You wanna be a hero or sumthin?

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Stein Akami

Do keep in mind that some of my comments below are just examples of how you can improve your writing - it doesn't mean the suggestions have to be acted upon exactly as stated.

+ In the very first paragraph, you used the "voice boomed" pairing twice. Try to keep an eye out for these, as they may make your diction seem slightly repetitive.

+ ["Ey thanks sir", steins managed to sputter out before ship rocked back violently, sending him crashing to ground due tot he slippery deck.] I immediately noticed how you seem to not be using articles in places you should. This becomes a consistent problem and detracts from your otherwise effective writing. For example, the sentence I quoted would be written as the following with grammatical corrections: "Ey, thanks, sir!" Stein managed to sputter out before the ship rocked back violently, sending him crashing to the ground due to the slippery deck.
There is also the matter of using correct words for things. For example, a ship's deck is not the "ground", it would be the "floor". And, the fact that the deck is slippery doesn't necessarily need to be stated outright. It can be implied. Not everything needs an explanation.

+ [However thanks to their efforts, the purse siene was set.] I wasn't sure what "purse siene" meant here, even taking the context into account. Dunno if I'm just having a brain fart.

+ [Stein panicked, but managed to reform his sandy body into a position that looked as if he managed to roll away on the floor.] This is the very first time Stein's powers are hinted at. The way you mentioned "sandy body" is a bit meta. It almost seems to expect the reader to already be aware of the fact that Stein ate the Suna Suna no Mi. I would have recommended writing this in a way where you assume the reader does not know - especially considering it is Stein's intro post.

+ [However, the captain stood silent at the wheel, and swallowed hard. "he was made...of sand"? The captain kept recalling the moment where nothing above his knees were left, leaving behind to stubs in the dark stormy night. "no im drinking too much", he said while tossing his flask into the ocean.] This is another excerpt from the paragraph I quoted from in the previous comment. You switched perspectives from one character to another when you showed the Captain's internal thoughts. Always be aware of what perspective you're writing from. I would recommend writing in third-person limited. If you're gonna write in third-person omniscient, you have to be aware of this throughout your writing. You cannot jump between perspectives in that case.

+ I'm not sure if you're typing your posts on mobile or not, but, I noted a lot of typos. If you'd like to aim for the S-grade at some point, your posts will have to be typo-free. I'm more than willing to look past grammatical errors when giving out higher quality grades, but, I cannot abide by posts riddled with typos. Show me that diligence!

+ Saul's first exchange with Stein just felt random and incoherent. Stein's personality is inconsistent too. One moment he is this anxious guy that shivers and trembles every two seconds. The next moment, he's grinning and snarky. And the next he's a stone-cold fighter. These kinds of personality shifts require some nuance to be effective. Stein's personality shifts felt too jarring.

+ The part where Stein entered the bar pretending to be a junkie was funny, but, not very convincing. If you intended to use that scene solely for comedy, then you're good, but, if you wanted that to act as a display of Stein's cleverness, then I think you can do much better. [Stein grinned and nodded, knowing he got through the hard part without a fight. “ phew my heart skipped a beat”.] That line made me think you were, in fact, trying to show off Stein's cunning with that exchange.

+ [ The smell of liquor mixed with the stench of perfume to create a rank odor that made stein’s eyes water. Each step he took had a different sensation. He heard things pop under his step, other times he’d slide ever so slightly with wide obvious eyes of panic. Sometimes the smell of vomit made itself apparent, making stein grimace at these people.] That is an excellent example of good scene setups. You utilise Stein's senses and his reactions to his surroundings to describe the environment itself. Well done!

+ You are meant to be using the Combat Trackers in your RP posts to track most combat things. Please be sure to use it from now on as it assists in keeping track of damage dealt, durations, cooldowns, and current stats. I'll be updating the combat guide soon-ish to make sure the screenshots aren't misleading (though there is a glaring red line right below the screenshots that does say that combat trackers have been added and you need to use them). This error makes me think that you didn't bother to look at the RP thread example I linked for you to look over to see how combat is done. As your difficulty for this quest is +0 anyway, it's fine for now.

+ Also, for future reference, RX% is always rounded down. (e.g. If your RX% is 80.99%, it still truncates to 80%. It does not round up to 81%.) In your case, your exact RX% was 71.42857-- That should have been rounded down to 71% and not up to 72%. In this case, it's not a big deal because both still fall in the same range. But, be aware of this as sometimes this can put you or your opponent in the wrong RX% roll range on the chart.
This also applies to DMG% when calculating damage. If your calculated damage turns out to be 9.99, the effective damage should be 9 and not 10. About the only time when we round up on RevDawn is when we give out quest experience. If the quest experience was calculated to be 62.5, the actual value awarded would be 63.

+ What happened to the marine that was in the office when Stein confronted him with the mob boss? You seem to have completely forgotten he existed once your fight started until he suddenly just comes in from another room even though all three of them seemed to be in the same room at first.

+ [" I'm just a boy, mister".] I'm not your mister, laddie~

+ You should try to use combat to express some more personality and give your character and boss some character development. I did, however, very much like the bit where you expressed your Valley of Spikes AoE as a commentary by Saul as opposed to writing it out like everything else. That was a clever bit! Overall, I enjoyed that commentary scene. Commentary from spectators is a good way to do development for side characters during combat. I also very much approve of your decision to briefly cut away from the combat scene when it was getting too long and focus on the conversation between the rev and the marine (as long as you're keeping track of the combat mechanically, of course).

Overall, I can't say I found the plot for this quest particularly interesting. The character development was inconsistent at best, and the characters felt far too bland and generic. I did like the way you set up some of your scenes though. You made a solid effort to "show not tell". The combat was dragged out the mechanics, sure, but, you could've used it to develop Stein and the boss a bit instead of just having them flail at each other and basically keep repeating "Why won't you die?" "Because I'm sand, come at me, bro." Also, for next time, if you're gonna fight a boss that can't hit you mechanically at all, you don't have to bother with dice rolls and stuff. If the fight's outcome is 100% guaranteed, there's really not much reason to use the combat system.

In any case, please try to take my comments with an objective view and don't be discouraged. The road to improvement is a long one, and you can only go down it if you don't stop driving.

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Stein Akami
Difficulty Bonus: +0% (+0)
Quality Bonus: +25% (B)

EXP: 88 1.4*[50 + (25%*50)]
Berries: 4,375,000 1.4*[250k*10 + 25%(250k*10)]
Bounty: 0 | {Since the marine captain seemed chummy with Saul, and the goal was for Stein to not get a bounty on his head, I have refrained from assigning a bounty.}


Old XP: 1000
Updated XP: 1088

Old balance: 50,000
Updated balance: 4,425,000

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