete in Malik's voice, and he's been here since the 4th wall event/Grid last year. With him I'd like some advice/feedback on whether or not I'm having him be approachable to outside characters while still balancing the fact that he's reluctant to be overtly sociable. I'm also playing a lot more heavily with infiltrations being a tool for development with him and wondering if people are enjoying joining in on that or want it to be pushed back more.

Overall Note: I know my tagging schedule is fairly out of synch with most of the game due to working overnights so it can be difficult to get rolling on threads outside of people who share that effective timezone. I've also been pulled in a few different directions IRL and scatterbrained more than usual, which is something I'm planning on trying to wrangle going forward.

[awitchdidit]

It's been a while since I've seen the musical, but Elphaba's demeanor as I've seen so far strikes me as something she could get to if removed from all the...well...Oz and put into a situation that isn't constant judgment and manipulation.

tl;dr voice seems good to me.

Gail's four

[professorwolf]

character: Randolph Lyall (PG) // Parasol Protectorate
character journal: professorwolf
personal hmd: Here.
notes: None of my others have personal HMDs, so if you want a personal one for any of them, feel free to hit up Lyall's.

character: Richard B. Riddick // Chronicles of Riddick
character journal: itsnanimalthing
notes: None in particular here.

character: Zoe Washburne // Firefly
character journal: someonetocarry
notes: If pregnancy plots or baby plots bother you, feel free to tell me not to tag with you :) She's only pregnant for a few more months, at least!

character: Neeshka // Neverwinter Nights 2
character journal: tailforbrains
notes: She's gonna be dungeoned for the next liminal space mingle and for the Jaunt, in the hopes of forcing some actual character development for her :| I know she's pretty stagnant.

Airdra

[whydoyoushine]

character: Hajime Aikawa (PG) // Kamen Rider Blade
character journal: chalicejoker
personal hmd: Here.
notes: So he's an AU and had two years of development in his last game before I brought him here--am I keeping everything consistent?

character: Zed // Ressha Sentai ToQGer
character journal: whydoyoushine
personal hmd: Here.
notes: Just trying not to woobify the kids' show villain over here.

character: Jules Thibault // New World of Darkness OC
character journal: failgoyle
personal hmd: Here.
notes: So Jules is super-new and I basically have no idea what I'm doing and am kind of flailing at anything and everything, pretty much.

Nerdo

[awitchdidit]

character: Beatrice the Golden // Umineko: When They Cry
character journal: awitchdidit
personal hmd: Anon enabled!
notes: Fresh meat here and with a really, really confusing character that I'm new with, so please, hit me with anything I can improve on.

character: Rise Kujikawa // Persona 4
character journal: senpaidol
personal hmd: Anon enabled!
notes: So new to the game as to be nonexistant yet, but I am a little more familiar with playing her, so let me know if there's anything you've noticed from the ball or testdrive.

[inexecution]

character: Souji Okita // PMK (AU)
character journal: inexecution
personal hmd: http://inexecution.dreamwidth.org/516.html

[detectivewonder]

Basically, a lot of what I said to Cocoa applies here too. I really like, in-character, the way you play Souji, and I really like his CR. But OOC it's often seemed like you only had negative things to say about the game, which can really be a drag. That said, in the past couple months I've noticed positive feedback as well, so there's definitely been a positive shift there - so, mostly, keep up the good work?

RainRaven

[bite_the_hand]

character: Sera Angel // SMT: Digita Devil Saga
character journal: shantiprayer
personal hmd: ...So this is awkward but I seem to have accidentally either deleted it or neglected to put one in her journal in the first place. I'll get right on fixing that.
notes: I am well aware that I have a ton of really old tags of her's still sitting in my inbox. The last two months haven't been the best of times for either how busy I've been or mentally. I didn't expect things to get like that when I apped my second character, but I apologize for not doing a better job to make sure I was ready for a second. I can't promise just yet things will suddenly and dramatically improve, but I am going to be making a genuine effort to work on it.

As for the character, Sera can be difficult at times because of balancing all her oddities out. Especially as she begins to lose her naivety but refuses to let go of her optimism. Is the character growth still fitting with the character? Is her lack of philosphical comments compared to the games a difference in setting and not being prompted, or an OOC slip-up?

character: Eren Jaeger // Attack on Titan
character journal: bite_the_hand
personal hmd: Here on his journal. It should be screened but IP logging is still on.
notes: See the comment above on Sera's notes about slowness and the status on that. Additionally, Eren is a very new muse to me, and was probably my fastest turn-around between picking up a character and apping them to a game, so I'm still feeling really nervous and unsure with his voice. Has there been any weird inconsistencies? Dumb stuff I've managed to do already I should avoid in the future? Too much yelling? ...Not enough yelling?

[itsananimalthing]

I'm pretty much entirely canonblind, but I've really been enjoying Eren with Lyall, so there's that at least? :) I kind of hope we can get some longer threads going.

Yubsie

[dino_zarf]

character: Wash// Firefly
character journal: dino_zarf
personal hmd: Here
notes: Let me know if you don't want him talking about Zoe's pregnancy to his character. I will bend to make him shut up about the topic.

Hina

[backwordscompatible]

Character: Zatanna Zatara
Character Journal: backwordscompatible
Personal HMD: right here

Notes: There are some mingles where I either deliberately don't top level and only tag out to certain characters, or else only top level and don't really tag out much, but those are only in cases where I don't want to risk taking on too big of a tag load at that time. Same with recent ooc planning--it's not that I'm ignoring people, it's that I'd rather stay in the background and not hold anybody back if I happen to end up too busy to do much by a certain time. I hope that I'm otherwise leaving myself open and available enough for potential new CR, and now that the busy holiday season is over and my students' concert is almost here, I SHOULD be able to bounce back into things a little more in the upcoming months.

Terry

[set_your_watches_for_fun]

character: Colonel Tick-Tock // Thrilling Adventure Hour
character journal: set_your_watches_for_fun
notes: I am aware my tagging is occasionally erratic, due to work/toddler, and for that I apologize.

character: Rorschach // Watchmen
character journal: what_do_you_see
notes: See above.

Kit

[urbanwhizkid]

character: Yosuke Hanamura | Persona 4
character journal: urbanwhizkid
personal hmd: Here
notes: I know my tagging speed isn't very consistent sometimes being very quick and other times being very slow to get back to tags. I am working on that. I know half the problem is I sometimes put myself in positions where I overwhelm myself with the number of tags I have for Yosuke so going forward I will try to be more aware of where threads are before starting new ones.

Athy

[vorenado]

character: Gale // Digital Devil Saga
character journal: vorenado
personal hmd: link
notes: I haven't played him in years(and not for very long when I did), so I hope I'm getting back into the proper swing of things!

character: Faed pa'Varuun // Original Character
character journal: virioncomplex
personal hmd: link
notes: He's only been here for like .03 seconds but I figured I'd toss him up anyway!