Subject: [Flashbacks to own past Intensify] (nm)
Author:
Posted on: 2016-11-06 15:03:00 UTC
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New Mission! by
on 2016-11-03 21:48:00 UTC
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We were going to post this mission sooner, but Real Life (and Skarmory's artistic dedication) conspired to have its publication pushed back a couple of months. Anyway, a word of advance warning: the later parts of this mission get rather spoiler-worthy, so proceed with caution while reading!
With that, we are proud to present...
Girl's Night Out (Complete with illustrations courtesy of SkarmorySilver!)
- Participants, from left to right: Lapis Lazuli, Sarah Squall, Violet Rose Greenfield, Aiko Kimura, Ami Seeker, and Seung-Li Kim
- Continua: Steven Universe, One Piece, Fairy Tail, Naruto
- Content advisory: The badfic presented in this mission mentions implied torture and character death.
Part One
Part Two
This mission took over two months to finish, but all of us had a blast the entire time. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we did writing it! :D
>COMMENCING OPERATION: [REDACTED] IN T-MINUS TEN MISSIONS_ -
Corrections by
on 2016-11-10 16:39:00 UTC
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This was a well-written mission. Even though I was not intimately familiar with all four continua, I was able to follow the mission.
Errors:
“Vi?” asked Lapis. Then a cross-vein appeared on her head. “Sarah, did you seriously —”
“No connection, none at all!” Sarah had her hands raised, her expression exactly as one would expect from a girl staring down a mouthful of teeth like a great white shark. “Cupid’s ex, remember? You saw her at the Gift Exchange this past January.”
What beef does Lapis have against Vi? Especially given this following quote:
I’m guessing she’s the one who invited me and Ami?”
“Yeah, that’s me. I’m Lapis Lazuli, pronounced Lay-pis La-ZOO-lee.
Did Lapis invite Vi or not?
“I’m not exactly happy about this either, Lapis,” Aiko replied, glaring right back at her childhood rival. “I wasn’t aware that you would be here with either. If I had been, I would probably have reconsidered.”
That word doesn't belong.
happened fifty thousand, seven hundred and fifty years ago.
According to the Steven Universe Wiki, it was 5,750 years ago, not 50,750. Or did I read the wrong page?
She grabbed Ami’s hand and ran to catch up with the Crystal Gems, currently getting Steven and the replacements to safety.
I'm guessing that it was the Gems getting Steven to safety, not Violet. Either delete the comma or add "who were" after the comma. Actually, the latter option would be clearer. -
Your HTML broke. by
on 2016-11-11 03:38:00 UTC
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Lapis' being momentarily upset was because Ami referred to Violet as "Vi", so Lapis thought that she was referring to Violet Parr, a canon character whom Sarah knew and ALSO addressed as "Vi". And given that Lapis is strongly against canon characters and agents knowing each other...
Looking again at the Wiki, Rose's rebellion was indeed 5,750 years ago. Both this and the latter error have now been rectified in the mission proper. -
Some notes. by
on 2016-11-07 14:49:00 UTC
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Not really knowing any of the continua involved, I had some difficulties keeping track of who’s who and which agent knows which continuum, but I finished reading eventually.
Speaking of continua and their singular:
Well, at least those of us who know whichever continua each charge applies to.
Shouldn’t this be "continuum" (singular), or may some charges actually apply to more than one?
Well, as the one who knows the continua that this chapter is focusing on.
As far as I understood, Aiko doesn’t know One Piece, Fairy Tail or Steven Universe. This should definitively be "continuum" (singular), even if the part of the badfic under discussion didn’t focus solely on Naruto.
I wouldn’t put it past the Flowers to specifically punish someone who knows a certain continua in addition for the general punishment for failing in collecting enough charges.
This should either be "a certain continuum" (singular) or just "certain continua" (plural, no "a"); and I think for should be "to".
I’m sorry, but I just can’t, not when I have cause to believe that is she only arguing against me that much because she hates me
Word order should be "she is".
Did you realize how you in the heck you could have caused THAT?!
The first you should not be there.
She’s taking the image of one of my favorite characters and twisting it while doing while doing all this mess, after all.
Too many words again.
Don’t tell me that I have witness something that amounts to torture again.
Missing word "to"? (While "have witnessed" would be grammatically correct too, I don’t belive that’s what you meant.)
Well, I don’t think we really needed it, but if there was any doubt of just how bad this is, it just went out of window right there!
Missing word "the" ("out of the window").
(I wondered whether Aiko’s speech patterns are building up to her speech becoming almost incoherent in a rage, but it doesn’t really look like this is intentional, and it continues when she’s calmed down again.)
The agents who rescued us charged us just for sake of it, but there wasn’t much aside from Anju and I just being there, so we got saved.
Missing word "the" ("for the sake of it").
Also, while "Anju and I were there" would be right and "Anju and me were there" would be a wrong use of "me" that occurs far too often, MS Word Grammar Check tells me that this should be "Anju and me just being there". (I may have learned the applicable rule ages ago, and it may have something to do with the continuous form, but I can’t really explain. English grammar is weird.)
This is job is very important for her, so she wouldn’t do anything to miss it.
The first is should not be there.
However, with her Byakugan still activate, Gem!Hinata easily noticed this and rushed over, the palm of her raised right hand glowing with chakra as she prepared to strike Aiko in return.
This should be either "active" or "activated".
... thus dodge the knife when without seeing it at first.
I’m not quite sure what you are trying to say, but "when" is probably a word that shouldn’t be there.
You know, I’m definitely happy we will probably get over all that, but don’t get wrong.
Missing word; may be "don’t get me wrong", "don’t get this wrong", "don’t get it wrong".
We don’t have to enemies to be that, after all.
Missing word "be".
So, even if we trying to nicer to each other now, I believe we still have a contest to settle.
Missing words; probably "we are trying to be nicer".
I’m glad that Lapis and Aiko will come to terms.
HG -
All fixed, thank you! :) (nm) by
on 2016-11-08 18:00:00 UTC
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I hope you don't mind if I put my two cents here by
on 2016-11-06 03:40:00 UTC
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I like that Lapis got some character development, and the interpretation of the author's note in the beginning as a sock puppet show.
Still, there's a couple of issues I have with this mission and they may be reoccurring issues in previous missions and missions some other authors have written as well.
1) Minimal description of the surroundings during the mission.
Although the badfic just states the location (I think?), the mission's surroundings aren't that much better. The mission just gives enough description to establish the surroundings and not much more than that.
Example:
Just then, the scene shifted around the agents, dropping them in another big heap. This time, they found themselves on a sandy beach, bordered by a wide selection of pastel-colored buildings.
And that was it. Even after the agents finished unpiling themselves, there was no mention of the sea breeze, no mention of the sounds of the ocean, no mention of the color of the sky, etc. Even if the location became generic because of the badfic, a description of what had become of the beach would be nice.
2) When agents are observing, it reads like an mst.
I think it's because the mission has copied-and-pasted chunks of badfic when paraphrasing would work better.
Example:
However they noticed something strange about, not only about the marking but instead of coming in pointing it was holding something.
All of them stared at it.
"Is that…" said Amethyst.
"It is." Said Pearl not knowing how to react.
"It's a white flag." Said Garnet.
"Wait… does that mean they're coming in peace?" asked Steven.
On the ship both the orange one and the lavender one stared at the white flag the ship was holding.
"This seems like a really stupid idea." Mumbled the orange one to herself.
(Then there's the reaction from the agents)
For this example, I think it would have worked better if you described the scene more like the agents are watching what the characters do. Writing the scene as just a copied passage then a response, looks to me less like the agents are actually spying on the scene and more like the agents are doing an mst, giving the feeling of not really being there even when they actually are.
I think that's all for the criticism. I know you worked very hard on the mission and I want you to know that I'm glad you had fun writing it! -
Not at all, thank you. by
on 2016-11-07 00:49:00 UTC
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About the lack of description; I get the sense that a) we were trying to avoid bogging down the story with scenery and/or b) the particular way we played GDoc tag didn't allow for a lot of description. You're right that we could use more, though. (Skarmory also says he figured Beach City was pretty well-defined in the audience's heads.)
And, yeah, in retrospect it does read a lot more like an MST than it probably should. But on the other hand, we got two great gags out of the format--Lapis turning into a graph and Violet's spittake. Again, you raise some good points about why it didn't quite work, and I'll make a special effort to summarize/paraphrase more in my next mission. Thanks for the constructive criticism, and I'm glad you enjoyed the story otherwise! :) -
Cool mission. by
on 2016-11-05 14:32:00 UTC
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Here's your replica Rose's sword back. But with a few modifications.
It now houses the innards of a Nano Saber, which means added electric damage, as long as you charge it with EU. Apart from that, it's the same old sword. -
[Flashbacks to own past Intensify] (nm) by
on 2016-11-06 15:03:00 UTC
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And as a token of my generosity... by
on 2016-11-06 06:20:00 UTC
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...you get a copy of it for free! No strings attached, and it's on me. ;)
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Re: New Mission! by
on 2016-11-05 04:56:00 UTC
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Honestly, this mission suffers from some of the same things I've noticed recurring in Skarmory's other missions: an excess of characters, a lot of backstory-dumping, and a lot of inter-character bickering. In this case, things between Lapis and Aiko are less justified than between Lapis and Backslash, which doesn't really help things. And Violet, Ami, and Seung-Li don't contribute all that much to the mission, at least in the first half, though they do gain more personality once they split up. In all honesty, the smaller groups give the characters a lot more chance to shine. On the other hand, I'm not sure that it makes sense in mission terms; you can't really have one group handle every other chapter, because they'll miss a lot of details, and charges of poor in-fic continuity will be harder to catch.
It is nice to see Lapis get called out for her behavior; I have to agree with Sarah that she spends way too much time angsting about her background. However, I think having her overcome her personal problems via magical regeneration seems a bit... cheap. Aside from the Heroic Sacrifice, which is a bit on the cliche side, she's said she's going to change, but the progress gets made without us actually seeing the character development. It's also confusing because I can't tell if this occurs before or after "Witches Get Stitches." In terms of characterization, it seems more like the latter one came first, as this one continues the trend of Lapis learning to get past her issues and disagreements, but it'd make more sense for her speech and swearing patterns to change after regeneration. (Swearing is something people usually do instinctively, so it doesn't really make sense for someone to begin swearing in a language they've just learned, unless there's some other factor at play.) Also, I'm not really sure about Lapis regaining her waterbending powers. I mean, I know they're not necessarily overpowered, they just don't really seem like a necessary power-up. It kind of feels like she's being rewarded just for making a token effort to get better. I know the Heroic Sacrifice was supposed to be the major point, but given that she recovered fairly effortlessly, it takes away some of the impact.
I did like the other characters a lot, especially Seung-Li and Violet. I'm sorry I didn't have more positive comments. It's not a bad mission or anything, and I found the action pretty easy to follow. You also did a good job explaining the Steven Universe stuff, at least. -
My Responses by
on 2016-11-06 06:19:00 UTC
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The reason for Lapis and Aiko starting off as enemies in this mission is best explained by the co-written interlude "Child's Play", which I should've provided as a primer: Aiko was jealous that Lapis got to become an agent before her, and Lapis retaliated but took it too personally. I guess we could've made that clearer if we'd intended for this mission to stand out on its own, though.
Splitting the party was a decision that we all agreed upon while writing the fic, and as noted in the dialogue, the in-universe justification was that Lapis and Aiko were fighting so much at the time that they had to be separated until things calmed down. We were well-aware of the risk of continuity not being covered as effectively, so we assumed that each of the teams would relay charges that they covered to the other team offscreen every once in a while. It's why Lapis, Ami, and Aiko were all able to recite the charge list in full without having to cut each other off to fill in what they missed.
This mission takes place after "Witches Get Stitches", which occurred in December 2015 (and Cupid's first date happened in early 2016, and this mission takes place at the same time as said date). Looking back, one of the failings in this case was that we'd already had "Girls' Night Out" technically finished and in the process of beta reading by the time "Witches Get Stitches" was even conceived in my head. I guess I should've expected this insertion of a mission into an already pre-planned series of events to cause a bit of a continuity snarl, and modified Lapis' language use and personality for both missions to make the flow a bit more consistent.
The magical regeneration changing Lapis' personality and the waterbending abilities are both derived from the Steven Universe continuum and Lapis' gemsona. Armenus is stated to be a variant of Canon!Lapis Lazuli's gem "species", if you can call it that; it's been established that Lapis has incredibly powerful hydrokinetic abilities, and lapis armenus (the mineral) is closely related enough to lapis lazuli that it made sense for Armenus to be a Lapis variant. It's also worth remembering that regeneration both allowing a complete recovery and changing the gem's personality is something that happens in canon as well. If there was one thing I did wrong it was probably having Lapis transition into her Taking the Bullet for Aiko more suddenly than readers would've liked, especially given that the entire MO of this mission was to resolve the conflict between the two of them and put them on the road to repairing whatever relationship there could've been between these two. I can say with confidence however that Lapis' story is far from over, and that her next appearance will hopefully smooth out her development as well as deconstruct the resurgence of her abilities - her waterbending is, after all, still rudimentary.
I'm glad there are things to like about this mission, and I agree that Seung-Li and Violet were awesome to work with. If anything, Lapis' character arc does have potential now for further growth and ironing out the kinks in said growth the next time she shows up. Unfortunately, it'll be a while before she does, since I've decided to shift my focus away from my DIC team now that this leg of her character arc is complete. With luck and a fair wind, my next few published missions won't have so much exposition or sideline arguments - especially because they definitely won't be sixty pages long! -
Yeah, that last post was by me (nm) by
on 2016-11-06 14:20:00 UTC
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Re: My Responses by
on 2016-11-06 14:19:00 UTC
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I hadn't read the interlude, and I'm sure that does make a difference. Even still, it comes off a little as "Oh look, Lapis has yet another ongoing quarrel with someone."
Splitting the party does make sense in a narrative way, as well as to some extent in-universe. And having them report back to each other also makes sense. It just seems a little awkward to switch from one team encountering Malachite to the other. Maybe if it was shown that they were still in contact (which could include warning the other about Malachite) it'd seem less risky.
I'm aware that the regenerative thing is canon; as a resolution to Lapis's behavior problems, however, it still feels a little abrupt. That said, I'm sure that future missions will show that it isn't quite as over as it seems to be here. -
Re: Your Responses by
on 2016-11-08 17:52:00 UTC
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Yeah, it was a bit sudden to have Lapis and company switch out right as Sarah's team went in DURING Malachite's entry. Then again, of course, it could be possible that the former group warned the latter offscreen, since Lapis and co. witnessed Malachite first.
And yeah, like I said, Lapis' story will continue in due course. She does, after all, have a few new attributes to have to deal with.