Character Study #3 - Malcolm Drake - 11/17/13

[Vinny]

(Big thanks to Nick for doing this preface for me so I didn't have to write about myself in the 3rd person)

Character Study explanation

Malcolm Drake Bio

Due Date: 11/17/13 (midnight EST)


Malcolm Drake, In Brief:
Malcolm Drake is handled by Vinny, one of the longest-tenured handlers in FGA. Malcolm Drake is one half of the former & first ever Mid-Atlantic Tag Team Champions and a member of FGA's most infamous stable, The Murder.

Vinny's Curated RPs and Segments:
Segment: 7/20/13 Segment.

These are the RPs I think are my best with Drake, but you are obviously welcome to disagree and/or read more than these if you feel so inclined.
To Watch Your World Burn.

Mercy's Limit.

Party's Over. (This one's for Nick)

Monster.

Waxing and Waning.

Death Rattle.

[shaunsindelman]

Starting with Malcolm's first promo of 2013...

* To Watch Your World Burn - right off the bat, there's always a plethora of scene painting done which is good and bad at the same time as not much is left to the reader's imagination to fill in the gaps.If this is my first look at Malcolm, I immediately see he's not quite "all there" and how it stems from a misplaced amount of parental guidance. Clearly this is the root of all of Drake's "evils" as is the case for most men of his style. His shoots on Alistar Mangold and Corella are top notch for a setting such as the confines of a church and the event of a tournament for a "Pure" title. His insistence to defile purity is the core of what Drake and The Murder are truly about and he never loses a step in making that point clear.

* Everything In Its Time and Place - Once again, Drake finds just the right setting to attack his opponent. With Ryan Kidd being an adrenaline junkie/skater punk, it made sense to shoot a promo at a skate park. Drake and his pontifications about what is wrong is total miscreant behavior; not to mention his attempts to be the purveyor of "truth".

* Then in "Irish Wake", we get the dastardly Malcolm Drake who just wants to hurt someone for no other reason than to make a point. The way he mocks Pat Gordon Jrs fallen allies is proper heel machinations. Not to mention the way he speaks of The Murder as the 'end all, be all' in FGA.

* A Dream Within A Dream - Here Drake is simply pontificating on himself in only a way Malcolm Drake could pull off -- his twisted words and psychological play is clever without trying to be clever. The imagery he puts forth with his tongue is incredible. And with this we finally see that Drake truly has no love for the females as he speaks of the horrific things he plans to do to Cami Magna. A complete opposite to the opinion of his fellow Murder mate, Dom Harter.

* Progress - More of a glance in the life of Malcolm Drake as we see his dad was a bit of an absentee one bringing his boy to a bar just so he can have a few drinks but hey at least the kid was exposed to a proper team like the BoSox. (sorry for the personal interjection there). This is a really good promo if for the mere fact that it's about two guys from the same town - one proud of it and the other one preferring to associate himself with the dark and dingy side of Beantown.

Mercy's Limit - The first promo after the big "reveal" of the 3rd Crow in Bob Pooler...and boy is Malcolm Drake propped up satisfied at his little con. And of course Drake believes himself the biggest mastermind as he takes credit for the accomplishment of his partner, Dom Harter. One has to wonder how long Harter will continue to let someone else take credit for HIS doings. Then we have yet another incident of Drake being not too fond of women. Poor Crystal. She was merely a vessel for Malcolm Drake to make his point -- that everyone should be scared of the Head Crow and what lengths he is willing to go to when provoked.

Party's Over - The battle of the two biggest badasses in FGA comes to a head and boy did Malcolm Drake match Chris Q in the shoot department. And what the hell -- are we to believe that the great Malcolm Drake has a "thing" for young boys. WHOA!

A Part to Play - I thought this was a good look at Malcolm Drake trying to play the savior type looking to rid the FGA of the "scum" or at least those he thinks deserve to be removed from FGA. Also a nice touch to try and turn all the mean things slung at The Murder over time back at the critics.

No Safe Haven - I must say the part about how Drake started in the company as the equivalent of an insect and "evolved" into the monster he is today was definitely a lovely touch.

Monster - These segments where Drake speaks about his childhood are always a great look at what makes a man become a monster. Particularly the discovery that Malcolm Drake was abused by his drunk of a father (or at least thats my assumption) as a child. Possibly the reason why he now as an adult does the same to other young boys. And the reason why he sees a woman and doesn't think of their curves but rather how quickly he can spill their blood from their body.

[Vinny]

Damn, Shaun, you don't waste any time!

Thanks for the feedback.

* To Watch Your World Burn - right off the bat, there's always a plethora of scene painting done which is good and bad at the same time as not much is left to the reader's imagination to fill in the gaps.

I preach a lot of "less is more," but I don't always follow it. This is generally when I have a strong visual image of the scene I want to set or if there is a necessary aspect of the background that will come into play later in the piece (e.g. the shadows is "Death Rattle" or the hair in "Whited Sepluchre"). Believe it or not, I used to spend about 1000 words on scene alone.

Progress - More of a glance in the life of Malcolm Drake as we see his dad was a bit of an absentee one bringing his boy to a bar just so he can have a few drinks but hey at least the kid was exposed to a proper team like the BoSox. (sorry for the personal interjection there). This is a really good promo if for the mere fact that it's about two guys from the same town - one proud of it and the other one preferring to associate himself with the dark and dingy side of Beantown.

Mercy's Limit - The first promo after the big "reveal" of the 3rd Crow in Bob Pooler...and boy is Malcolm Drake propped up satisfied at his little con. And of course Drake believes himself the biggest mastermind as he takes credit for the accomplishment of his partner, Dom Harter. One has to wonder how long Harter will continue to let someone else take credit for HIS doings. Then we have yet another incident of Drake being not too fond of women. Poor Crystal. She was merely a vessel for Malcolm Drake to make his point -- that everyone should be scared of the Head Crow and what lengths he is willing to go to when provoked.

Progress and Mercy's Limit were sort of companion pieces. Drake is very much a loner, but I wanted to show his underlying desire to be accepted as part of society. He purposefully puts himself in these situations and they always manage to get out of his control; the opposite of what was happening for him in FGA where he was firmly in control. I also wanted to use Crystal as that first sort of inclination that Drake REALLY has a problem with women, and it can sort of go without saying that while a lot of problems stem from his father this particular one probably comes from somewhere else. This is something I hinted at in Everything In Its Time and Place.

Party's Over - The battle of the two biggest badasses in FGA comes to a head and boy did Malcolm Drake match Chris Q in the shoot department. And what the hell -- are we to believe that the great Malcolm Drake has a "thing" for young boys. WHOA!

I wanted that moment to be shocking, but when people went back to look at it, I wanted it to make sense, and make more sense the deeper you analyzed it. Drake has clever markers of misogyny that between Akrista, Cami and Crystal are pretty evident. But this is also a hint a deeper darkness. Being physically abused by a parent can leave deep scars, but Drake's psychosis - I hope - should appear to be more profound than that. I also wanted to better incorporate aspects of Drake's self-destructiveness and his self-loathing. When he chases the boy from his room, he ends up face to face with his reflection. That wasn't an accident.

Monster - These segments where Drake speaks about his childhood are always a great look at what makes a man become a monster. Particularly the discovery that Malcolm Drake was abused by his drunk of a father (or at least thats my assumption) as a child. Possibly the reason why he now as an adult does the same to other young boys. And the reason why he sees a woman and doesn't think of their curves but rather how quickly he can spill their blood from their body

I try not to be too heavy-handed with these pieces because it can be easy to give away too much of Drake's past and then what would I have to write about? I wanted this to sort of be like a picture coming into focus. There was a lot of hints and teases up to this point, and I wanted to add a touch of clarity there without revealing too much. I do find it interesting that everyone makes the assumption that it is Drake's father who is the abusive parent and I've certainly hinted in that direction, but maybe that's not the whole story...

[Vinny]

A friendly reminder: Deadline is THIS Sunday.

[Deleted]

Okay, here's what I got.

Since I haven't had the pleasure (or the sarcastic pitch-altered "joy") of interacting with Malcolm Drake via Twitter, I don't know what he'd do if Madman Szalinski tried to talk to him outside of the wrestling environment. I don't know that he cares. I don't think he does anything other than hurt people.

E-fedding is heel heavy these days. Hard not to see the same heel everywhere you go. The catch in FGA is, each heel seems to have a seperate emotion to them that makes them unique (I think destructive when I think of Blayze, anarchist when I think of Chaths) and in Drake's case, emotionless comes to mind. Not even so much anger or rage, just emotionless. Maybe numb from a fucked-up past, or maybe just all a bunch of misunderstandings...but he's just plain out of fuck to give about anyone or anything.

Catholics have that sense of doom, I've noticed...per capita, Catholic doctrine is more pessimistic, as Protestant doctrine is much more optimistic in nature. And for most people, sixteen is a time you yearn to go back to...and if your childhood sucked, your adulthood isn't going to get much better without a LOT of help, be it from your own inner strength, the help of others, or a little more divine intervention perhaps. Malcolm Drake couldn't care less to get better. He's just happy in his misery, as long as everybody else within his reach is sharing in the same misery.

Heels have to be careful not to be emo. There is no emo in Malcolm Drake, I am pretty sure of that.

[Deleted]

Will have this one and Q's by deadline.

[Deleted]

I don't know if this is fair considering we might have talked about your characters outside of the confines of what you've conveyed in your roleplays, but here goes.

I feel you do a very good job at portraying the subtle nuances of Malcolm Drake; the slow reveals and non-standard motives/explanations. The hints you dropped in your first few roleplays about how this whole thing was bigger than you (leading to Dom's debut), the way you built to Bob's turn; the explanation of how winning every match wasn't in Malcolm's plan.

The symbolism of things such as the teddy bear, defacing the title belt up to and including the sexual exploitation of the lithe young adolescents; it hints at, but neither confirms nor denies parts of Malcolm's past (for example he hasn't come right out and said his father used to abuse him, although you hinted with Malcolm's speech in the rp based in the church) and you pull that off extremely well, in my opinion.

You describe him as 'quick to anger' and 'prone to bouts of ultra-violence' and you show that in your writing with him going from rocking back and forth to shouting at the camera, even slashing the title belt with the switch blade. I'm almost jealous at how you can keep character in your rps

And if I had to label him as a sadist, I'd say you portray that well. As I said at the time, I was like "oh shit" when he had the young man in the motel room. And you're never - in my opinion - too heavy handed with the details (except in scenery lol) or divulge too much info; you keep us, the readers, guessing at what's coming next. I enjoy that.

In conclusion, you're one of my favourite writers (the reason why I'm Dom and not Ben right now) and I thoroughly enjoy the trip on which you're taking us with each and every roleplay.

P.S. my favourite was 'Death Rattle'

[styg]

Eek. I'll get on this tomorrow!

Er... today. lol.

[styg]

"Song Title" by Artist

- I fucking love that song!



I'll be honest, whenever I see a character defined by severe emotional disorders and a troubled past, I'm sceptical at first. I've seen far too many bad ripoffs of Raven and Kane in efedding to approach the archetype from a neutral position.

But scratch a little and Drake is a world apart from that. You've clearly done your homework on schizophrenia and sociopathy and portray them much more accurately than they're usually done, and as a genuine, serious medical issue rather than an excuse to have a character who's crazy or evil or (sigh) "badass". Drake works so well as a character study of broken man, in the very literal sense of "doesn't function correctly." He has beautiful moments where I almost feel sorry for him, but he won't let me (Jon Moxley is the perfect PB for that btw!). There's a real melancholy about him - who could he have been if his brain had been screwed in just a little tighter?

Drake is very effective as a heel you want to beat, and want to see beaten, not because of what he does but because of what he says. I don't really see him as arrogant when he brags - his worldview just makes him incapable of seeing anyone but himself as the centre of the universe. I get the feeling that he genuinely doesn't understand how people can beat him in matches, or how people can keep up with his sadism, and he treats it as a mistake that needs rubbing out. It's infuriating, in a good heel way, and makes you want to see someone beat him so comprehensively that he's left shattered as his worldview is finally ripped away from him. He's the kind of character where, from an opponent perspective, who wins the battles doesn't matter - all that matters is who wins the war.

How deep does the rot run? Was he born or made a monster? It's not clear... and I like that. I'm not even sure I want to find out.

I'm not sure whether this counts as a criticism, but I like low-key Drake better. He's much more menacing that way. When he gets histrionic, it's harder to take him seriously, but having said that it changes the dominant emotional response. Rather than being unsettled by him, it makes me disgusted with him, and makes me wish someone or something would just shut him the hell up. Which I suspect may be the point.

My favourite promos are the ones against Blayze and Chris Q, I think because we're seeing the more low-key, menacing Drake in those. But the one I want to touch on specifically is Monster... I have to brutally honest here. Speaking as your opponent for that one, I really didn't like it. I understand that showing Drake's attitude to women is an important piece of development for him, but when you handle female characters in predominantly male feds, promos that focus on their gender get really fucking old, really fucking fast.

That said... Laurel's outrage at being dismissed for her gender is kind of what prompted the current feud between Malcolm and Laurel, which I am amazingly hyped about, so silver linings and all that?

I know I kinda said a lot of negative stuff there, but honestly, Drake may be my favourite character in FGA. He is so damn fascinating (and you absolutely nail his dark charisma in the promos). He single-handedly upends my most hated character archetype with a depth, subtlety and believability. This is the kind of character real wrestling promotions *should* be willing to put on TV.

[Chris Q]

Roleplay Comments:

“I couldn't BREATHE in those clothes. I HATED them. But every Sunday I would put them on. I would TRY to be a good, little boy and say my prayers and sit ssstill and be... shhhh... quiet... But I couldn't. I just couldn't. And my father... My... father... would get angrier and angrier. And in the car rides home he would YELL at me and he would say, 'MALCOLM, YOUR BEHAVIOR IN MASS TODAY WAS ABYSMAL!”

- You write anger perfectly. It never seems forced or over the top. I can always hear the emphasis as you intend it when you write Drake’s monologues

I love the way you write the combination of scene and shoot. You have an incredible talent for setting a scene. Drake seems to come to life in your settings and you allow him to paint the walls with his words. Drake never seems to speak too long on any single subject, a trait that seems very appropriate for his character.

“FGA.”

“FGA? What’s that, like, a TV station?” Crystal’s attention peaks with the prospect.

“A wrestling promotion.”

“Oh,” she says in a quiet tone that betrays disappointment, “but like, will it be on TV?”

“No,” Drake responds sharply and following a brief pause, “It is a DVD taping.”

“Oh! So like a movie?!” Crystal’s voice is in a pitch that can’t be much lower than a dog whistle, “I’d loooove to be in the movies.”

- I’ve never been big on RPs where the character has to explain who he is or what he does to “civilians.” It always comes off as awkward and unnecessary given the audience. Good thing it doesn’t last too long in your RP.

“So bring your shiniest Shining Wizards and your most flammable Burning Hammers…”

- I laughed.

“THEN DO IT. Stop beating your chest. Stop swearing like a child. Stop throwing your little temper tantrums like a BITCH... and do it. Come at me with all you've got and we'll see which one of us is all talk. Unless... you're afraid of another loss on your precious record. Unless you're afraid of dropping another rung on the ladder away from your precious title. Unless you're afraid that MALCOLM FUCKING DRAKE... is going to show everyone that last week wasn't a fluke, and that Chris Q is just a man... or just an animal... either way, I'll prove that you can BLEED.”

- Motherfucker. I remember the first time I read this, I was like, “damn, that’s the best anyone has come at me.” Still holds true. Drake is the only man who can trade verbal daggers with Q.

“Home,” he says while rolling the bear's “fur” between his thumbs, “is where the hurt is.”

- One line, but tells an entire story. One thing I love about your promos, which are never too long, I know I am always getting important information. I have never read a line in your writing and thought, “that was fluff, he didn’t need to include that.” You are a master of self-editing and I wish a lot more writers would take note of your concise style. I try my best to be as concise as possible.

“You know I TRY. I try and I try to keep them inside me. But sometimes they get OUT. Sometimes they're too strong for me, and they escape and they have their fun and they make me watch it. There's so many of them... There are SO MANY demons. And sometimes they're quiet and sometimes they're LOUD and SCREAMING and nothing will make them SHUT UP!”

Drake's rocking becomes more vigorous and agitated.

“Sometimes I do all I can to keep them inside,” he says before violently striking himself in the forehead with his right fist,“Sometimes I try to HURT them. To make them go away. But it doesn't work... Ouchie... And sometimes... Sometimes I don't try to stop them. Sometimes they make me do things, bad things... and I... ENJOY it.”

- Not only do you write anger well, but you also write crazy as well as anyone I’ve ever read. Always believable, never forced. When I try to write crazy characters, I rely on shock and awe to get my point across. You can do it so simply and ten times more effectively.

“It's one of those motel room where the carpet and the furniture don't match. A tacky burgundy rug accented with gold patterns opposes blue and green floral bedsheets and an brownish-yellow couch. The walls were white at one point and the faint smell of cigarette smoke still lingers in the air from long before the “No Smoking” sign was hung.”

- If Benny is the master of writing a scene and I’m the master of shoots, you’re the master of setting a scene. I know you said you used to write longer openings in the past, but you’ve done a great job of cutting the excess and constantly delivering beautifully painted settings in each of your promos.

I really dug the idea of having Drake carve into the championship belt. As I have done in some of my promos, personifying the title is an interesting perspective for a character to have. It takes the obsession to a new level. I like how we had similar ideas, but executed them completely different.

If I ever attended a live FGA event, my sign would read “Memento mori” because I’m a sucker for catch phrases.


Overall Character Notes:

I want to start this by saying; I remember giving you Malcolm Drake feedback the very first time you asked for it. I recall reading all the posts comparing Drake to Raven and your promos to old ECW style vignettes. You have evolved this character so much since then (as I like to believe I’ve done the same) and he’s become one of the iconic figures of this community.

Malcolm Drake is my favorite character to read. Like myself, you put so much emphasis into getting your character over that I always know I’m going to learn something new about Drake when I read one of your RPs. I envy the way you reveal Drake’s past. At times you dive into it, revealing the core for Drake’s darkness by smacking the readers in the face with imagery. Other times you reveal things more subtly and readers need to pick out the small nuances in Drake’s behavior. This is probably the strongest trait in your writing, in my opinion.

Malcolm’s thoughts on God and religion have always fascinated me. It seems to be a theme that you touch on in several promos. The struggle of Man vs. God. It is an interesting aspect of the character that I feel separates Drake from the rest of The Murder. Drake always seems to be focusing on something bigger, while Harter and Pooler are fixated on smaller, less significant goals.

At this point, I almost consider Malcolm Drake to be the Mick Foley of FGA. He does as good of a job putting people over as he does building himself up. He’s always one of the most dangerous challenges you can face in this organization. Your work rate is on par with anyone here and the writing quality is always consistent. Drake is a unique, quality heel in a community that seems to boast several. It’s hard to stand out among the other “bad guys,” but Drake is always able to sound different or cutting edge.

I remember doubting the whole “sexual ambiguity” angle when you first tried it, thinking it would be too much. You’ve pulled it off and haven’t let it become anything other than another interesting layer to Malcolm. I’ve seen a lot of writers add unique sexual behavior to their character and fail miserably, but it hasn’t backfired for you or your character in my opinion.

I don’t think Malcolm’s success will ever be measured by a win-loss record or championships. It’ll be the intense feuds, incredible storylines, and philosophical perspectives that will cause Malcolm Drake to be a memorable character for so many. Like others have touched on before, he’s the kind of character that makes this game fun. He adds color, drama, and a unique voice to every situation he’s involved with.

[Vinny]

Benny, Jeremey, Sam and Nick, those replies were worth waiting for! I really appreciate it.

I'm gonna try and respond to them all. Jeremy's first:

I don't think [Drake] does anything other than hurt people.

Do what you love, love what you do.   I think there's a lot of truth to this assessment. It's true directly and indirectly, purposefully and accidentally. Drake is in a constant state of self-destruction with a wide wake of collateral damage. One of themes I aim for in Drake is that nothing exists in a vacuum; everything has a consequence, some more far-reaching than others. Those consequence, more often than not, show themselves through violence.

in Drake's case, emotionless comes to mind. Not even so much anger or rage, just emotionless. Maybe numb from a fucked-up past, or maybe just all a bunch of misunderstandings...but he's just plain out of fuck to give about anyone or anything.

I'm interested what it is about Drake that gives you this impression. Obviously Drake can be reckless and spastic (and, as Sam said, histrionic), but I hoped that Drake's manic episode would play differently than "emotionless." I'd agree that Drake's not a known giver of fucks about other people, but my goal is not to make him numb in the way Raven was in ECW. A lot of Drake's motivation in his more dastardly or depraved deeds is to feel something (i.e. to feel less numb); at least that's my intention.

Malcolm Drake couldn't care less to get better. He's just happy in his misery, as long as everybody else within his reach is sharing in the same misery.

I think it's interesting that you and Nick both mentioned religion and how it related to Drake's world view. While I wouldn't say Drake is happy in his misery there is a certain fatalistic apathy he was towards it. To tie it back to Christianity, Drake has an obsession with death and death imagery (crows, Murder, etc) and Christianity is itself a death-obsessed religion (in my estimation, having been raised Catholic) with a lot of reverence given to martyrs, none more so than Jesus. Nick touched on this, too, and it is something I had only sort of thought about in the abstract. I wanted Drake to have this nihilistic attitude towards his physical body and towards his mortality. In his mind, Drake's greatest asset is that he doesn't think that death could be worse than life, and ergo he has no reason to fear it. Memento mori - "Remember that you will die." - is as much a taunt as anything else. It's Drake's ace-in-the-hole. You fear death, he does not.

There is no emo in Malcolm Drake

Funny you mention that. I had something written for this week's RP that related to this thought. I think you'll appreciate it.

[Vinny]

Sam's Turn (because I started responding to them out of order)
--------------------------

[Drake] has beautiful moments where I almost feel sorry for him, but he won't let me

That is spot on what I'm going for with Drake. He's a victim and he acts the victim, but he refuses to make himself sympathetic. He actively avoids it; he reveals enough about himself that you can almost piece together enough about him to understand his motivations. And once you understand someone's motivations, you -theoretically- can empathize (and subsequently, forgive) them. This is the story told in the last episode of Breaking Bad (IMO). I do strive to show the beauty in darkness when I write Drake.

I get the feeling that he genuinely doesn't understand how people can beat him in matches, or how people can keep up with his sadism, and he treats it as a mistake that needs rubbing out.

Again, exactly what I was going for. His confidence is so self-consuming it never appears that he's putting on airs. He never doubts himself. Every time he interacts with civilians, he's so obviously at odds with the world like he's an alien. Spoiler Alert: Drake is an alien.

I'm not sure whether this counts as a criticism, but I like low-key Drake better. He's much more menacing that way. When he gets histrionic, it's harder to take him seriously, but having said that it changes the dominant emotional response. Rather than being unsettled by him, it makes me disgusted with him, and makes me wish someone or something would just shut him the hell up. Which I suspect may be the point.

It is. My thinking is that the quiet, slow, menacing Drake is only effective when played against the histrionic Drake. If he isn't always screaming, tweaking and hitting himself then the low-key stuff doesn't work. It doesn't carry the gravitas. Ditto to what I tried to do in Death Rattle, where Drake almost seemed jovial. I think a lot of why it doesn't work - and I admit this happens for me, too, when I reread the stuff - is that there are so many guys that do this and they do it so poorly. My hope is that Drake's earnestness is what sets him apart. When he says ridiculous shit like "I'm going to rip out your larynx and shove it through your eye hole," that just for a second, the threat seems "real."

Monster... I have to brutally honest here. Speaking as your opponent for that one, I really didn't like it. I understand that showing Drake's attitude to women is an important piece of development for him, but when you handle female characters in predominantly male feds, promos that focus on their gender get really fucking old, really fucking fast.

Completely agree. Having not read anything about the Dragons or really knowing the characters I didn't have a specific idea in mind. I didn't remember what I wrote as having been generically misogynistic, but in re-reading it today I can totally see that. My goal was for Drake to "objectify" Laurel and Leanne, by which I mean he doesn't see them as people but things. As bright, shiny, beautiful things that have no place in his dark world (for lack of a less trite explanation). 

I appreciate all the kind words mixed in with all the negativity.   Honestly, I didn't think it was that negative and it is exactly the sort of criticism I wanted to get in a character study. 

[Vinny]

Nov 16, 2013 13:16:01 GMT -5 @blaineharrison said:

I feel you do a very good job at portraying the subtle nuances of Malcolm Drake; the slow reveals and non-standard motives/explanations. The hints you dropped in your first few roleplays about how this whole thing was bigger than you (leading to Dom's debut), the way you built to Bob's turn; the explanation of how winning every match wasn't in Malcolm's plan.

I'm glad you appreciate the little idiosyncrasies and the weird ways I pace and move my RPs. In my mind, Drake is a very visual character. Nick talked about how I write the settings and you mentioned the reveals; I think these things make Drake as much as his words.

You describe him as 'quick to anger' and 'prone to bouts of ultra-violence' and you show that in your writing with him going from rocking back and forth to shouting at the camera, even slashing the title belt with the switch blade. I'm almost jealous at how you can keep character in your rps

It's easy when you're crazy. I do have trouble sometimes. I have a dark sense of humor. I try not to have that sneak into Drake too often, because he is so self-serious.

And if I had to label him as a sadist, I'd say you portray that well. As I said at the time, I was like "oh shit" when he had the young man in the motel room. And you're never - in my opinion - too heavy handed with the details (except in scenery lol) or divulge too much info; you keep us, the readers, guessing at what's coming next. I enjoy that.

Someone once told me about writing is that you want your readers to be surprised for the right reasons, and not because you didn't adequately explain things. For some of Drake's RPs I feel that the scenery is an important detail to the punchline. Death Rattle is a good example, with the tie back in the final line of the setting.

In conclusion, you're one of my favourite writers (the reason why I'm Dom and not Ben right now) and I thoroughly enjoy the trip on which you're taking us with each and every roleplay.

D'aww, thanks Benny.

[styg]

Nov 18, 2013 19:54:43 GMT -5 Vinny said:

It is. My thinking is that the quiet, slow, menacing Drake is only effective when played against the histrionic Drake. If he isn't always screaming, tweaking and hitting himself then the low-key stuff doesn't work. It doesn't carry the gravitas.

That makes sense. I hadn't really thought about it that way!

[Jerry]

Two things...

#1 I know it's technically passed the deadline, but I wanted to reply to this.

#2 I do have to be brief because my laptop is on a timer to shutdown for updates and my lunch hour is almost up.

Malcolm Drake is one of my favorite characters to read in FGA. I'm never disappointed by what you write Vinny. It's always refreshing and adds another dimension to Drake.

I think all dark characters in e-wrestling have been influenced by Raven because he was so different and revolutionary when he first appeared. I can see some of that influence but there's so much more to Drake and it's obvious that he's not a carbon copy. I love how you slowly reveal some of Drake's madness with the CD scenes and I still remember the scene with the young boy more vividly than I probably want to. LOL That speaks a testament to how unforgettable every single roleplay is with him.

I think what I love most about Drake is that he's not boxed into a certain character type; he's dark and twisted but there's a lot more there when you really read into him. I think that's a hard feat to pull off as I always found when I tried to do dark characters, that they can become stale so fast. That never happens with Drake and I always finish reading a roleplay from him wanting more.

Hopefully that's the best compliment any writer in this game can receive.

I meant what I said on Ernie's show. The three of you who handle the Murder characters are by far the hardest handlers I've ever had to roleplay against.