I'll Take an Axe to Your Skull [Eevachu + Cloud] [Complete]

First Darth HC gradin', so don't be hatin'

Alright, for starters, from a lore and thread quality standpoint, this passes, unless Clooby wants to pull rank and retcon his own thread (and I don't think he will). I'll be providing more specific commentary as is my wont, but since the thread is four years old, I'm not going to harp on with criticism; I assume you've both probably improved as writers over the course of said years. If you don't care about any of this, feel free to skip to the end.

Overall: Despite a somewhat awkward opening (though I did appreciate the plot recap in the first post), this thread pretty quickly took on a life of its own. Narratively, it felt like the plot was always moving forward with every post, which made for a refreshing pace. You both also clearly put a lot of thought into your character's actions in your posts, as well as their consequences, and I think you both played off of each other pretty well until Lucian dropped, so well done there. The combat encounters were well-written and interesting, too, and there was a healthy dose of humour throughout the thread. Really, the only major complaint I have is how Lucian being taken out of the thread was kinda glossed over; for the longest time I was wondering what had injured him until Rika finally revealed that he was ill. Still, I understand that character death tends to kill motivation, so I won't hold it against you much.

Rika/Eev: Rika is a character I'm pretty familiar with by now, and he was both delightfully consistent with what I previously knew of him whilst at the same time displaying a more serious, introspective side that was a treat to see. I actually laughed when he thought about how Lucian loved his bombs, since I was thinking the exact same thing at that point in the thread, and I continue to love how Rika always tries to spin every instance of him being wrong or mistaken as being correct or at least justified in his wrongness. That's probably why the Mothula's hallucinogens were half as effective as they were, Rika's too stubborn to admit what he's seeing isn't real :P

Speaking of which, I applaud the way you carried on after Lucian was incapacitated. A lot of RPers would just have given up, but your solo posts were long and well-thought out. I particularly liked the fight against the Mothula and how rather than make it super-tanky to justify its status as a boss, you had it use its elusive properties to drag the fight out to an appropriate length. You certainly deserve the rewards here, I think.

Rika also had probably my two favourite lines in the thread, those being his comment about a Hylian with a bomb and a good underhanded throw being the bane of all Stalfos, and his curiosity over whether the Mad Scrub knew what "bathing" meant. As a fan of Mad Scrubs, I was pretty pleased with their portrayal here. On the other end of the scale, it was interesting to see Rika try to take on the burden of ending Lucian's life. With his scythe, he could be a mini-Grim Reaper. no wonder everyone thinks he's a murderer

Whew. After all that gushing, I feel kinda bad that I don't have much to offer you in the way of criticism. There were a couple of awkward turns of phrase, but nothing major. Just a solid job, really.


Lucian/Clooby: It's always sad when a PC has to retire, but it happens. What to say about Lucian? He seemed like a pretty friendly, selfless guy, albeit one with an unhealthy obsession for bombs, which I kinda liked. You have a pretty eloquent writing style with nice use of vocabulary, but I do think you have a habit of overdescribing things, which can sometimes rob a sentence of its impact. I also did find it kinda jarring when Lucian thought of Rika as a friend early in the thread, only to later consider him a potentially dangerous spoiled brat (even if it's true, that's not a very nice thing to think about your friend!).

Nonetheless, I liked your combat posts, and there sure seemed to be a lot of retroactive foreshadowing about Lucian's death, like when he remarked on how the forest would be the death of him or how he could take a hit and not die. I find it bitterly ironic that the guy who set out to ally with Ikana spends his last waking hours killing Stalfos before dying himself. It's my headcanon that he rises as a Stalfos himself, and goes on to become the Hylian ambassador for Ikana.

Forgive me if my commentary for you is more sparse than it was for Eev. Since Lucian's dead and gone, I figured it's probably not as important to you for this thread. If either of you want to discuss this thread in more depth, feel free to shoot me a message over Discord.


TL;DR: It passes, good job all around. I propose that Rika becomes a maniacal bomber to honour Lucian's memory, even if it gets him in more trouble with the law. Especially if it gets him in more trouble with the law.

As Rika wanders out of the trees, his foot catches on something sticking up from the ground, tripping the Kokiri! Upon closer inspection, there's a blue shard in the mud; one half of a Blue Rupee kinstone, to be precise!

I wonder who left it there...?