Neat.

Just neat.

I can foresee neat shit emanating from the character like the smell of delicious steak-and-cheese footlongs emanates from a Subway restaurant every goddamn time I pass one.

But no seriously, good shit.

Quote from 969_DoomsDruid_969

But no seriously, good shit.

Wow Dooms, haven't seen you around for a while. By my standards anyway, wasssssupppp?

Right, it's been a few weeks now but you asked me to critique your character, here it is.

Well, to be frank there isn't much left for me to say because I already gave you that six page critique in a PM and you've followed my advice pretty closely, so there isn't really much left for me to critique since what I'd have to say at this point would be what I were to change if it were my character, and it isn't my character so I'm not going to do that because said changes are just personal taste.

A thing I find strange is that this supposedly nihilistic immortal man would arbitrarily decide to become part of Blade Mercenaries and move to the US and all that pijazz. That seems very forced in there just for your own satisfaction and doesn't feel natural for the character. On that note, I read your battle with Alph and there Abass sorta just accepts to help them willy nilly to contrively make their stories connected. It seems a very odd thing to do for an individual you painted out to be this way, deeply cynical and distant. I mean, he doesn't exactly have a pressing reason to help them, so why should he? But okay, suppose he's kind-hearted enough to lend two people hunted by the CIA some refuge, wouldn't it make sense for more people to have stumbled upon or turned to Abass for similar help in the past or present? Wouldn't there be people already hiding or chilling at his place? It seems very odd for him to selectively try to help Riley and Levi.

I guess you're going to bring up the fact that they had evidence of his future fate, but he has no reason to trust them on it, to believe them. If he's truly cynical, then for all he knows they're just stringing together a fancy tale to get him to do what they want, and for a man you describe as relying on wits and smarts over brawn it strikes me as odd that he would fall for that. It's pretty obvious Levi and Riley are outlaws and by protecting them he'd be turning an unwanted eye on himself. I imagine that when you're immortal, you don't exactly want to walk in the spotlight all too much lest people start realizing you've been around for centuries and start asking some annoying questions. At least that's what a truly deeply cynical individual would do.

Moving on, a few more notes on abilities; If he's been around since 3000 BC and has been fighting since he was young, that means he has an impossible amount of battle experience. That is definitely a strength, if nothing else it's easily his biggest one, for where many wRHGs are inexperienced or moderately experienced in the art of battle, Abbas quite literally has hundredfold a lifetime's worth of experience under his belt. In fact, if he's fought for this long I imagine it ceases to amuse and it'd be something he'd shy away from altogether. But okay, that last part doesn't exactly make for an all that interesting wRHG character so I can bat an eye there :P.

Lastly, and Richard has hammered this home a million times already but in his absence I will keep repeating it ; Being human is not a weakness. Not even for the reasons Alphaeus pointed out, but merely because if your character is human, they share their humanity as weakness and it doesn't require to be pointed out.

Imagine for a second a character with immense strength and impenetrable skin (hello Luke Cage). Yes, bullets rockets and knives may just bounce off of this person but if you hit him hard enough, you're bound to hurt him somewhere on the inside. Heck, that doesn't even protect him from ; Extreme temperatures (fire/ice magic), any sort of attack via gas or poison, or extreme blunt force. If I were to just smash into his head with a truck I'd probably knock him unconscious through concussion, if not break his neck altogether. The weaknesses of the human body aren't as much weaknesses as they are merely limitations that come with this form. What I'm saying is, if your character is human, they have these limitations and it doesn't have to be mentioned. It should only be mentioned when one of said limitations is NOT the case (EG can't be hurt by bullets/knives/rockets cause his skin is impenetrable).

So when is this not the case? When you are dealing with things that aren't human. Think dragons, aliens, androids, cyborgs, all that jazz. Even if they take on the shape of man, they may not share in his limits. An android, for example, suffers not from being stabbed through the heart because they don't have one. You may shoot an alien in the head and he may shrug it off because his brain is in his butt or something. Heck, they may not even necessarily have a brain or vital functions at all and just be a consciousness a la Handyman. Anything is possible.

Arrogance also doesn't really apply as a weakness if he's got thousands of years of experience under his belt. He may be very confident, yes, but if he were a person to grow overconfident, he would have done so a long time ago and already fallen flat on his face because of it. What I'm saying is, if your character has lived and fought this long, there's no way he's not yet been humbled at least once.

"but if I remove human and arrogance, he basically has no weaknesses" I'm hearing you say. Well to be frank, your character is also just a human with a shitload of experience under his belt and nothing else. He doesn't have any fancy powers to aid him in battle, no magic tricks up his sleeve, so he doesn't necessarily require a particular weakness to offset this. Weaknesses are usually just limitations, and as we just covered ; Being human itself is his limitation, but not his weakness.

That's about all I have for critique. It's a decent character, albeit a bit generic considering how many characters like this one we've seen before in the lounge. Still, you did enough with it to make it your own thing and for that, good job. Good luck in your battles.

Quote from Vern

GIANT WALL OF TEXT

Well, alrighty then! I'll do just that... In fact... UPDATE!!!

-Removed two weaknesses

-Added another section to Physical Abilities/Weapons

But yeah, I appreciate the short story of text you managed to fit on this page. Impressive...

Quote from IgnusBurns

Well, alrighty then! I'll do just that... In fact... UPDATE!!!

-Removed two weaknesses

-Added another section to Physical Abilities/Weapons

But yeah, I appreciate the short story of text you managed to fit on this page. Impressive...

You should know by now that this is one of my shorter critiques :P

Quote from Vern

You should know by now that this is one of my shorter critiques :P

I DO know, but that was still quite a bit of reading.

Ignus~

Yeah, Vern was definitely right. I mean, while I joke about the human thing with Altaer, you will notice that under weaknesses I literally wrote "None" aside from a couple notes about personality things.

I will say that relating to the generic thing that Vern stated, here's my advice:

My "human" char (Altaer) is fairly generic at his base (an assassin with endless weapons and gear and techy skills). I've turned him into something that -- whether people like him or not -- is definitely recognizable. I think the vanilla flavoring of Abbas is just something that comes with being a newly created human character. Once you write him regularly and get a feel for him I expect this to change (if it doesn't, THEN I'll come smack you. But not before).

Quote from Alphaeus

My "human" char (Altaer) is fairly generic at his base (an assassin with endless weapons and gear and techy skills). I've turned him into something that -- whether people like him or not -- is definitely recognizable. I think the vanilla flavoring of Abbas is just something that comes with being a newly created human character. Once you write him regularly and get a feel for him I expect this to change (if it doesn't, THEN I'll come smack you. But not before).

Hmm, fair enough, I've written him before in some private stories, but I get what you're saying. I'm still trying to get somewhat of a feeling for him, but I have to he's one of my favorites so far. Thanks for the advice!

Quote from IgnusBurns

private stories

we talkin that al x manny voodoo hentai shit in here n shit cus if so i'm all the way into that shit

Quote from Chromium7

we talkin that al x manny voodoo hentai shit in here n shit cus if so i'm all the way into that shit

Chrome why...

No, I mean it's Abbas' chronicles of what he did before he met Riley and Levi, no Hentai or any of that crap.

Quote from Chromium7

we talkin that al x manny voodoo hentai shit in here n shit cus if so i'm all the way into that shit

I thought Zalgo was the one with a hard-on for Al, Chromy. Slime hentai and all that, ya dig?

All of you just stop posting the most random crap possible on my thread...

PLEASE...

I can do that. It wasn't my intention to derail, just curious as to what's going on behind the scenes here. So you say you've tested out some stories with Macbeth in them, and I feel like Alph vaguely mentioned something about this before, so may as well just ask it outright- you tryna join the Coils?

Yes. We're starting the joining collab tomorrow, and if you look on Altaer's char page you'll find the fused-canon version of our last battle.

Alright, it's been a well over a week since you guys have seen me, and the Lion in me is desperately hungry, you know what that means?

I AM BACK IN BUSINESS!