One Judges opinion

[Ernie]

UltraTitle was the bomb. Everyone who disagrees needs to be bitch-slapped.

 

[Sc00t]

UltraTitle was the bomb. Everyone who disagrees needs to be bitch-slapped.

^^^^ This.

 

[Steve]

And now for some thoughts entirely much too late…

Clearly, Warren knew what the hell he was doing and the rest of those fools on the panel can’t tell their ass from a hole in the ground.

Don’t get me started on finishing behind the empty chair at the RNC…

Heh.

I’ll proudly wear my last place final four finish. I took a chance with the last couple roleplays I wanted to be a little diverse. I think being out of practice with the character lead some of the trash talk roleplay to go astray, but I’ve always loved writing the Melton storyline roleplays. It seemed only fitting to go out that way.

Any of the final four could have won IMO and it would have been justified. Congrats to Billy. I personally would have given it to Ford, I thought he was something different. But, great thread.

As for the tournament as a whole, I had a blast and I think most everyone who showed and put forth effort did too. Hindsight is 20/20, of course and there are 100 suggestions on how it could have been done differently. But, it was a great effort by Chad and others to get this thing started and create the hobby wide buzz it spawned.

I won’t use this forum to stand on a soapbox and give my “this is how the UT should’ve been run” rant, but I’ll just say the biggest strike against it was Chad not seeing it to the end. But IMO it was still a great success. Many of us dusted off the keyboard and got back into character. While initially horrified by the idea of a FW podcast, by the end I couldn’t go to sleep at night without listening to Keegan or Ford’s voice. And I can’t tell you how many times Jesse got me laid…

As for it being rigged…

Actually Dave, if it was rigged Gregg would have won.

I listened to someone on a pod cast repeatedly play up how excited he was for the UT, how his character winning ANY round wasn’t a given, and more or less take an “go with the flow” attitude to the tournament, and then when his character indeed lost a few rounds into it, he fires off a bitchy little PM to Chad and vows to never speak of the UT again.

The Blaine/Zero divide is a great case study for why there was no hope of pleasing everyone in this tournament. I loved the diversity of the handlers the UT attracted, but it was always going to be difficult satisfying everyone. You just can’t.

Some of us love coming out of something like this finding a writer we’ve never seen before. For me it was Showtime. I know that was Chad’s hope too. If you were going to play favorites, just make the UT open to FWC .

We’re all competitive, some more than others and I’d wager losing still caused 95% of us to swallow hard. And its more fun to burn the bridge when we’ve crossed over the other side.

If this tournament was held on another forum or the rules for roleplay were different, you’d see a different Final Four. That’s just fact. Trying to find an even playing field between Blaine’s set piece and Zero’s narrative was a chore and it open the door for discussions about what’s seen or not seen, a fake audience, and whether Brunk’s wife knows she’s married to a huge dork.

In the end, I wouldn’t change a thing. I had a blast and if there’s a sequel of some sort coming in 2013, I might just have to get on that Downtown Trainnnnnnnn.

Cheers.

 

[DBrunkGXW]

....and whether Brunk’s wife knows she’s married to a huge dork.

Oh believe me, she knows. SHE KNOWS.

 

[Kahrytes]

Is there anywhere in the fwrestling forums that DookySpoom hasn't shat the bed about how nobody understands his genius?

 

[User Poets]

Is there anywhere in the fwrestling forums that DookySpoom hasn't shat the bed about how nobody understands his genius?

No, but to be fair you need to have genius to begin with for it to be misunderstood.

 

[Kahrytes]

You obviously aren't a writing genius if you can't see the absolute genius that is "The Undertaker's Shite Nephew".

 

[SpookyDoom]

Sorry blatant and tiny Macho Man knock-off, did you say anything?


Or do I have to write "shit" somewhere, to indicate what I think of your character? So that people can know that it is shit? Nope, guess it was obvious from the get-go; "needless to say", as the expression goes.


"Show, don't tell" would be an excellent writing tool for you to use in expressing what is wrong with someone or their literary creation. Since such a concept is obviously beyond you (and, as I was pointing out, the judges as well) that just makes you a writing tool.

 

[brusch]

YAY, THIS IS HAPPENING AGAIN.

YAY.

 

[Kahrytes]

Sorry blatant and tiny Macho Man knock-off, did you say anything?


Or do I have to write "shit" somewhere, to indicate what I think of your character? So that people can know that it is shit? Nope, guess it was obvious from the get-go; "needless to say", as the expression goes.


"Show, don't tell" would be an excellent writing tool for you to use in expressing what is wrong with someone or their literary creation. Since such a concept is obviously beyond you (and, as I was pointing out, the judges as well) that just makes you a writing tool.

See, I'd try to offer any criticism of you whatsoever, but it will never, ever sink in. I could go through your roleplays and pick out every problem, every flaw...

But you are an absolute moron. You cannot take any criticism without flipping out like a spoiled little child, and you're honestly pretty bad at this game overall. I've taken Tom to many, many places aside from just "Macho Man Ripoff", but I have fun with that particular character aspect, so I keep coming back to it.

You, on the other hand, write shallow, onedimensional characters that are so obviously your nearest, dearest children that you cannot hear or see any criticism of them without turning into a giant blubbering little child throwing a tantrum.

In short, you understand the actual mechanics of writing, but you don't understand the point of writing creatively. Also, you suck at e-fedding.

And you probably should figure out how to interact with people in discussion. Logic and calculated reason don't win you internet points or some shit when e-fedding. The judges weren't buying your garbage, they didn't vote for you, and you write some giant wall of text trying to berate them for not giving you exact, specific reasons for why you suck? That's exactly why you suck. Because you don't get human social interaction.

But do you want to know what's wrong with your character? HEre's what's wrong with your character.

He's the Undertaker's nephew.

And that's all he is.

I just read all three of your roleplays against Orphan. You have literally nothing to talk about except the Ultratitle, which you have entered, and the Undertaker. There's no character there. No personality. Your character is obviously just you writing your little character and using that gimmick as your go-to whenever you can't think of something to say. You haven't bothered giving Spooky any kind of supporting cast, any kind of backstory that doesn't directly relate to the Undertaker, any kind of character quirks that aren't "generic wrestling person" or "UNDERTAKER REFERENCES", any kind of side interests or hobbies or anything else.

Now, I could go into great detail about Tom, but the basics of him are "Jim Carrey's character from the Cable Guy if he was obsessed with pro wrestling in specific instead of TV". He loves all wrestling, because he's from a broken home and that was the thing he went to. He has a mentor in his former tag team partner. He has friends in his stablemates, and he desperately hopes that he can try to keep his current wrestling company from turning into an egodriven jerkoff-fest like CZW when Zandig was in charge, IWA-MS with Ian Rotten, the height of Vince's involvement in the WWF when it all was revolving around him. He makes references to all kinds of old wrestling storylines and concepts...

See, that's the kind of thing that Spooky Doom doesn't do. And that's the kind of thing you seem to be incapable of doing. You make a gimmick character and the only things that happen in your promoes as that character are things specific to the gimmick. American Freebear was like that. He was a big flippy hairy guy. And that's all you ever talked about. Spooky Doom is like that. He's the Undertaker's nephew, and that's all you ever talk about.

And that's the problem. You don't bother trying to do more than just your gimmick.

Now, you're not going to internalize any of this, and you're just going to go back to calling Tom a Macho Man ripoff, but here's the thing. I've made literally dozens of characters. I've handled people of every shape and color. John Henry, a modern-day retelling of the "man versus the unstoppable machine" concept. Boston Bancroft, a consummate athlete who is trying to treat wrestling like the business it is, rather than taking everything personally and everything being about blood feuds. Sergei Bogorovich, a Russian MMA-themed kickboxer who fought supernatural things because he was the only man that could. Kengoro Sugamoto, a Japanese bully who was trying to strike it big in the US and escape the cronyism of JApan.

John Henry was supporting his family by wrestling, but taking the weight of the world on his shoulders while he did so. Boston was fighting specifically for his family, to try and make sure his son could grow up and do something more than he could. Serbo was my chance to delve into writing supernatural and modern horror storylines. Kengoro was my chance to explore other cultures and try to have fun with a heel bully who didn't even care about right or wrong, just that he was stronger than everyone else and that made everything okay.

All of my characters have something more going on than just their gimmicks. That's what makes an e-fed character more than a cardboard cutout. To tie this to real-life wrestling, compare modern gimmicks with people from the heyday. Ryback is a muscleman who says feed me more. Mankind is a deranged child prodigy pianist who the world broke over its knee, and used his insanity to try and bring out some of that beautiful nightmare in the people he faced.

You're a boring writer who grasps the fundamental basics of e-fedding, but never goes above and beyond the very most basic parts of this game. And when people try to tell you to do a little more, you rage the hell out and end up getting booted from feds because you whine and whine and whine and whine and you never shut the fuck up.

Fuckin' have a drink and chill out. That's why nobody around here likes you, and why you keep getting run out of places. One of the big pieces of writing advice that lots of people need to understand is when Arthur Quiller-Couch said to "murder your darlings". When you get too overly attached to something, be it a specific line, catchphrase or in this case, character, you stop thinking realistically about them.

You've handled Spooky Doom for too long, and you're too invested in the character. You will never make Spooky Doom better than he is because you're convinced he's perfectly fine the way he is. But all good characters should be constantly growing and becoming more, different, newer. Otherwise, you stagnate.

Like you did. Which is why you lost in Ultratitle.

So either take any of the advice I've been saying here, and either make Spooky Doom be an actually interesting character, or kill him off and try writing something completely new and outside your norm.

(Or come at me, bro. Go ahead and prove my point that you can never take any criticism without raging out.)

 

[Justin]

Remember that time when Dooky said he was gonna bring Defiance down around us, and then we got like eight new apps over the next week?

That shit was so cash.

 

[John Doe]

Who's Spooky Doom?

 

[Colin]

Imagine your first punching yourself in the face forever.

Getting into a discussion with Spooky works the same way.

 

[SpookyDoom]

To quote Nicolas Boileau: "What is conceived well is simply expressed". Tom Sawyer is a tiny Macho Man knock-off because he uses expressions popularized by the Macho Man to garner face pops from the audience. And here's the link to a promo titled "Sawyer Madness" to prove the point. Because being able to prove one's point matters. It's what legitimizes decisions, and the lack of which is my beef with the Ultratitle. When you say that the only thing Spooky Doom has working for him at the Ultratitle is that he's the Undertaker's nephew; and I build a whole friggin' promo based on science, or what it means for such an outlandish gimmick to win in a wrestling contest or build a feud between the primordial forces of Death and Hatred, you aren't even trying to express your lies in a believable manner.

When you start off a wall of text by calling the other guy a moron and that any arguing is useless because the other guy is too stupid to understand, you are that 15 year who just discovered e-wrestling for the very first time. If you're incapable of expressing what makes the character shallow and just state, "your character is shallow", then refer to my previous post about "show don't tell". You state that I'm unable to handle criticism but when all that you spout are insults, it is you who are incapable of expressing it. At best, you've brought up an idea that the only defining aspect of Spooky Doom is his relationship to the Undertaker. Well not only are you crazy, but you've made it very easy for me to disprove you by showcasing all I've built in promos about the scientific properties of the luchador, battle between the forces of good and evil- Oh wait I'm repeating myself.

See, that's how easy it is. I've proven my point through facts and a minimum of effort rather than lines and lines of disjointed text. And I'm the crazy one? LOOK AT ALL THAT YOU WROTE! But gosh darn it if facts and logic mean nothing in e-wrestling. What about irony? Does the irony of you spending so much time to write how the other guy is a waste of time hit you on the head much?

Okay, something else. Pro-wrestling, as a whole, isn't made out of blank slate human beings leading lives comparable to normal people with an ensemble of friends and relationships and their day-to-day activities as they are related to pro-wrestling. I can understand that this might be how you play at e-wrestling, but if you don't see such shit on TV, it shouldn't be in your RP. Wrestling is made out of larger-than-life characters easily identifiable by the public for the simple concepts that they espouse, and we mash them against each other like some child playing with his action figures. You want to write a normal person leading an incredible life, so you seek the incredible by approaching Tom Sawyer to Macho Man. Never is Tom Sawyer more of a TV personality then when he cribs material from someone who was larger-than-life in the first place. I write someone living in the incredible, marked by the surreal, and somehow try to tie him down to Earth; because Spooky Doom is visually and personality-wise the opposite of the Undertaker.

Wrestlers don't evolve. They are either their own specific, identifiable characters or they are transformed entirely; into another specific, identifiable character. I write wrestling gimmicks. And yes, wrestling is all about the gimmick. The challenge is in finding an original idea which can be summed up in a couple of sentences, at most. One day, you will learn the beauty in being concise. At least I fucking hope so.

EDIT: I manage to write my thoughts in a couple of lines, Kevin writes a wall of text, and I'm the obtuse one? N-word please.

 

[User Poets]

To quote Nicolas Boileau: "What is conceived well is simply expressed".

Spooky Doom, the character, is neither well conceived or well expressed.

Okay, something else. Pro-wrestling, as a whole, isn't made out of blank slate human beings leading lives comparable to normal people with an ensemble of friends and relationships and their day-to-day activities as they are related to pro-wrestling. I can understand that this might be how you play at e-wrestling, but if you don't see such shit on TV, it shouldn't be in your RP. Wrestling is made out of larger-than-life characters easily identifiable by the public for the simple concepts that they espouse, and we mash them against each other like some child playing with his action figures.

Well - written biographies (See: Foley, Hart, Jericho) exist to prove this point incorrect.

Wrestlers don't evolve.

See above. Foley. Hart. Jericho. Ringmaster to Steve Austin. The Texas Rattlesnake to the guy playing Kumbaya on the guitar. Rocky Maivia to The Rock, Nation of Domination to the Corporation to the People's Champion. Hunter Hearst Helmsley to Triple H.

Shit. The Undertaker has gone through more evolutions than any of them put together, but he was always the same character.

When you say wrestlers don't evolve, what you're actually saying is that Spooky Doom doesnt' evolve, which is mainly due to the fact that you don't have the writing talent to evolve him. Therefore, in your mind, anyone who adds depth and complexities to a character is doing it wrong.

One day, you will learn the beauty in being concise. At least I fucking hope so.

Pot, kettle, black.

 

[brusch]

For the love of God, you guys. This needs to stop.

No argument is going to be brought up against Spooky Doom that hasn't already been brought up before in Defiance, NFW, IWF, E-Fed Guerrillas, the General Board, other ewrestling message boards, other e-feds, and God knows where else. None of these points are secret, none of these points are news to Spooky or the rest of the fwrestling community. And Spooky is going to stick to his guns about the way he writes his character and the way he views this hobby as a whole, to his boon and to his detriment.

Picking a fight about this now, AGAIN, after it's been fought about and argued about for literally the entire time I've been in this hobby is some kind of trolling-by-cutting-yourself. It's masochism, it's pointless, and only serves to rile up SERIOUS ANGER~ about this silly little hobby we like to do.

I am Roberto Duran. No mas. No mas.

 

[SpookyDoom]

Well - written biographies (See: Foley, Hart, Jericho) exist to prove this point incorrect.

Biographies exist to chronicle a person's life outside of their characters! And I don't need to tell you that because you know that already, you're being intentionally obtuse! Like with the Undertaker! He did not "evolve" from the Deadman into the American Badass, it was a sudden and complete transformation! Why is it a transformation rather than an evolution? Because there is no storyline stating how the former Deadman came back from the dead as a redneck biker. There was no evolution as the druidic Deadman lost his otherwordly powers and became a biker, he just became one. And you know that too!

It's very very simple. In real life, on TV, whenever a wrestler acts the least bit uncharacteristically, people refer to this as teasing a turn. Nobody expects a wrestler to evolve gradually from show to show, they await with baited breath for the one specific transformative moment where the turn will be complete. You might not think this is a logical course of action, but it is a course of action that is proper to pro-wrestling.

 

[User Poets]

Well, it's obvious you're not willing to listen to reason, nobody will convince you that you're average at best and you'll never convince anyone that your way is the only right way, so I'm going to advise you and everyone else to take Robert's advice and let it drop.

I'm leaving the thread open because decent conversation could still come out of it, but the argument ends here.

 

[brusch]

Well, it's obvious you're not willing to listen to reason, nobody will convince you that you're average at best and you'll never convince anyone that your way is the only right way, so I'm going to advise you and everyone else to take Robert's advice and let it drop.

I'm leaving the thread open because decent conversation could still come out of it, but the argument ends here.

Who's Robert?

I think that while it's true that sudden, drastic transformation can exist in wrestling (Brodus Clay starting as a tattooed rookie bodyguard to Alberto Del Rio, returning as the Funkasaurus), it's absolutely possible for wrestlers to evolve. The relationship between Daniel Bryan and Kane comes to mind. Kane's most recent return had a sudden element to it (the return to the mask, being a heel, etc). When he entered into feuds with CM Punk and Bryan, his motivations started warping and his relationships with the other wrestlers changed.

Eventually, Kane and Bryan had immense hatred for each other, and both were generally viewed as heels. Over time, their dynamic changed towards one another. Over the coming months, they eventually started bonding (although their bond was as simple as absurd anger issues), though it wasn't a sudden "we hate each other"/"we are best buds" thing. They still had friction. But, over the months, the friction turned into a bond. You look at them now, and they're a bona fide face team who has each other's backs, even though their attitudes still feature many of the previous months' anger and general aggression.

They evolved from antagonists who would never get along, to The Tag Team Champions who still kind of hate everyone but who have each others' backs and the crowd gets behind.

Evolution is possible. It's not the case 100% of the time - he used to be Dr. Isaac Yankem DDS with no explanation for his becoming Kane - but a gradual inclusion of a different character dimension is a thing and it's real.

 

[SpookyDoom]

Well, it's obvious you're not willing to listen to reason, nobody will convince you that you're average at best and you'll never convince anyone that your way is the only right way, so I'm going to advise you and everyone else to take Robert's advice and let it drop.

I'm leaving the thread open because decent conversation could still come out of it, but the argument ends here.

That's not it at all. Last night started with Kevin writing a wholly unnecessarily attack in a resolved thread. You egged him on. I wrote three lines of text as a rebuttal. Kevin flips out and writes a whole bunch of insults. I'm apparently in the wrong. I shut him down in three paragraphs and offer differences on how people view pro-wrestling and how it relates to e-wrestling as a conversation piece. You're being unnecessarily acerbic, arguing in poor faith things I'd agree would be obvious to all while pilling on the insults.

I don't have to accept your insults. Plain as that. Although you didn't start this, you are the one who threw oil on the fire, and kept going at it. I'm the one ignoring your insults and discussing pro-wrestling for its own sake, but you owe me an apology.