ROUND 2 RESULTS

As always, thank you for your patience!
Matchups will be posted soon

 vs  

Aroda: [WINNER]
This is an amazing entry with beautiful characterization. It was compelling from start to finish. Judea’s death was not only in character, but also extremely heartbreaking, and the animation really pushed your entry to the top tier. It was fluid for the amount of time you had to work on it, and you used the NPCs well. The only thing is that it would have been nice would have been to give the cannonfodder just a tad more or less definition, maybe a more distinguishable uniform or something. When the first bountyhunter appeared, we were genuinely wondering if they were an NPC we’d overlooked, until we caught on to them being a mostly insignificant character.

linkstheshifter:
This entry is incredibly well-executed as well. It makes excellent use of NPCs, has a fantastic design of Heaven, good color scheme use, and good fluid pacing. The behavior of the angels and people in there gave off a vibe of everyone being so used to peace that they didn’t expect any danger anymore. The entry was also a very beautiful tribute to the opponent. Mona got at least as much screentime as Judea, giving her the feel of a rounded character, and Judea got more well-rounded in this, too.

Perhaps the only concern is that for some, it could feel that when the two started to fight, it was a bit of an emotional whiplash. It felt like it quickly went from getting along to fighting, with not enough of a transition between the emotions in the scenes. Even so, as a way to show Judea’s lack of emotional connection when fighting, it was done well, so this point is relative.

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Boo-Tay: [Forfeit]
FinalDarkBlade and WingedOzelot: [WINNER]
The writing in this piece was really well done. The pacing is fluid for us, and we like the chapters and how their narration is separated. It breaks up monotony, and prevents things from looking too blockish. You’ve got a great use of NPCs, really using them to their full narrative potential. Killing off Hanael was an interesting and gutsy move that no one else has tried yet, and it’s very bold. They got a great sendoff with that battle, and three-way battles are cool when done well, and it was well done. It was a very good round, with interesting NPCs, and everyone more or less stayed in character. It was an interesting way to kill the opponent, too. Admittedly, though, at times, this piece felt a bit over the top and it was hard to keep suspending disbelief, though that’s also somewhat relative to who’s reading it.

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DegeneRita:
The Retconning was done better this round, and the 'gifts' in it were consistent. We liked the idea of Azrael having a following still within Heaven, and the fact that they don't wear their halos as a sign of allegiance. Display of motion and action was very well done, as well.
However, we didn't really have much as an emotional bond to Nivee, and its death meant little to us because of it. Jack's death, and the story in general, was a little bland and uninteresting. It was formulaic. We feel you didn't research digitigrade legs like Jack has, which is something important, as he was your opponent. It does get better after a certain point, however. The cyclops made little sense, and while you have some good ideas, you should work on working them properly into the context of a story, and making them more coherent. The art also seemed a bit cluttered at times, with unnecessary motion lines and speech bubbles seemed disorderly at times.
Baka-Moyashi: [WINNER]
We liked the creative use of layout and bordering- Jack using the panel edge to lift himself was a fantastic touch. Naonai was nicely used in this comic, mirroring the downright over the top comedic feel of Zhdara’s entries. We appreciate that the whole entry was done in full color, completely shaded, and with effort to put backgrounds into almost every panel. This shows good time management.
The death here, while moderately creative, was a little bland. Some of us felt Naoni's 'I'm a girl' panel a little too over the top, and not particularly amusing, as the gender mistake joke has been run into the ground already due to other androgynous characters also in this OCT.


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Shes-t:
The idea of angels embodying the virtues and being kind of the “bosses” of their rings is a very nice one, and the designs are interesting. We also like how Niar, the non-fighting character, is used as the protagonist - and it makes sense, too, since Rion is much harder to relate to. While the basic design of Heaven isn’t very well done, the idea with the animals being almost obsessed with giving is adorable, funny and pretty creative. Harrison was just adorable in this one! We enjoyed the personal conflict and bond between Niar and Rion a lot, and the humor works very well.
We do read the artist's descriptions and writing “Too lazy to color it properly” doesn't look good. Just… at least don’t write it into the description. Think of the description as a resume. While the art is very pretty, as always, in this entry we often get the feeling of one picture being reused over and over for different panels, and that reinforces the impression of laziness, comedic effects aside. The design of Heaven is kind of bland and boring, as pretty as it is to look at. We aren't really sure how to deal with the fact that Harrison wasn’t killed, either. Showing him at the end was a negative point against your story (how'd he get to the other side of the lake, how'd he get out of the lake, why was he only freezing solid then?), when you could have just implied his death. While the emotional bond between Niar and Rion is nice, it’s just so hard to care about Rion… we are not given many reasons to do so. Building some sort of affection between the reader and the character should definintely have happened by Round 2, since one goal of the entries is to convince Judges that they want to see more of a character.

Schizobot: [WINNER]
The art and use of layout are outstanding, especially in part 2. We really loved how Rion burns up the comic page in his rage. You made sure to depict the opponent characters very faithfully and give them time to shine. It seemed like you mirrored Shes-t’s art style d a bit by utilizing color and textures the way you did. However there were a couple typos ("Nair" for example), and the ending was rather abrupt, especially after everything else was built up so well.

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SEVMD:
The illustrations gave the piece tone and setting, though we wish the flashing one wasn’t so fast. The art is very, very beautiful, and this is another entry with very beautiful design ideas for Heaven, even though this time, they feel less intuitive than other portrayals (though that fits in with Xing's characterization, so in this case it's very appropriate). We also really like the idea of the glitched words - it ties in very well with Xing’s design and visual themes of glitched reality. And it was interesting to see Xing lose control of himself.
The pacing is a little confusing, and seems to be a bit too fast. There’s a lot of inner monologue and it’s a bit distracting from the plot at hand. The scene where Xing is saved by his brother feels very anticlimactic, but that might be because the pacing feels off in general.
Xing came to save his brother - yet seems almost completely emotionally unaffected by the possibility that Zi just died for him. We would have expected at least some level of shock or grief right at the realization. Again with logistic corrections, there were typos, especially spelling "Livy" as "Levi." The writing also came off being very action oriented (X said this then Y did that), and it wasn't as compelling and immersive as it could have been.

crazyshiro: [WINNER]
We really like that the first thing done in this entry is giving the former opponent a good sendoff and adding a new weakness for Livy. Adopting the golden-eyed girl like this is a very nice touch. The designs for the angels were very nice as well. We also like the conversation about Castitas and the fact that you wrote from Xing's perspective here, not Livy's - it’s more in-character and gives the opponent more time in the limelight. Also, this entry is one of the few that give us a beautiful sense of Heaven before the contestants disrupt it’s peace. Also wow… Livy really is an appalling character. Nonetheless, we feel that the topic of rape is handled much better in this entry than in other, past entries - all of it happens off-screen, and it’s commented on in-universe as a horrible thing even before it happens and not followed by cartoon violence. It also created a very well-made, very deliberate contrast to the peaceful scenes before. The battle was compelling to read, and we liked the story-book appearance, especially because it divulges the text in little chunks, making it easier to digest the piece as a whole. Xing's death and Livy's victory was very, very cool. Oddly enough, we felt that Yvette’s death came too soon. She felt a bit like a character only created to be discarded - and while that can be a valid thing to do, it kind of feels a bit like fridging here. Also, even though we think that the topic of rape was handled pretty responsibly, it still felt a bit like a narrative device to affect Xing other than the victim of the rape, and brings into question the necessity of it.

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ScytheVale: [WINNER]
You had very appealing designs again, we liked that the entry starts off giving the story some room to breathe. The way the characters met was also refreshing and interesting. The characterization of the opponents was very well done, and it's obvious that you put a lot of effort into giving your art a clean and uncluttered look, which we appreciate. It's hard to achieve cleanliness in traditional art, where it’s harder to get rid of unwanted lines. The ending was interesting and successfully left us wanting more.
The little text explanations of facial expressions were a little off-putting (for example: “Now wondering why it hurts to much”). The visuals alone should be able to get this across without additional explanation, and if explanation is needed, it might be better to let the characters deliver it. This specific example is even more bothersome because Trace literally shouts “WHY DOES IT HURT?” right afterwards. It seems like an inside joke you have with yourself more than anything, and it's not appealing artistically or in the context of storytelling; it's a cheap manga/anime gag. The latter half of the entry was a little hard to follow (around pages 15 and 16). The fight sequence especially is hard to follow. Did Trace and Vi cause an explosion that decimated Vi and Ren?? It was extremely unclear.

CoolFireBird:
We are very fond of the designs for these layers of Heaven. They are very creative, and give a feeling as if Heaven has stuff going on and an inner logic greater than the small snippet we see in the story. The interaction between Ren and Vi is very compelling, and naturally we have a fondness for entries that utilize the NPCs – it gives the whole entry a feeling of an actual story instead of a short character piece. The death of Trace and Dusk was met with mixed reviews; it was definitely surprising, but having Azrael kill the competitors in that way just seemed like an easy way to end the round.
About the Gatekeeper specifically: We felt like he was too well defined and played too much of an important role in this round to be a one-time character. It seemed like he's built up to be used in future entries as a narrative device. You needed someone to explain why the contestants aren’t stopped effectively and to witness the actual death of the opponents, which is all well and good, but if he isn't going to be reoccurring, there isn't a need to develop an NPC this deeply.
Some parts of this round were very confusing, and it dragged in places. The battles were especially hard to follow, the visuals tended to lose us very quickly. Rough background details would help provide the characters with spatial context. There would be less trouble understanding the motion of characters if we could see how their position changed relative to the background. This could also be helped by improving panel arrangement, some panels had to be read in a very counterintuitive order.
Last little note, there were spelling and grammar mistakes to the point of dropping entire words. It’s not illegible, but reading through it once more before publishing would’ve been good.

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awkwardkiller: [WINNER]
There was a good connection between the characters and the reader, and we felt that the conflicts and emotions were realistic and relatable. A fight between friends over morality is compelling and makes me want to like the characters more and hope that they get things resolved. The illustrations were also tastefully added, there weren’t too many and it didn’t seem to take away from the story. There were some spelling and grammar errors that could have been easily cleared up by proof reading. The writing is still very basic, but it has improved since the previous rounds. Like we said in the previous critique, the underlining, italics, etc. aren't necessary to distinguish the characters.

SHADOWFAN996
You kept your opponents very in character, and the text formatting was fairly standard. The illustrations added another level of depth to the writing, we find that written entries with pictures just add a little bit more to the piece. Devin's back story was a nice inclusion as well. However, as far as formatting goes, ellipsis and tilde (… and ~) were used far too much. We can imagine when characters are trailing off, and you definitely don’t need to use both symbols together AND have additional punctuation. There were some point of view issues, we weren't quite sure whose perspective we were reading from. Devin is also extremely overpowered, we seem to bump into a new power, ability, talent, or personality every couple paragraphs (he demonstrated a minor healing ability in part two, but we still have yet to see any of his alternate personalities manifest other than the voices in his head). The descriptions are bland, with extreme simile abuse. Describe things other than “the cat-like,” “plant-like,” “seemed to be a plant,” etc. Sometimes being direct is better, especially if we’re already somewhat familiar with the characters. His change of heart at the end was extremely confusing. You wrote that Devin had hoped he had stopped becoming a monster, but he had just psychologically and physically tortured two people, and after Anna telling him he was crazy, he was suddenly remorseful? He had a flashback to Maynay earlier, and supposedly wanted to prove he was sane after that, but then he went on (continued?) a psychotic break when he stalked, tortured, and murdered Anna and Rose.

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bowgallery: [WINNER]
The story is slowly coming together, and we appreciate that. We also like how Stranger's fear of feathers comes into play often in Heaven, and learning about it is interesting. Fallon is brought back and utilized well. We really love the climax- It’s so great to watch Stranger’s little schemes and plans coming together. We also liked the fish idea. One thing we especially like about these entries that Stranger is a deliciously complex character. He's clearly a terrible person, but still seems kind enough to be relatable- He even seems genuinely happy to see Fallon again.
We feel like there are a lot of grammar mistakes in this one, and many of them feel like one proofreading could have helped against them already. “[Exposition] as you told me before” is unnecessary, and it would seem more natural for a character to not mention it if both parties are aware of a fact. The ending also seems quite abrupt, and feels there should be one more page as a transition to the next round.

aly-zimm:
Again, we liked the fish. We also liked the tag-team with Mona, as she and the NPCs were used very well, including Fallon. The chemistry between Mona and Philo is very interesting. You even brought up Stranger's issue with adults vs children. We also like the idea you are hinting at in the description, which sounds like you base your structure and design of Heaven on the passages in Genesis about creation. The art is improving, and it and perspective is used well.
The transition into the written part felt a little too abrupt. We were left wondering if the fact that Philo is acting kind of ableist will ever be addressed, considering he is trying to 'fix' a child's defects, which both Stranger and Mot would have likely had no problem calling him out on. Fallon alerting Mot seemed to do nothing but remove Fallon from the story.