Subject: Blank Sprite chapter 7 is up!
Author:
Posted on: 2017-03-25 16:53:00 UTC
In which we finally discover who is Sergio, nikki and Corolla's opponent, and Sergio makes an important decision.
https://rc1587.wordpress.com/2017/03/25/blank-sprite-mission-record-07/
(Note that the ending of the chapter, despite what it may look like, was actually decided long before the recent bad things, as my beta readers can confirm.)
Good chapter, as usual. It may be a wait between chapters, but they are always worth it.
However, a few errors slipped through.
1) There weren’t many people, though — at a quick glance, even if everyone was sitting at the same time more than half of the tables would remain empty.
That em dash should be a colon. Also, please consider adding a few words and a comma in order to make the sentence's meaning clearer:
"There weren’t many people, though: at a quick glance, it appeared that even if everyone were sitting at the same time, more than half of the tables would remain empty."
2) “I know, and I’m not going to drink either, alcohol now would be a terrible idea. Just pretend to take a sip from time to time, it will make our cover more believable.”
The last two commas should both be semicolons.
3) “I’m in too.” she sent out as she hid behind one of the crates to avoid being spotted by a couple of Defectives.
You need a comma before "too".
4) [We have another problem!] Corolla shouted, opening a holographic window in front of them, [Homura tried to stop Vera, but she’s not responding anymore!]
That comma after "in front of them" should be a period.
5) [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,] Corolla completed from Nikki’s Device. [I was starting to suspect that, with how you were acting in the last days.]
Consider rewording it a bit: "with how you were acting over the last few days".
Well, retirement of Sergio and Nikki was always a given, between the Blackout and the TYH stories about their daughter you wrote.
On another note, final stage is built, as per Drama Queenie's standards. Only thing left is making sure it's the defeat is as crushing as possible... Or as much as an anticlimax as possible to deprive her of this. And she better pray that Homura never find a way to get payback on her.
Oh, and we need pictures of Sakura and Madoka playing House of the Dea, or any other zombie shooter in existence. XD
I've probably said this before, but I absolutely love that you're basing this series on an old fic of yours. Even though we aren't familiar with Agent Turbo's original story, it still gives an interesting sense of history and complexity to his character, that most agents don't tend to have. I love it! I also love the contrast it provides between Turbo having reformed from his days in the old fic, and Vera remaining true to her motivations in the original story, recast through the lens of a Suvian. It's sort of like a narrative representation of your development as a writer over the years!
I also see that the thing I've been dreading isn't as bad as I thought. I was worried you were killing off your agents (sans Corolla) to account for them being missing during the future part of the Blackout, but it looks like they're just retiring instead. Guess I should have assumed the simplest explanation!
—doctorlit gushes fanboy all over the Board
If either Sergio or Nikki (or both) had died, a certain other Agent of mine would've never been born...
Also, it is nice to see how solid is my references to Vera's part of Sergio's backstory... 'cause that actually isn't from the fic. Vera and Ami actually never appeared in Mai Dire Fine. They're from another project of mine (scrapped for various reasons) which was used as a source of stuff for covering the years between Agent!Sergio joining the PPC (January 2009 HST, which is actually a year and half before I discovered the PPC) and the last chapters of his original fic (set around July 2007 HST)
One of the reason I'm making this unpublished "middle" part appear more than the actually published badfic plot-wise is that I simply don't own most of the other original characters, and thus I'm pretty limited on what I can do with them. That's what happen when you have no less than six people working together.
I do have permission (and even some help in writing) by one of the other authors to use hers, but I lost contact with two other authors (one of which is the owner of some really important characters, like Pyro) and have only sporadic contact with the last two.
It goes without saying that I don't feel comfortable using those characters without their original authors knowing, and so I am limited on either just having Sergio mention them, or let them appear in translated fic quotes (not newly-made flashbacks as the one in this chapter)