Eve Taylor (FalKon)
I have a soft spot for webcam/simple speak-to-the-camera RPs, probably because I did them a lot in another fed as a tribute to one of my favorite eFed characters of all time. There's a real rawness to them, which is something I appreciate, and as that's clearly what you're going for I commend you on using that format.
As someone weighing the benefits of a stage persona myself, the themes present in this RP of the power of a name really struck home. There's a wistfulness to how she talks about it, an ache that I really connected with. Fake it 'til you make it is something I hear a lot of, every day, and the complicated discussion of what that actually means is something I ask myself every time it comes up. (As an aside, you did typo that as 'fake it to you make it, but I'll gloss over that.)
I love how poetic this speech is. It's emotional, it has ups and downs, a pure wrestling promo at its finest, a real roller coaster ride. The clean-clean makes sense, it humanizes Eve even more than ever, and how you tie her personal identity crisis and all the things that have happened to her since the Lethal Lottery into Matt Tastic's personalities and how he is now is just so beautiful. Also, shoutouts to using fuck in a genuinely impactful way.
I don't really have a lot of criticisms. I think this one just struck me, both in its simplicity and in its subject matter. It sets up a lot for the future as well. It broke when it needed to and sucked me in using dialogue alone. I guess on a personal level it almost lost the atmosphere you had built when she became super focused on Mikey when she first said his name but you regained it fast and finished strong. Great work.
Titus Avison (Lee)
I hope Titus never loses the belt ever.
Okay, with that sentiment out of the way, time to talk about the actual RP. One thing I find kind of funny is that while I always love your RPs, I'm prepared to be at odds with how you actually write them. Things always move too abruptly for me, and yet the content is always so strong that I'm sucked in nonetheless. I suppose you've really nailed that screenplay style of giving us just enough to draw our own conclusions of the scene before hitting us with the dialogue, so I get it. For example, it feels the scene very quickly jumps from Titus backstage to Becky's office to Georgia. It's like being on a roller coaster. I think at the very least I wouldn't have minded a little more scene-setting for the toast.
But my god, the content never fails to blow me away. You have a knack for using imagery to completely destroy an opponent while weaving in ten years of history and well-thought-out references. My favorite bit about the RP is that the speech Titus makes on Will McKay sounds like a horror film. It builds that dread and completely eviscerates Will's character. there's something about targeted character dissection I absolutely love, especially when it builds to a crescendo like that. It's relentless and it slows down exactly when it needs to.
Hey, maybe that's what you were going for, yknow? Make the beginning punchy and fast so that when the RP slows down it hits you like a punch in the gut. If that's so, I dig it. Great stuff.
Tony Mancini (Milenko)
Man, your RPs are weirdly soulless.
That's like, a super negative thought to start off with, huh? I don't know, the opening just feels like you're building with blocks and putting stuff in because you feel you have to. Something about how you cite things like sources and songs just...there's no rhythm or flow or beauty to them, yknow? You always use the full name of the Bible you're quoting from, or you very specifically name exactly what contemporary song is playing in the church complete with brackets. It just really disrupts your flow and makes the whole thing feel like less like a piece of writing and more like a robot assumption of what an RP is.
It feels like the entire opening is just an excuse to get to the Father Meloni conversation when you probably could've just started at Father Meloni and explained everything else in the conversation itself. I guess that's just my own writing preferences coming into play, though.
It's actually kind of funny. In scene-setting and description you often use a lot of short sentences but in dialogue you use a lot of run-ons. Weird.
I don't really find Father Meloni super convincing or human as a character, honestly. He just seems like a plot point. It's like your intro, except in character form. Father Meloni exists in this weird microcosm where WZCW is the only thing anyone cares about, including an actual man of the cloth, and he only exists to be all "Hey Tony, here's some weirdly specific advice". It's also weird how you built up all that for a five-line conversation.
Also, seriously, learn to use punctuation. You don't use any sometimes, like in the sentence "That's great Anthony now what does this have to do with me?". It always tosses me out of the scene when I'm trying to understand what you're saying rather than focusing on what's being said.
So, that's all my writing gripes out of the way. In terms of content, I think it told me who Tony was decently well. He's a father, a devout Christian, and he used to be in a tag team with Xaitlyn. That said, everyone in your RP speaks the same, so I can't say anyone made much of an impression on me, including Tony. It's adequate. It tells a story, it builds to a match with Constantine, it gives Tony a tangible and viable reason as to why the match is important, and I think all that is positive.
You have a long way to go, but I admit that this RP definitely made me want to see the match. My biggest issue with the content is that the quote didn't at all connect with the rest of the writing. If I were you I would have went with a verse on forgiveness. That would've been a lot more thematically appropriate. So yeah, it did its job and I think you have to be commended for that because you've improved a lot in terms of actually telling a story that makes sense and advances multiple plot points. Definitely the best work I've personally read of yours.
