Some general information regarding The Blade of Fake 3: Void of Delusions 4 (Shadows of the Zero Mission, Echoes)

This role-play was started on

Sunday, February 26, 2006

This role-play was finished on

Sunday, August 06, 2006

    I started Blade of Fake 3: Void of Delusions 4 (Shadows of the Zero Mission, Echoes) two weeks after Void of Illusions 2 finished. I toyed with the idea for a while as Void of Illusions 2 was nearing its end, and I eventually decided to go ahead and do it. Some more people tagged along, such as veterans Elec and Thalzon (who also participated in the other two parts of the Blade of Fake trilogy), or Horn and CtrlAltDestroy (who only partook in the previous installment). There were also newcomers such as Matthias and Trilroy, who introduced the oddest characters you can think of: a potted plant and a Game Boy Advance handheld. The Potted Plant -I assume- comes from some sort of inner joke, but I think only Matthias knows for sure. I must confess that at first I wasn't particularly amused at the weirdness of those two characters. To me, they pushed the limits of how much randomness I was willing to accept in the RP, because, as I have come to learn, nobody has ever exactly understood what type of humor I was aiming for. A slight hint of randomness is okay, but excessive, Breakroom-level amounts of it go out of control, backfire, and give a fatal wound to the story. That, and the idiotic "OMGLOLWTF!!1!" type of "humor" which Trilroy used in several of his earlier posts- no offense. Fortunately, he cut it out on his own and made quality posts later on, during the second half of the RP, which was a pleasant surprise to me. Anyway, I guess both the GBA and the Potted Plant eventually found their place in the story... or not. That's up for each reader to decide, I guess. Myself, I have to say I would often think of them as human characters and play them as such to make things easier for me.
    So, Void of Delusions 4 can be divided in two parts: the not-so-good first half (characters wander aimlessly, with little to no direction), and the much-better second half (which gets a definite direction). The change occurs around the time after the first sister is introduced. By that time, I spontaneously got a lot of ideas that pretty much covered the rest of the RP, therefore hitting the same problem Void of Illusions 2 ran into: I claim all plot-advancing posts, and the other players are left with making filler posts only. So, Void of Delusions 4 became some sort of RP/fiction hybrid (kind of like Void of Illusions 2). It became much better and definitely much more interesting and worthwhile plot-wise, at the cost of limiting the other players' freedom. Not the best scenario, I know, but I just can't do better than that. As a result of this, Horn's posting rate dropped to one post every two weeks, and Thalzon simply departed (though he continued reading it until the end, which I appreciate). Yes, there were ups and downs. I remember getting upset at one time because of the record-low participation rate the RP would hit. Luckily for everyone involved, the RP got its second wind just a couple weeks later, and things started moving fast again. That rhythm was kept until the end, which was fortunate enough. I thank those who stayed with me until the end, either participating, or just reading the story. Thanks to all of you, good people who found Void of Delusions 4 to be worth of your time, and a big boo to those who didn't!
    I still have a few things left to comment before I'm done: 

       1) Goombierre: I always joked about RPing as a Goomba, and I finally did it for real. Too bad he ended up being an inconsequential character who got little more than just generic speech lines. Oh, well. 

       2) CAD's Secret Surprise: CtrlAltDestroy wanted to do a special post at the end, but the idea ultimately failed because of time constraints, so he just scraped it. It's unfortunate that it turned that way. 

       3) Michelle: She was my favorite character out of the four sisters. I would have wanted to invest some more time in her final battle, but I couldn't. 

       4) Not taking into account the rather sloppy first half, I consider this RP to be ten times better than the previous two chapters combined. So, yeah, I enjoyed it. My favorite post? It has to be the one where the fourth box is opened. Yeah, I really liked that scene. Okay, now I'm done commenting!

    GeminiSaint started Void of Delusions 4, and was thus the first person to join. He wrote 50.05% of the story, doing so in fifty posts.

    CtrlAltDestroy was unavailable for comment. He was the fourth person to join the RP, and wrote 19.22% of the story, doing so in twenty-one posts.

    Trilroy was unavailable for comment. He was the third person to join Void of Delusions 4, and wrote 9.05% of the story, doing so in thirty-three posts.

    The trilogy has met it's end at last, and I'm glad I did join it (especially since I this time around had my own character to parody). It did turn me off a little to see the story had such a bolted ground, focusing mostly around the lead characters, while the secondary figures (us others) only felt like they were around to cause the slapsticks... they didn't feel equally important. But that's the only thing I fussed about, at least - the story was solid and relatable to things we all know about (what with the W, F, P and D and stuff), with the same kinds of refreshing humor.

    Horn was the fifth person to join the RP. He wrote 6.39% of the story, doing so in twelve posts.

    The first half of it was full of excessive randomness and jokes that had already gotten old. However, the second half was a lot better. The most interesting thing about this RP was that it was a parody with a tragic ending. Then again, it was parodying an RP with a very happy ending so I guess that kind of makes sense in its own way. Anyway, I'm glad I didn't drop out and I really like the way GeminiSaint turned the RP around to make it half-decent. Good work!

    Elec was the ninth person to join Void of Delusions 4. She wrote 4.40% of the story, doing so in fourteen posts.

    I can't remember why I joined this one, despite it being so recent. Nostalgia, habit, the desire to screw up anything and everything GeminiSaint may have planned for it... It all kind of became a blur after a while. But this one turned out to be the least serious and consistently humorous of them all, due in no small part to Trilroy.
    Anyway, when the nazi thing came around, I didn't like it. Not one bit. I distanced myself from the nazi stuff as much as possible. When Hitler reincarnate was killed and the sisters were introduced, I saw it as a chance to break back in and do some fun stuff. But alas! GeminiSaint had it planned out in parts where I wished to at least share the reigns. I didn't, however, really want to screw up anything GeminiSaint was doing (I went soft, it's true!), but feeling constricted creatively, I felt my best recourse was to drop out. I kept reading (or at least skimming) though, and I must say it turned out alright in the end.
    End of the trilogy? Perhaps. But hopefully not the end of the successful parody. I'll master it yet, and then I'll show you all.

    Thalzon was the second person to join the RP. He wrote 4.39% of the story, doing so in eight posts.

    Void of Delusions 4... started out quite in bliss. The complete absurdity of the whole thing was quite fun for me, and you could see I was going to be determined as possible to be absurd along with it. I threw in a POTTED PLANT as a character, for cripes' sake.
    Even after the fall of Hitler, I still enjoyed the thing. I actually felt certain characters grew stronger in the later chapters than they were at the beginning, namely Duh-Quack and Cryba.
    There was plenty to poke fun at and be funny with, but this is when it slightly started to slip, not necessarily the plot, but the attempts at humor, including my own, seemed... almost a bit strained. A few of them went completely over my head- then again, I dunno. The plot always seemed to be going in five million different directions, but such a plot does fit the comical insanity that was this RP.
    Still, this RP has some priceless, priceless moments. I think one that comes to mind instantly is the whole "Bathroom Dungeon" scenario, and subsequent fight with Dr. Morbis. There's a ton o' jokes in there. Cryba's insanity was great, all the way through. And oh yeah, Potted Plant turning into Potted Plane was a real treat for me. It's not everyday you get to be the airship.
    However, the ending... somewhat bothers me. It has no reason to be that serious and dark, it really sticks out like a sore thumb. Actually, make that whenever a hero gets offed. It really seemed to just not totally fit in... this especially hold's true for Freako's death.
    Despite its flaws, I did enjoy this RP, and don't regret being in it.

    Matthias was the sixth person to join Void of Delusions 4. He wrote 3.63% of the story, doing so in twelve posts.

    I'm not good at forced humor. Yes, I have some shining moments from time to time when I'm feeling inspired, and it looks like it'd be easy to throw some random crap together and call it a post, but frankly I feel like I have better things, and better posts, to do. As such, Void of Delusions 4 falls into my "RPs-I-should-not-have-joined" category.

    I made two posts. My first post introduced Quill, a character ripped directly out of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. My idea was that he could show up randomly from time to time when I was feeling inspired. Well, he appeared in one post. My second post was made during a somewhat random day I was having when somebody made a joke that my new username should be Ekki-Ekki-Ekki-PTANG!, and so I used the name with a Rikki-Tikki-Tavi parody, who appeared in only one post. Shortly after this, I decided that reading the RP was too much of a waste of time and thus stopped following the thing entirely.

    Recently, as part of putting this entry together, I read the RP from start to finish. Honestly... I just don't think it's really good. I've been told that the second half (which I hadn't read) is a lot better than the first half (which I quit), and yeah... it's better... I mean, the last sixty pages or so are decent enough that I didn't almost fall asleep at the computer, but it's still... bleh. 

    Like its predecessors, Void of Delusions 4 provides the extreme of random humor and the extreme of drama. Like its predecessors, the two extremes act like pepper and sugar going into a cookie- it just doesn't work. I, personally, only laughed a couple times, and those were during the Cryba dueling scenes (I'm a Yu-Gi-Oh fan). The sex appeal sisters were a turn-off that I felt were used in lieu of creativity, and their scenes were quite a chore to read through. I felt the use of Hitler was in bad taste (as were the sisters, for that matter). The characters were all... frankly, it's not that I didn't like them, but I can't say I liked them either. I felt indifferent towards them... I just didn't really care. There was nothing to care about.

    This, unfortunately, causes the climax of the story to feel washed out. I just didn't care that Freako was dead. Now, I must say that the final battle with Death was done very well- frankly, it is the highlight of this story, so kudos to you guys for writing that. Other than that, though... I'm sorry, but I just didn't enjoy this RP.

    Ricky was the seventh person to join the RP. He wrote 1.04% of the story, doing so in two posts.

    Lamur was unavailable for comment. He was the tenth person to join Void of Delusions 4, and wrote 0.85% of the story, doing so in two posts.

    catfriedrice was unavailable for comment. He was the eleventh, and last, person to join the RP. He wrote 0.53% of the story, doing so in one post.

    Nick was unavailable for comment. He was the eighth person to join Void of Delusions 4, and wrote 0.40% of the story, doing so in one post.

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