roudly fighting the War on Emo!


This is a very special edition of Rotten Apples, the first time we're doing a review by request! I tell you, it was rather strange for me. It's more common to have people telling me "Please, please don't put me on your site." or "OMG UR SO MEAN IM TOTALLY SUEING UR ASS!!1" So what the heck, let's give it a whirl!

Leonidras Tel'Ishnae
Demon hunter

What grabs you most about this particular description has more to do with what's not there, rather than what is. In a description of a female character (and an elf, no less!) you expect to find a few key words that everyone else goes to great lengths to work in: breasts, lips, legs, hair, shimmering, gorgeous, and 'sexily'.

There's none of that here, which leads me to wonder if we may indeed have the first documented evidence of the rare and elusive Female Gamer. I wouldn't get your hopes up, though. At least not until the grainy, probably faked video footage surfaces.

If she notices you looking at her, there is no outward sign of it. Before you stands one of the least attractive elves in all of Azeroth.

It's difficult to tell if she's playing hard-to-get or just trying to be different and hoping someone will notice. I love how she just assumes everyone's staring at her, and then follows it up with the "you can't tell if she notices, but she really notices everything."

Her ears are a tattered mess - indeed, the right one is half gone, a torn edge only showing where it once was. The left shows marks from bites and worse. Scars trace over her heavily, some on top of others, covered by or cutting through thick red tattoos lined with small runes.

Empowered Woman Tough Chick Checklist! Battle damage? Check. Bite wound? Check. Tattoos? Check. Scars, scars, and more scars? Checkity check check! The scars are even "heavily traced", whatever the hell that means. It must be some new level of butch I haven't heard of before. Maybe a hero class.

She smells like blood and dust, and other elves might smell the hint of demonic magic around her. On each finger is a smooth black ring, linked with thin chains to thick black bracelets.

Most curious are her eyes - up close they are revealed to be not eyes at all, only gemstones cut into meticulous spheres, glowing from within.

Normally the ladies spend a paragraph comparing their eyes to various gems. I guess having eyes that are actually precious stones is the next logical step. Attentionwhoring technology is advancing right before our very eyes!

I hate it when people get a hold of a thesaurus without enough command of the English language to understand how to use it. While it's possible for the gems to be "meticulously cut", the stones themselves cannot be meticulous unless they're anthropomorphized to the point of doing needlework while she sleeps. Maybe that's how the demon hunters get those funky blindfolds; their meticulous gemstone eyes carefully stitch them together.

more runes trace over her upper and lower lid, in the same dark red as the rest of her tattoos. Even on her face are thin jagged scars.

More runes, scars, and tattoos. Ladies and gentlemen, I think she's trying for the record here.

Those who work heavily with the demonic tend to be uncomfortable around her. Those who work with the Light are, as well.

And we end with a line to try and make her sound more dangerous which ends up coming off as an emo kid's whimper. The whole description is actually rather disappointing. Just enough cliché to make you roll your eyes, but nothing brazen and blatant enough to make you pity the obviously lonely and pathetic existence of the average attention whore. It just sort of hangs there in the limbo of 'meh'.

Offenses
Attention Whore: 1
Superfluous Scarring: 2
Obligatory Tattoos: 2
Demonic Influence: 4
Godmodding: 2
Abusing the English Language: 2

Score: "Maybe if I just grab a bunch of tiny clichés, no one will notice..."



Diary of a Planeswalker is a fantasy comic created and owned by Anya Talisan and Jacob Matthew,
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