A Shiny Game of Chess [Submission]

[Vio]

Plot Title	A Shiny Game of Chess
Number of Posts	17

Plot Summary

In the wake of their victory against masked mercenary Nezumi Tori, Kusatta Kotei and Brandon take a much needed break back aboard the ship of the Shining Pirates as they await the return of Leonard and Hiroto. While unbeknownst to them a battle of practically volcanic proportions is taking place atop the mountain, the smelly chef decides to try his luck in a game of chess against the papery penguin. A strange request to which at first Brandon responds with only curiosity and partial disinterest, but is soon enticed by the premise of fish as his reward for victory. Soon thereafter the game begins, Mister Kotei taking up the white side of the board, whilst his penguin partner dons the crown of black.

Slowly but surely the game begins to unravel, Kusatta sure of himself as he makes his opening move only to find the penguin mirroring his actions for the first few turns. At first this dance seems confusion, but between bouts Brandon is more concerned about reminiscence - the very game seems to call upon distant memories for the awkward avian, and soon enough the chef seems to fall into that same memory trap as the game unfurls page by page of their personal pasts. However, things soon take an interesting turn when the more intelligent side of the seabird comes to play; refreshed of his goals and taking every possible opening to question the logic of the game, Brandon's erratic movements and sacrifices soon take the form of strategy...

Member Name	Blaka
Crew	Shining Pirates
Character Name	Kusatta Kotei
Current Bounty	15,000,000
Number of Posts	9
EXP	392
Poinz %	0

Member Name	Vio
Crew	Shining Pirates
Character Name	Brandon the Penguin
Current Bounty	5
Number of Posts	8
EXP	261
Poinz %	0

[Konaa]

Sup, new grader here. I'll take care of this if no one minds.

[odango]

Since our lord and mentor of graders has allowed me to pick this up, I will~!

Hello, you both! I am your new grader. I have two other threads so I might not be able to do this within a week but I sure will try :3

With love,
The all mighty and supreme odango

[EriChar]

Since Oda-chan is currently unable, you shall get a grading from the Merciless Char! So, for the ratings; I'm gonna do Vio first because I feel like it sets up some nice points for improvement to make...

Feelz on the Thread

Honestly, I found the idea of a couple of characters playing chess to be a little bit of an underwhelming concept at first? My misconceptions seemed to say that it wouldn't be very interesting, but I am happy to say I was wrong on that count! While many seem to try grand acts and aim for great goals with their story, I found this simple tail of two characters bonding a little and exploring the depth of their characters to be very interesting, and incredibly well done! I think this thread stands as an example that the real joy in RP is not the goals that people achieve, but rather the journey they take!

Individual Performance

Brandon the Penguin (Vio) -- 5/5

I really enjoyed your writing here! It was really intriguing to see a character who didn't necessarily act in a 'human' fashion? Lacking the basic ability of human language, I loved the way you mixed together flashbacks and little quirky habits to get across Brandon's character? Even without spelling out his thoughts and attitudes directly, I think it was easy and endearing to enjoy something from a penguin’s point of view!

SPOILER: Click to show

{Totals}Base EXP Earned: 8 * 5 = 40
Bonus EXP Earned: 8 * 5 = 40
New EXP Total: 261 + 40 + 40 = 341

Kusatta Kotei (Blab) -- 4/5

Fine work, but with a few niggles, so I'll break down what I like and what I think can be improved upon?

For starters, I think the you did a great job of demonstrating the emotional character of Kusatta? His little tantrum at the end was rather amusing, and they way he seemed to get angry at the pieces that were bettering him were very human? I daresay if I had been playing, I think I would have had similar reactions to those pesky pieces, so it felt very 'real' to me.

As to one minor niggle, there was a few places where words were used incorrectly in terms of grammar or things just didn't quite have the right sense of 'flow' for english? I feel you would benefit from maybe exploring some use of synonyms and maybe just double checking some of your sayings to make sure you've gotten them right? Ultimately, I think these issues are more a case of language barrier than bad writing, so I won't penalise for this, but I think your writing in English would benefit with what I advise, so I decided to include it to give you the option.

The major reason you got a 4 and not a 5 like Vio was because of your partner! Your RP was rather well done in of itself, but as I noted with your partners work, the 'little things' were really what made the performance of the penguin shine? Those little quirks of character that manifest on the board like Brandon bobbing around to get a better look at the board or noting that things were becoming less tidy really helped to paint a beautiful picture here? Without ever needing to see an image, Vio painted a picture with what she did, and unfortunately that kind of shined a spotlight on your side of the thread and how that seemed a bit lacking there?

I'm not saying it's a huge deal really, I mean in reading what Vio did I recognised the fact that this is something that I too don't have a habit of doing? So I've learned something too here, however, I feel since you portray Kusatta with quite a lot of quirkiness it would really emphasise that if you showed some physical manifestations of said quirky qualities? You do a good job of showing how Mr Kotei is unusual internally, with his feelings and thoughts, and I think the cherry on the cake would be making it apparent how this affects the way he interacts with the world? It doesn't have to be huge actions like smashing the table when angry, but maybe just when he feels restless just noting him having trouble sitting still or fidgeting and things would help? It's kinda small stuff, but it seemed to really make a contrast in the writing of this tale?

SPOILER: Click to show

{Totals}Base EXP Earned: 9 * 5 = 45
Bonus EXP Earned: 9 * 4 = 36 Poinz
New EXP Total: 392 + 45 + 36 = 437
Poinz Earned: 36

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