[Episode] Seminar's In Session!

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Castor O. Nox
+ Excellent hook in your very first paragraph! I'm already interested to see what this seminar is about.

+ [With the death of Dr. Abio, Castor’s crew is in need of a new medical mind.] Be consistent with your tense. The narrator should generally just stick to the past tense. When you use the present tense, you're placing the narrator at a specific point in time in your world/story. Unless the narrator is an entity that exists within the world they're telling the story of, you should keep them independent of your story's timeline.

+ [The final entry to the room was the sponsor for today’s activities] Referring to the day of your story as "today" in narration is equivalent to you using the present tense. You should use "that day" instead.

+ I'm not sure if you re-read your posts once you're done or not. But, even if you do, there are a lot of weird grammatical errors and typos that you miss. Sometimes, they can make your descriptions confusing. For example, this glaring typo: [It’s a pill that once taken, it will make you undesirable to the woman or man… You desire. Essentially, the world's first love potion.]

+ I liked how you substituted the lack of Glassjaw talking about technical stuff by having him pass around a handout with such boring details. It would be a poor seminar of a certain profession if the professionals didn't share specific details.

+ Spelling consistency is also important. You kept switching between "Glassjaw" and "Glassjow".

+ [100,000,000 Million.] 100 million million?

+ Every time I see the concept of freedom brought up in a One Piece scene, RP or otherwise, I upvote.

+ You still need to break up your paragraphs more, especially during dialogue exchanges. See the extract below that shows where you could have put in natural paragraph breaks. The extract was a single paragraph in your post.

[ “And what of freedom? Freedom to choose who and when we love. You mentioned all the ‘average’ ones but life isn’t equal or fair. The one thing that does represent true freedom is choice.” the woman dressed in white commented.

“Ah Ah… Looks like she’ll draw more attention again.” Castor thought to himself sighing, slowly trying to inch away from next to the controversy magnet.

“Brother with the glasses. Please control your sister’s outbursts.” Glassjow stated, disregarding the woman’s plea. Sighing, “Now he’s talking to me… great.” Castor thought to himself.

“Can we move on to the next presentation already?” Castor inquired. “I’m a merchant. Time is money. Besides, it’s not our decision to make whether the sale of that drug should be allowed. It’s the World’s Choice. Any government that passes a law for that drug to be used, that in itself would show how much that government cares about free-will versus control.” Castor concluded, putting great distance between himself and the troublemakers. ]

+ I really liked the exchange between Clevis and Castor. It was an excellent example of exposition through dialogue.

+ [Clevis explained, finishing his cup of tea. Reaching for the pot to pour himself another cup full, Castor would extend his hand in gesture, offering to refill the man’s cup.] You use "would" sometimes when describing the action your character is performing. Whenever you do this, your characters' actions read like hypotheses. Using hypothetical clauses is only acceptable when you're directly interacting with another player character and you're uncertain of their reactions. For all other actions, you should avoid hypotheses. (The above sentence should've been written as "...Castor extended his hand in gesture and offered to refill the man’s cup." Or as "Castor extended his hand to offer a refill.")

+ [Castor taunted, revealing his menacing two handed longsword. With the talisman’s removed, a menacing aura leaked around the room, it’d definitely added an evil presence to Castor’s seemingly chill persona.] Be careful when using the exact same adjective twice so close to each other. It only works under rare circumstances.

+ I appreciated the mutual respect Clevis and Castor had for each other. I hope you'll continue with that down the line when Clevis makes a reappearance.

+ [Castor stated as he began to chuckle. Instantaneously, the Pirate Captain would now stand before the Black Haired Doctor, Ai. “What’s your name?”] You're writing from Castor's perspective here. Don't use Ai's name in the narration if Castor doesn't know it yet.

+ Just a reminder - Break up your paragraphs more!

Ai D. Kirai
+ [...a huge seminar that would cage up all the bright minds...] Be careful when using figurative speech. In this sentence, "cage up" reads as hostile - as if the seminar's purpose was to lock away the bright minds as opposed to showcasing them.

+ Flevance is a big city. Random strangers on the street should not have any idea who Ai is. How do they know he's a doctor?

+ [Of course, the merchant from earlier couldn’t care less about her, and this caused a problem.] The use of "of course" here seems to imply that Ai knows what Castor would do in this situation. Considering Ai has no idea who Castor is, that "of course" does not belong here. Always be aware of what your character should and shouldn't know and write accordingly.

+ I appreciated the sentiment behind Ai's speech about the love pill. He made some good points. But, the actual words felt a bit cheesy and uncharismatic. The dialogue felt a bit like an improvised rant one might say in real life. But, that is the issue. Dialogue in written fiction should not read like a real-life conversation. Real-life speech has a lot of fillers that, when translated to written words, become significantly more distracting. And real-life dialogue generally lacks interesting literary devices like metaphors. I have rewritten the scene for you as an example of how a supposedly charismatic speech is much more effective when written well. I did my best to maintain his feminist outlook.
[ "A drug like that shouldn't exist in this world!" Ai shouted. Any members of the audience who failed to notice him before granted him their attention too. "This is just another way for men to control women." He scanned the audience to pick out all the females.

"Sure, women could use the drug on men to control them too, but, they don't need to. More often than not, it's a man who looks for new ways to manipulate the women around him. This drug isn't groundbreaking; it's an affront! I feed a pill to a woman and she does whatever I want? I thought slavery was illegal in these parts!"

Ai paused for a moment to observe the impact of his words before continuing. "All of you who cheered for this pill... shame on you. You disgust me. A woman's affection should be earned or bought, not forced. Not to mention... do you really want to use some strange man's stinking sweat to charm a lady?"  He pointed at Glassjaw dramatically to identify him as the 'strange man'. "I came here to broaden my horizons in the field of medicine, not to swoon over love potions, snake oil, and bum remedies." ] Note that the "earned or bought" bit was because Ai does indulge in prostitutes. It also adds character depth which presents a moral dilemma to the reader. Perfect characters are rarely interesting.

+ Please don't take this comment personally - Ai being a womanizer comes off as cringey at best and creepy at worst. Writing a universally charismatic and charming character requires your writing to be at a certain standard. This is especially true when you try to write dialogue which is meant to impress a lady. Unfortunately, your writing simply isn't up to that standard yet. This stands out most when Ai charms a lady through his personality more than his looks. Your dialogue exchanges generally leave a lot to be desired. I realise I'm trying to tell you how you should be playing your own character. But, I genuinely believe your character would be more interesting if he were someone who was convinced he was charismatic when everyone around him knew otherwise. As for improving your dialogue, continue learning from writers like Laz. His dialogue exchanges are usually very engaging.

+ [“Boy, do you understand that you have been messing around with a marines anger? I need you to know that I’m the law and that I’m not some regular person you could agitate when you want to.”] Glassjaw sounds like an eight-year-old. The lines you gave him have made him uninteresting despite Laz's attempts to do the opposite.

+ The number of times you write "things were about to get interesting" or "things got interesting" in narration should always be zero. Always. Don't say things are interesting. Just show the interesting things and let the reader decide. You did it five times in the first page of the thread alone.

+ Your boss and you were pulling off combat feats that should by all rights be reserved for much higher level characters. Level 2 is far too early for you to be "disappearing in an instant" and your bosses to be using Soru and Shigan effectively.

+ I liked the explanation of how Ai was able to get out of the handcuffs.

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Castor O. Nox
Difficulty Bonus: +0% (+0)
Quality Bonus: +200% (S)
Length Bonus: 1.0 (5,815 words)
EXP Multiplier: +10%
Income Multiplier: +10%

EXP: +155 1.0*[50 + 0%(50) + 200%(50) + 10%(50)]
Berries: +61,225,000 1.0*[250k*79 + 0%(250k*79) + 200%(250k*79) + 10%(250k*79)]
Bounty: 0 | {Castor's bounty is already too high for a pirate based out of the Blues.}

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Old EXP: 7748
Updated EXP: 7748 (Experience redirected to Ai D. Kirai)

Old balance: 28,279,688
Updated balance: 89,504,688

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Ai D. Kirai
Difficulty Bonus: +0% (+0)
Quality Bonus: +50% (B)
Length Bonus: 1.578 (7,890 words)
EXP Multiplier: +10% (From Castor)
Income Multiplier: +0%

EXP: +127 1.578*[50 + 0%(50) + 50%(50) + 10%(50)]
Berries: +1,775,250 1.578*[250k*3 + 0%(250k*3) + 50%(250k*3) + 0%(250k*3)]
Bounty: 7,300,000 | {For defeating a promising marine, escaping custody, and allying with a wanted criminal.}

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Old EXP: 227
Updated EXP: 509

Old balance: 3,729,500
Updated balance: 5,504,750

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