Subject: I agree with that Huinesoron chap.
Author:
Posted on: 2016-02-24 11:24:00 UTC
Spoiler-man, Spoiler-man/Blocks off spoilers wherever he can/Friends with River, friends with Bill/Spoiler-man.
Don't know who Bill is/Because it's spoilers/Spoiler-man.
In this case... isn't what you're designating 'practical omniscience' exactly the same abilities you as a game-player have? Does that mean everyone who's ever played a game must know about the PPC?
hS
How long has it been since anybody's posted a mission? How long has it been since I've posted a mission? Here, lemme fix that...
I have JUST purchased Undertale, after seeing and hearing so many good things about it, so I thought I'd put this here while I start playing the game proper. Although I can say from personal experience that badfic of this game exists, I've wondered for a while as to whether there have been Mary Sues written into it as well. Turns out, I actually found a most exemplary specimen a while ago... and needless to say, two hapless game-hopping agents were not pleased.
Warning: This mission contains MAJOR SPOILERS for anyone who hasn't played or seen Let's Plays of Undertale, and the fic sporked therein is NSFW. Read at your own risk!
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I've re-written the ending to this mission - the agents now kill the Suvians separately, and I've also revised the execution of Not!Sans so that it's less of a direct fight and more of a diversion + sneak attack, which hopefully works much better. I've also gotten rid of any mention of Flowey aside from his one appearance in the original fic, because as fun as it is to imagine Terri having to nerualyze him, his appearance in the original ending pretty much hinged on helping the agents out of a tight spot. The Suvians being killed the way they are in the new ending pretty much eliminates any excuse for him to show up.
So... yeah. Sorry that I accidentally caused you to have a bad time, Terri! ^^;
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The ending is definitely an improvement. The way the assassination went now definitely works better than before. I like it.
About when I made my second comment in this thread, I didn't realize that the agents actually did try to kill the Suvians one by one. I actually missed that Carol left the room before she got hit in the head with Whitney's soccer ball. Sorry about that, that was my mistake.
"I think I've just been retconned."
Well done for being able to listen to criticism; that's a valuable skill to learn.
hS
And then I let Terri Ryan review it.
She, uh. Got rather heated, I'm afraid.
Terri Reviews: Dundertale
hS
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I'm guessing I did indeed take the utterly wrong approach to handling Flowey. I will address that as soon as I get back from work today.
And as for the fight with the Suvians, I framed it as though the agents had little choice on the matter. The entire point of the climax was to separate the Suvians as has been stated before - it's just that the replacement wouldn't have any of it. I could change it up too if such is not to people's liking, though.
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The closest conversation I could find on separating the Suvians was this:
“* Why not just drop the Sue into the Hotland lava? Problem solved!”
“* Not!Sans will kill us. We have to take both of them out at once or I doubt we’ll survive.”
Both of them at once? Why not focus on finding an opportunity to get Not!Sans far away from the Sue (like getting them in different locations), charging and killing Not!Sans, then killing the Sue after? In the chapter in which the agents decided to kill her, the Suvians later meet at Grillby's and decided they needed some space from each other, so Not!Sans went home while the Sue went to Alphys' house. You should explain why they couldn't wait for them to do that.
You should also explain what's so dangerous about killing the Sue later, because the thing about having to "take both of them out at once" implies that somehow the Sue will successfully kill them by herself. As far as I read in the badfic, she "was in cheerleading for a year". Can a human with a year of cheerleading compare to a monster who can manipulate gravity and summon bones and laser-firing skulls? Or was it something else?
In the middle of the post/In the land of Board/Lived some brave little comments/Who we all ignored/It's spoilers (spoilers)!/Spoiler warning/It's only a few lines long!/It's spoilers (spoilers)!/Spoiler warning/To ignore it would just be wrong!
Terri gets very het up about the Flowey thing, but I actually don't think it's all that bad. I think your author's note is wrong in saying that Flowey should know about the PPC, but what's in the mission is that he knows about them because, well, he was there when they arrived, and he noticed they're not normally there, and he's probably been following them. Then he blindsided them and vanished before they could do anything. Agents do muck up on their missions sometimes, and I'm happy for Terri to be sent in to try and neuralyse him afterwards. (Whether she succeeds or not is up to the next person to write the continuum).
Where I think she massively understated things is the fight. Skarmory: Undertale is an entire game built around giving you the option to not fight people. Would it not have been far more interesting - and fun! - to showcase that mechanic and find a clever solution, rather than just going 'and then Backslash hit him some more'?
I'm going to sum up my philosophy on this, just so you know where I'm coming from:
If a PPC agent gets into a stand-up fight while on a mission, they are doing their job wrong.
Some (lots of?) people disagree with me on that. That is their right. But I still think they're wrong.
hS
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1. I get that it would be difficult to find a good opportunity to try and kill the Sue and Not!Sans, but I'm finding it odd that the agents didn't at least talk about a way to split them up, charge and kill Not!Sans without giving him the chance to fight back. I might have missed the conversation but I didn't find any conversation like that.
2. Flowey's status as a deity-like being in this mission is my main issue.
To address a point:
"However, Flowey knows about how to SAVE and RESET and, for the longest time, he’s used everyone else as playthings until he got bored of doing so. I’m guessing he’s probably one of the closest things that Undertale has to an actual deity, and at the very least his meta skills have rendered him practically omniscient."
Why would that justify Flowey knowing about the PPC? So he knows how to SAVE and RESET like in a videogame. Is that supposed to mean he can't be dealt with by way of neuralyzation? Would his SAVE and RESET abilities or any of his meta skills erase any neuralyzation done to him?
On practical omniscience, I'll quote Huinesoron here: "Practical omniscience =/= true omniscience. Any method of omniscience that isn't simply They Just Know By Magic is spoofable by the PPC." Unless you consider Flowey's meta skills Knowing By Magic.
3. A nitpicky one: Not!Sans' dialogue format resembling more like Canon!Sans than the badfic's Sans.
Not!Sans was not Sans, so why go through the trouble of changing the font for an impostor?
Spoiler-man, Spoiler-man/Blocks off spoilers wherever he can/Friends with River, friends with Bill/Spoiler-man.
Don't know who Bill is/Because it's spoilers/Spoiler-man.
In this case... isn't what you're designating 'practical omniscience' exactly the same abilities you as a game-player have? Does that mean everyone who's ever played a game must know about the PPC?
hS
... That this is the first time I actually listened to the linked music while reading a mission.
Anyway, I'm seconding that warning: If you haven't played Undertale yet and you plan to, do NOT read this mission. Undertale is truly an awesome experience, and while spoilers don't ruin it, it can get pretty close sometimes.
(Also, the sporked fic is even worse than the mission makes it look like, IMO. It's just that it's so beige it gets boring after a while.)
I avoided the game for a bit, because everybody on the internet was going crazy about it.
The kind of crazy where they make awful fangames and put them on Gamejolt, every single half-rate LPer goes full throttle with a million episodes, and all the fan-artists have to buy new tablets because the sheer, constant force of their pens on the screens actually cracks them.
That was a bad idea.
I don't want to drown you in calls about how perfect it is, and how it'll cure you of cancer and give you super-strength, or any of that bollocks.
UnderTale is a work of art and you should play it.
No, Sil, there is nothing I can think of that may be of any danger to you.