Hallucinogen_NA

Hal sighed. "Why do I get myself into these things?" he said, and jumped in.

"Well," said Hal, materializing behind John, "I'm here. What's up?"

He had used the elevator.

Green smoke burst into view, as Hal appeared inside the lobby of the PCT building, having walked in invisible. . . or so one would assume, but for all anyone could tell he had been there all night.

"I don't suppose you know the location of a hero by the name of Experiment?"

Well, it seems to me that several of said characters *have* already been toned down significantly. Not in Final Fight, but that seems to have become its "thing".

In Cosmic Chess, the same characters are much more reasonable. Although, Devious *does* have an awful lot of stuff, but. . . eh, at least there aren't huge robot armies.

Hey, I know! Let's start an Essex fan club! She'll DIE of embarassment. . . which is great, because she's always complaining that no one wants to kill her in fight threads! Maybe we can get Helper to join!

. . . Okay, I'm done now.

Well, I love Essex. I mean. . . I didn't exactly have Hal fall for her on a whim. . .

I suppose she is a little predictable, but that's really just part of her character, and it is just a matter of whether you like her or not, as with any character.

Personally, I think you should stop worrying about Essex, she's fine. If you worry about anything, worry about being too much of a pushover.

. . . Although, I am something of a pushover myself sometimes. . . but still.

Okay, Burning, your turn. *Mozart's Requiem plays*

No, seriously. Burning, your characters have extensive and interesting backstories, but the actual personalities of your heroes are a bit lacking.

Your villains, though, are very entertaining. And you have a distinct sense of humor, which I always admire.

Your biggest problem might be that you play so many characters at once that you can't really focus on any. . . but don't stop! It's your Forum Power!

Cafea is fairly one dimensional in a sense. . . although part of that is that I haven't been paying attention to the thread. Too much time on my own Crown of Thorns project. . .

As for Hal, I don't know if you have followed him in anything but the SH101 thread. . . but if not. . . I think he deserves heavier criticism. So far, in that thread, he is just BORING.

I think he's doing better in, say, Cosmic Chess, or Crown of Thorns. . . problem is, he isn't very interesting when nothing is seriously wrong.

Wow. . .thanks! Dangit, I am SO bad at being complimented. . .

Oh, and I wouldn't say that you will NEVER be happy and optimistic. . . I could hardly call my life so far a happy one.

Indeed, I could probably call it a very unhappy one. . . but I consider hope to be very important. To shamelessly quote myself. . .

[ QUOTE ]
Hal smiled, and motioned Moonscribe through. "Don't worry about it," he said. "After all . . . no matter how deep the night, or dark the hour, there is always. . ."

And he looked back, for a second, at the Phantasm, now almost completely obscured by the waves of darkness surrounding it, yet still fighting, perhaps until the end of time, refusing ever to give up. . .

"Hope."

And the door closed behind them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Off topic, perhaps, but something I had to say regardless.

Bah! You're actually one of my favorite posters. I love Experiment in particular, but Blind Messenger is great as well. . . I love the concept of Dr. Shimmer, but have yet to see too much of him. . . and Earth Titania. . .meh.

Anyway, you said once, I believe, that you were a writer, and I believe it. You have excellent character development, plotting, and general solid writing skills.

Yeah, you can meet Schizo! I'm sure he'd be happy to see you.

Yes, honestly, Mechagogue, I have trouble finding something wrong with what you're doing, and I usually don't. I'm a hopeless nitpicker.

I like Kreigg in particular. . . He annoys the heck out of all my clever, logical characters of course, but *I* like him. His attitude is just so amusing.

Okay, having reconsidered, I feel Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, Movement 1 is much more appropriate for Hallucinogen. I still think I Am the Walrus is right for Schizo, it's so upbeat and incomprehensible.

And incidentally, Cafea actually has a theme song by definition. I meant it when I suggested his name was a melody. . . I wrote the melody. Pretty simple, but it IS just his name. Play C-A-F-E-A on an instrument and you'll see it's not a bad melody by itself; there's a little more than that, though.

Good Lord. I cannot BELIEVE I have not thought about this!

I must find theme songs for my characters immediately! The two that come easily to mind are Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds for Hallucinogen and I am the Walrus for Schizo, both by The Beatles . . . but I hardly consider those perfect fits, and will try to listen to a bunch of music to find my characters' theme songs.

. . . And don't expect it to be anything recent. I am, shall we say, not a fan of most recent popular music (except movie music and the like).

Hallucinogen sat in the center of the floor. He was in a long hallway, with no visible lighting, but still the whole place was very brightly lit. Pictures of himself lined the walls, and a huge picture of a pink android rested at the end in an ornate frame. Hallucinogen occasionally looked at it guiltily.

An envelope appeared in front of him. Hal frowned: who on earth had managed to send him a message addressed to, well, the inside of his mind? After all, that was where he was. . .

Opening the letter, Hal attempted to decipher the scrawl.

"Hmmm. . .Need . . . help.. . come. . .to. . . the. . . dangit, what is this word? That's Paragon, I guess, assuming that's really a G. . . but Paraquu makes no sense. . . unless it's one of those Rularuu guys. . ."

"Okay, that's it! Paragon City Times building in Steel at 9 AM tomorrow! From. . . Excrement? Wait, never heard of. . . Ah yes, of course! It must be Experiment!"

Hal sighed with the effort of reading the letter, and raised his hand toward the wall. A yellow sticky note appeared on it. . .

Paragon City Times building tomorrow at 9:00 AM to help out Experiment. Don't be late!

And with that, Hal returned to being lost in thought.

In my case. . . it's simply that I haven't RP'ed with you enough. Note that I actually have never critiqued Khell at all, even though honestly I have no excuse for it. In fact. . .

Khell, your strength seems to be in creating dynamic and exciting fight sequences. Your weakness is that your characters are not as interesting when they're not busting heads.

Oh, and by the way, since I haven't said it, you guys rock! I tend to be rather a harsh critic, and sometimes forget to say things like that.

My favorite types of posts tend to involve descriptions of events or characters. Examples:

Events: From "Crown of Thorns":

[ QUOTE ]
Hal ordered his Phantasm forward just before the light burst into the room.

"Don't look at the light!" Hal yelled. "It's Schizophrenias's essence, who knows what will happen if too much of it hits you!"

And his Phantasm flew into the door that led back to the real world and stuck there, trying to overcome the light with its own.

The Phantasm shook and swayed as the purple light grew brighter, and for a moment it looked as though it would be completely destroyed by the sheer intensity of Schizo's essence, but no amount of madness and fear and misery and despair could truly destroy a being formed of pure hope.

And the Phantasm grew brighter and brighter, and the mad light faded.

[/ QUOTE ]

Characters: From "Cosmic Chess":

[ QUOTE ]
Nice place it was, thought Schizophrenias as he looked around. Trees. Grass. Rocks. Probably stuff he could kill.

Too bad he didn't know how the heck he had gotten here. One minute he was off to kidnap some poor sap and sell him off to the highest bidder, probably Arachnos. . . he had burst through the door, and. . . he was here. Weird, but being a physical manifestation of pure insanity he frankly didn't care.

It was a pity, though, that he didn't know where Hallucinogen was. Hallucinogen created him, and this was very amusing to Schizophrenias. He enjoyed reminding him whenever possible.

He was tall and thin, dressed in a lurid purple straitjacket that nicely matched his skin, with green spikes attached to his pants and shoes at random intervals, and a strip of green cloth wrapped around his eyes, with barbed wire wrapped around that. Most people would have been a little uncomfortable and found it hard to move.

Schizophrenias, however, was not really a person at all, and floated easily over the ground. Lights flashed on and off at odd intervals over his body and voices occasionally said unintelligible things in the distance, to which Schizophrenias occasionally responded. "Hey there. Maybe I can kill you later."

Ah yes. . . Schizophrenias was pretty sure he was going to enjoy this place. Whistling cheerfully, he floated through the forest, conjuring little thorns out of his flesh and hurling them at birds.

[/ QUOTE ]

And frankly, I love anything to do with Schizo. Easily my favorite character I've created.

Well, being direct and to the purpose is a strength too. I am a big fan of elegance, which this definitely has.

I agree that certain parts, such as the opening, could have more flavor. ((I disagree that more actual information should be given. In my opinion, the most suspense is built here by the reader having no idea what will happen, or what Blightlord is planning.))

EDIT: I just realized that I misread your post. Ignore the stuff in double parentheses.

And if the descriptive elements are too long, the reader will simply get bored. Elegance is always a good thing in my mind. If the scene is to be described more fully, then each piece of description should be handled with elegance.

While more description can be good, I suppose my point is that it is not good simply by definition.

EDIT: And as for dialogue. . . it should ALWAYS be short and to the point in my opinion. People in real conversation rarely go off on long tangents about exactly what they mean by something they said.

((WARNING. Truth Mountainbreeze comes from a story I am writing, a story that is completely bonkers. This is not going to make ANY sense. Well, okay, overstatement, but it's gonna be weird. . .))

"You can't keep me in here, man!" yelled Truth Mountainbreeze, shaking the bars. "The truth will be revealed, baby!"

"Shut up," said the guard, leaving, and feeling relieved he didn't have to talk to the hippie anymore.

Truth sighed, toying with his long. blonde hair. Why hadn't Adam and Eve come and got him out of this mess? Sure they were in some other dimension or something. But they were supposed to be the Devil's greatest servants!

He wished no one had brought him back to life at all, although it had been kinda unpleasant being in Purgatory. Still.

Truth made a few flowers grow out of the prison floor; it was all he could manage thanks to the stupid procedures they had put him through. He chewed them up in his mouth and drew more swirls with them on his bright yellow shirt and orange pants.

Hmmm. He sensed the presence of evil. Not a prisoner, no, this was evil the way it was supposed to be, just as you found it in the wild! Someone evil from this dimension was coming. . . maybe he could join them! After all, evil was probably discriminated against, no matter where you went! He had to stand up for the little guy!

There were several loud explosions, and his cell door opened.

"You are Truth Mountainbreeze, correct?" said the Wolf Spider in front of him.

"Damn right, baby!" Truth yelled happily. The Wolf Spider frowned.

"Our Fortunatas believe you to be one of Arachnos's Destined Ones, and. . ."

"Oh, no, sorry, can't right now, spider dude!" Truth said, running off. "I've gotta oppose the discrimination against evil! FIGHT THE POWER! By the way, is the Devil in this dimension?"

The Wolf Spider would have responded, but honestly he had no idea what to say.

The helicopter took Truth to Mercy Island, amid many objections about how machines were corrupting the world. Truth stepped out and ran down the stairs, ignoring all the people telling him to speak with Kalinda.

"My name is Matthew Burke. What the hell are you doing, hippie?"

"Oh, groovy!" said Truth, stopping and turning. "There must be a Hell here! Tell me, mercenary dude. . ."

"Do you know the Devil?"

Cafea was looking at the music. "You know, perhaps you should change the bass line in measure 54 to an A instead. That will make it a chord in second inversion, which will flow better into the cadence. Although, I don't know what style of music this is. . ."

"Well, I am glad that so many others appreciate our language," said Cafea. "But it would be nice if they could learn to speak it. It sounds nice, to be certain, but I rarely hear of humans playing recordings of the French language simply because of the way it sounds."

Morning dawned.

A figure in a blue robe with glasses that hid his eyes walked casually into the MAGI office.

A woman clad in a colorful robe approached him, staring though him as though he were a window.

"Ah, you are here," said Azuria. "Hallucinogen is waiting for you inside the portal. But, it can be a little dangerous at times. . . Why not stay here and wait for the others. You are early."

"Very well, Priestess," said Moonscribe and went to sit down.

"Oh, and by the way. . . remember that how you get somewhere is often as important as where you go. . . Djehuty."

And she smiled, as though she had not just said something very unnerving.

* * * * * *

"Who are you?" Gabriel said, turning to the leader of the robots that had just appeared beside him.

"Now, now," said Steel. The eyes of the Anubots glowed red, and they drew swords. "Why don't we wait until the others get here before the . . . negotiations. You may need some help."

((The timelines confuse the heck out of me. But, this is definitely several years after SH101, at least, and sometime after GoCC and FF, according to Hal's timeline. Not sure if that helps.))

"It should be here," Gabriel said. He stood next to a battered door in the wall of a cliff. "This is the Council base."

He pushed open the door before Raphael could protest, and everything went black. . .

I told you it was a trap, Gabriel. . .

Gabriel opened his eyes. They were in the center of a massive room made of a strange dark metal. The roof ws so high that it was hardly visible, but the walls slanted inward as they stretched higher and higher, suggesting that they eventually came to a single point, like a pyramid. All around stood statues made of steel, most with the heads of jackals, some topped with the head of a lioness. Against each wall stood a huge statue of a man wearing an Egyptian crown and holding a long, curved staff.

"Where is this?" Gabriel demanded to the room.

A voice answered from nowhere. "I confess myself insulted that you do not know. This is the Temple of Steel, my friend, and I its keeper, Steel Eclipse. But calm down, for the others are coming shortly."

"Other what?" Gabriel demanded.

"Others," Steel answered. "I wish to discuss a matter with all of you. And I am afraid I do not intend to take no for an answer."

I am crazy, and think my hero and villain mains (pics in my signature) look cool.

Feel free to disagree.