capeandcowlooc | HMD;; December 2012

✖ HOWS MY DRIVING? ✖

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How it works: Comment here - others will reply to that comment with what they have to say, and hopefully many lulz and happifuntimes will be had. We're encouraging asking questions if you don't know why or how a character got to the point they're at in game, and we're encouraging constructive criticism that isn't:

"Oh, you're so good bb!"
or
"I hate you. Diaf."

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Anonymous comments have been temporarily enabled in the OOC community for the sake of anonymous crit, but as this privilege was abused last time and the moderators had to intervene, as promised this time around we are keeping logging IP on. We will not be checking the IP-addresses unless things get out of hand, nor will we be sharing them ever, but this is a measure in place to help prevent further abuse of anonymous commenting. If this causes discomfort, most players, as well as the mods, have personal HMDs on their journals. You are also free to contact any moderators privately or by PMing this account.

Go forth and conquer, Cape and Cowl.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Player name: Michael

Characters played: Thomas Blake/Catman ✖ DC Comics ✖

plains_hunter
Personal HMD link(s): Here. Don't have a personal one, just character one.
Anonymous allowed/encouraged? Y/N: I've had abuse of that in the past, so I prefer to keep anonymous off on Thomas' personal HMD journal.
Other comments? He's still feeling the place out and getting used to things. He wants to make a better man of himself, since it's a brand new world, but still nurses a general dislike of people in authority.

On a personal level, I was really, really happy to get into Cape and Cowl. I wanted so hard to make a good impression. I agonized over it. Carefully parsed through comments before I made them, made sure Thomas only knew things he's supposed to know, tried to make the replies I do make fun and engaging, but I can't shake this feeling that maybe I'm just burdening people.

I'm going to get some sleep. I'll be able to respond better in the morning.

Edited 2012-12-15 08:03 (UTC)

I'm not comfortable attaching my name to this, so forgive me for making use of the anonymous function at this time. I have a few questions about Thomas's characterization as well as concerns about your OOC behavior that I hope you'll be willing to listen to and consider.

Thomas seems to be involved in a number of plots, posts, and logs involving children and teen characters and I'm curious about the reasoning behind this. I understand that he has a young son in canon, but it isn't clear to me why he would be involved in something like a snowball fight involving mostly kids. Another example would be his attempts to get hired at the dojo, which caters mostly to child and teen characters. I'm having a difficult time understanding why he is drawn to interacting with these characters and I was hoping you could explain why he is choosing this path.

On that same note, I'm curious as to why he would be pursuing such friendly-seeming CR with Damian, considering Thomas's past with Damian's father. I understand that at his canon point Thomas considers himself to be reformed, but his unfazed responses to seeing Batman's sidekick around has left me scratching my head. I would expect some reaction from Thomas besides "Aw, how nice." Likewise, his thread with Red Robin also came across as overly conversational and read as quite friendly. As I understand it, Thomas's team was tasked with killing Red Robin in the issues leading up to Thomas's pull point, so I would have expected this to have colored Thomas's reactions to hearing Red Robin's voice. Instead, we got a conversation that didn't touch on any of their past interactions at all and seemed lacking in any distinct characterization.

To a similar point, his thread with Roy left me confused as well. Thomas came across as overly chummy toward the man who shot him and humiliated him publicly (and also shares the same baby-mama.) I can't see Thomas being concerned enough over Roy's well-being to ask him how well he's adjusting to life in the City or ask him personal questions about his family. He may be reformed, but I can't honestly see him being so non-confrontational with Roy.

That said, I read very little actual investment in his tags. His responses seem to lack thought and focus, coming across as conversational and generic as opposed to being in the character's voice. It's good that you're asking yourself if Thomas knows only what he should, but considering if he would say the things you're having him say is equally important. For example, would Catman really get into a heated debate about stray dogs? Or the wedding plans of two strangers? The show Ancient Aliens and Mayan apocalypse?

In general, Thomas comes across as much more outgoing than I would have expected considering his canon and personality, and he seems quite forthcoming with information, which seems to run counter to his background as a member of a secret organization. For example, he willingly gave Huntress both his name and alias without prompting and freely admitted to Laura Kinney that he was a criminal in his world, while seemingly expecting her to accept his word that he's reformed. Another example would be in his thread with Roy, where he revealed not only the existence of the Secret Six, but confirmed his membership in the group as well as Cheshire's. This information might not be incriminating, but it's not something I would think he'd be broadcasting to the general public, especially since he claims to be leading a reformed life now. It might help to consider who Thomas is sharing information with and what they could possibly do with it ICly before having him offer these secrets to others.

I'm also seeing very little moral grayness in him. I'm seeing him more as a good guy, but I'm not seeing anything to indicate that he's ever considered doing anything unlawful in the City, or really any clues to what is motivating him to make the choices he's been making. He seems to be 100% on the straight and narrow, and since his personality section makes it clear that his alignment is more neutral than good, I'm wondering if/when he will swing back toward the unlawful side of things. More introspection in log tags in particular could allow you to flesh out the character more and give better context to his motivations and what makes him tick.

In terms of OOC behavior, I've seen some comments from you that made me feel somewhat uneasy. In particular, earlier this week you made comments in another player's plurk that referred to your being unaware that you needed to check with other players before making references to events that happen later in canon. From my perspective, it's a common courtesy to communicate with your cast and fellow players before revealing such information and I was disappointed to find that you didn't seem to understand the need for this. Whatever the exact circumstances were that led up to that particular line of commenting, it seemed to me unnecessary to make veiled remarks about it for other people not involved to see.

On a final note, you could do to spellcheck and proofread your tags before sending them. I've spotted numerous grammatical and spelling errors in your comments, but a quick glance over them before hitting submit should solve that for you.

This was much longer than I intended, and I do apologize for the length of this comment and thank you for taking this into consideration for the future.

HMD;; December 2012

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