End Time RP - Needles is coming!

[theicwguy]

The setting is dark. The camera looks to be in an abandoned warehouse. The building has windows - many windows. There is a fire gently burning in the background. The reason for this fire is unknown. It is obviously night as the only light visible in this place is the fire itself.

The fire dies down for a second until almost totally non-existent. To the surprise of all the viewers, a torch appears in the hands of a mysterious figure who has just entered the camera's range. The entity seems to hold the torch face down at first giving the impression that there is something to hide or otherwise waiting for the perfect moment to reveal their identity.

"Mesh, oh Mesh."

The voice of the mysterious figure begins to make it's presence known. His deep, callous voice resembles that of a hunter calling out for his prey.

Suddenly the torch is flipped up towards the face of this entity. It has now been made clear that this person is a large male with black-hair tied back and closely shaved down either side. He's wearing a black leather jacket, black tights with big heavy duty boots to match. He also looks to have a spiderweb tattoo on his left arm. His look is reminiscent of that of a punk rocker. Although at this moment in time his face is covered by the other hand leaving the audience to further speculate his full identity.

His hand is gradually removed revealing his face to the camera for the very first time.

"My name is Ryan 'Needles' Payne and I hail from the deepest darkest corners of your worst nightmare. You may all be wondering who I am and why I'm here, well the answer is pretty simple. I'm here to change the landscape of the WFWF forever. This saga begins with Mesh."

He says her name in an increasingly menacing tone.

"We all know Mesh. She's a newcomer a bit like myself. I give her credit where it's due. She 'got' off to a good start (with the emphasis being on the word 'got,' as in past tense). She just got lucky, mainly because she was up against a no show. That just about sums up what a little b*tch he was. Well the difference between Mesh and I, is that she's a girl. First of she may be cute in all but when the fun, fairytale, fantasy is over, we all know she's got no real passion, no fighting spirit, she can't hold her own against 'Needles.' Mesh is weak, like a lost little girl in a man's world."

"People have come up to me and asked me prior to signing the contract for the match,
'Needles,' what do you plan to do when you step in that ring at end game?
Well spoiler alert I am going to make an example of Mesh. That's the first thing I'm going to do. You know I have no problem with her, it just so happpens she's the first rung on the ladder of torture. That's right I will win at all costs. Whether that be a lasting impression or this badboy."

'Needles' points sadisticly towards the dreaded baseball bat which has been lying at his feet the entire time.

"You have until End Game Mesh you don't have to do this. Because if you don't I will end your dream, your career if need be! Your legion of fans will become 'my' fans that's right they will become permanent members of the Cult of Payne, just so happens I'm recruiting at the moment. Mesh's little world will come crashing down. You all think I'm joking. I'm deadly serious because at Madison Square Garden at End Game the only story anyone will be talking about, the only person these fans paid to see, the only guy on this entire roster that can say something and get in that ring and back it up, IS ME."

After raising his voice 'Needles' begins breathing heavily, further building on his unpredictable, unstable mindset.

"I'm putting the whole roster on notice that at End Game in Madison Square Garden 'NEEDLES' IS COMING!"

His loud, unstable voice fades into the silence. He ends the segment by performing a demonic laugh, like that of a madman who's escaped from the mental institution.

The torch slowly goes off. The fire erupts in the darkness, growing in momentum into a towering inferno. Finally 'Needles' theme begins to play. The screeching, pulsating guitar riffs fill the giant hall. The shrieking vocals of Dan Marsala flood the empty warehouse and 'Needles' makes his way into the night.

[CM Poor]

So, bear with me, 'cause I feel like I'm about to touch on a lot here. That's not a bad thing - there's some raw material here, and when I see potential, I like to offer constructive criticism which, if taken well, can help you improve your work exponentially.

Let's start with the good - you've got your basic vision down. You've got a look, an aesthetic, and as far as I can tell, a voice that you want to exemplify Needles. That's good - it's a hurdle a lot of newcomers encounter, and if you've got that basic mold, you're left with a foundation upon which you can only build up.

You're gonna find, assuming you get a decent smattering of replies, that there's a general consensus around these parts regarding writers referencing "the camera" (the camera pans, the camera swings, etc). I don't much mind it, as I see it for what it is (a sort of default to move the scenery along), but others have stronger opinions on it than I, so you might consider reading some of your peers' work as we go along to see how they manage moving within and between scenes (though in your opponent's case, it'll likely be glossed over, as the camera is a large part of her gimmick, being that she's something of a vlogger).

I feel like you were off to a good start as you began digging into Mesh, until you kinda broke the wall in noting that she lost to "a no show". There's a weird sort of assumption you have to draw here. It can be a bit of a curve, so I'll try and spell it out the best I can, and hopefully it doesn't confuse you too much. We're writing everything here - scenes, promos, matches, etc. It does happen that writers (not characters) will no-show from time to time, however, when at all possible, we try and keep the character present (unless it's become a problem and they need to be written off). In the results of the last show, Mesh fought a match against an opponent as scheduled - the writer no showed, but it doesn't make much sense, in character, to say that her opponent no showed, when in our little make believe world, he did. You had a good line of attack here in striking on the validity of her opponent. It could have just been worded a bit better since we're all kinda playing pretend here. You'll get it.

I think you might get some readers a bit put off by the way you ended, with a bit of a theatrical sign off, what with the music playing and all that. I didn't mind it, seeing as I could tell this was geared toward playing out as a sort of highly produced vignette you'd see on TV. Time and trend have left a lot of us here writing scenery describing segments of a day in the life of our characters. As such, it's come to be what a lot of people expect, but I want to emphasize here that there are no rules that say that's how you have to approach things. If this sort of approach works for you? Go with it! Just know the limits that come with it, and it can be yours to build upon and experiment with.

From there? Basic stuff - take a look at other pieces this show, see how they present themselves so as to look like more than just a wall of text. It's very aesthetically pleasing to read, especially when some folk (ahem) routinely hand in 20 page RPs. Work with some formatting, find what works for you, and just start chipping away at finding how that fine line between writing and what we're doing here balances out for you.

It's a lot of fun, and I hope you'll stick around to enjoy it. This was a decent first showing, and as noted above, you've got some stuff you can really work with here if you're willing to try. I hope you will.

EDIT: one more thing, and I'm glad it comes as an edit 'cause it's kinda my point. You posted a couple of days ago, but I noticed you edited the thread some 2 hours ago as of when I wrote this. As a general rule, once your stuff is up, we want that to be the final product. Sometimes you'll miss a code bracket or something and these things can slide, but without coding in place, and having not read this until today, I have no real way of knowing what the change was. All this sorta speaks to just giving your stuff a once over before hitting "Post" - nothing that we'll ding you for here, but not a habit you wanna develop.

[King Richius]

CM Poor did a lot of the work with regards to comments. Pay close attention to everything he said. There's some good stuff in your RP but it is still very rough. If you give it some time to polish your writing and make use of some of the formatting tools you could rise up the ranks quickly.

I do want to reiterate CM Poor thoughts on going meta with the "your last opponent no showed" remark. When writing an RP you have to keep in mind what would your character know, not what do you know. In the WFWF world Mesh's opponent showed up and they had a match so in context the "no show" comment is wrong. When I read it, it took me right out of the RP, completely ruining all the good work you had done up to that point.

I agree with my co-owner that the use of camera angles and descriptions isn't quite the faux pas that others may think... if it is done right and fits the style of the RP. In this case I didn't mind it. I immediately got the idea that this was a recorded promo Needles was doing to introduce himself to the WFWF audience as well as your first RP introducing the character to the reader. I wouldn't do it regularly but it worked for me this time around.

It's my understanding you are doing all your writing on a phone? That's gonna hamper you in the long run unless you can find a place you can write and edit on line and then cut and paste the final version into a post here on WFWF. I don't know of any but perhaps a more internet savvy member can help you out. Alternately, you could write your drafts as PMs to yourself and update them that way until you have a finished piece you can copy into a post on the forums.

[CM Poor]

May 22, 2018 18:52:15 GMT -5 King Richius said:

CM Poor did a lot of the work with regards to comments. Pay close attention to everything he said. There's some good stuff in your RP but it is still very rough. If you give it some time to polish your writing and make use of some of the formatting tools you could rise up the ranks quickly.

I do want to reiterate CM Poor thoughts on going meta with the "your last opponent no showed" remark. When writing an RP you have to keep in mind what would your character know, not what do you know. In the WFWF world Mesh's opponent showed up and they had a match so in context the "no show" comment is wrong. When I read it, it took me right out of the RP, completely ruining all the good work you had done up to that point.

I agree with my co-owner that the use of camera angles and descriptions isn't quite the faux pas that others may think... if it is done right and fits the style of the RP. In this case I didn't mind it. I immediately got the idea that this was a recorded promo Needles was doing to introduce himself to the WFWF audience as well as your first RP introducing the character to the reader. I wouldn't do it regularly but it worked for me this time around.

It's my understanding you are doing all your writing on a phone? That's gonna hamper you in the long run unless you can find a place you can write and edit on line and then cut and paste the final version into a post here on WFWF. I don't know of any but perhaps a more internet savvy member can help you out. Alternately, you could write your drafts as PMs to yourself and update them that way until you have a finished piece you can copy into a post on the forums.

Until very recently, I wrote just about everything I put out over the course of several years using the notes app on my phone.

[King Richius]

May 22, 2018 20:03:54 GMT -5 CM Poor said:

May 22, 2018 18:52:15 GMT -5 King Richius said:

CM Poor did a lot of the work with regards to comments. Pay close attention to everything he said. There's some good stuff in your RP but it is still very rough. If you give it some time to polish your writing and make use of some of the formatting tools you could rise up the ranks quickly.

I do want to reiterate CM Poor thoughts on going meta with the "your last opponent no showed" remark. When writing an RP you have to keep in mind what would your character know, not what do you know. In the WFWF world Mesh's opponent showed up and they had a match so in context the "no show" comment is wrong. When I read it, it took me right out of the RP, completely ruining all the good work you had done up to that point.

I agree with my co-owner that the use of camera angles and descriptions isn't quite the faux pas that others may think... if it is done right and fits the style of the RP. In this case I didn't mind it. I immediately got the idea that this was a recorded promo Needles was doing to introduce himself to the WFWF audience as well as your first RP introducing the character to the reader. I wouldn't do it regularly but it worked for me this time around.

It's my understanding you are doing all your writing on a phone? That's gonna hamper you in the long run unless you can find a place you can write and edit on line and then cut and paste the final version into a post here on WFWF. I don't know of any but perhaps a more internet savvy member can help you out. Alternately, you could write your drafts as PMs to yourself and update them that way until you have a finished piece you can copy into a post on the forums.

Until very recently, I wrote just about everything I put out over the course of several years using the notes app on my phone.

Point taken.  I still use a flip phone so I'm assuming what todays smartphones are capable of.  I can't imagine writing on anything other than a program like Word or Pages (for Mac users).

[CM Poor]

May 22, 2018 20:07:21 GMT -5 King Richius said:

May 22, 2018 20:03:54 GMT -5 CM Poor said:

Until very recently, I wrote just about everything I put out over the course of several years using the notes app on my phone.

Point taken.  I still use a flip phone so I'm assuming what todays smartphones are capable of.  I can't imagine writing on anything other than a program like Word or Pages (for Mac users).

It's a chore, and my life has been considerably better on the written front since discovering Google docs (which allows me to work seamlessly between my phone and any PC with net access), but it got me by for ages.