Subject: Mission 1: Of Poorly Matched Continua
Author:
Posted on: 2015-01-16 17:23:00 UTC
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b0cfqX2-xrS4HM9x4khZPZkLdzKQfYUi6_xiKvyWKZo/pub
The PPC's first foray into two new continua, with newly discovered minis and a completely distraught Valon.
My thanks to SkarmorySilver and eatpraylove for beta-reading.
Like I said when beta-reading this, I'm kinda glad you picked something pretty short to work with. If I had to pick a favorite part, it would definitely be the death of the replacement. A dramatic fight scene would only put the agents on the losing side, and special note goes to this instance because of how powerful Prototype characters usually are. Using Suu to get rid of him was so unexpected that it just works, for both the agents and the readers.
And just FYI, I'd actually be interested in a collab with you sometime. Given how my research is, though, well...
"Most people would have gone pale as well, but Valon’s face is already so bloodless that one could hardly tell."
Should that not be "Most people would have gone pale as well, but Valon’s face was already so bloodless that one could hardly tell."?
Otherwise, good story.
Using present tense here draws attention to the fact that Valon is still alive and didn’t change much, thus reducing tension. Using past tense implies that Valon may not have survived the mission, or may be more tanned now after taking a sun bath.
HG
Valon took a moment to understood what was happening.
I’m not a native speaker, but shouldn’t this be "Valon took a moment to understand what was happening" (infinitive, not past tense)?
This was fun to read, although I, not knowing either of the canons involved, was struggling to understand what’s going on there.
HG
Two nitpicks, though:
First:
It’s ‘My name is Alex Mercer,’ you kinda left something out.
That comma in the middle should be a semicolon, and thus placed outside of the single quotes.
Scond:
Why is "nuking Manhatten" a separate mini from "Manhattan"? In both cases, the misspelling is only of "Manhattan," right?
"Nuking" was capitalized in the middle of a sentence. It looked like a name, so in my eyes it produced a second mini.
I didn't take notice of the capital; I remembered the lowercase from the badfic text shown a few lines further down.
See if you can catch the hidden Game of Thrones reference.
Since when do consoles go ZEEN! ? I thought they beeped.
He managed to accidentally change the console's alert to the music from Psycho's famous shower scene.
It was a rather enjoyable reading, the only thing that hampered a little my enjoyment was that fact that I know absolutely nothing of both continuua; I do love the characterization of the agents though.
Also, for some reason my mind kept relating the name "Alex Mercer" with a certain psycho from Skyrim...
But I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised; you said when you reported it that you really wanted this to die. Congratulations, and I hope we can work together in the future! *tosses confetti*
I'm not familiar with either canon (being one of those foetid nightmare beasts who only play weird, dirt cheap indie titles dug out from the depths of Desura), but the agents seemed pretty enjoyable and your knowledge base is obviously sound. I also rather liked Kala's motivation for joining the PPC.
All in all, off to a pretty good start! =]
It didn't have the stiltedness of your first Permission Prompt, which vastly improved the quality. The flow was good. The person I'd suggest a Crash Dummy for a second-person fic, but I've been told that's optional. The only thing I'm confused about is why Discworld-Death showed up. (Also, there's an errorbox in the middle of "of.")
All in all, I'm looking forward to seeing more of these agents! :)