Subject: Donning my official Hat.
Author:
Posted on: 2012-10-08 17:44:00 UTC

Right, let's do this. Analysis, ho!

The Profiles

Anebrin: Well, I'm going to assume you've characterised Irdiyan elves correctly... :P. Actually this is quite interesting, because while 'falls through a plothole into HQ' is a common origin story, it's almost exclusively for World One agents. And, going on to the story, it's very rare that the actual fall-through gets written. No problems here, provided he does develop personality beyond 'Is Basically Haldir'.

Desdendelle: I love the idea of 'Oh, yeah, I'm from basically World One, only they teach us axes in school'. However, as with every gimmicky origin, it really needs to be used as something other than a gimmick. If you don't ever mention his homeworld again (do they have legal duels? Are wars constrained to ancient weapons?), it just becomes a way to accelerate his weapons training for free - a deus ex machina, basically. So that's a warning flag, but not a major one. I have no problems with the rest of his character, as he falls nicely into the Standard-PPC-Agent slot.

(Oh, and: argh, more Floaters? Seriously, is specialisation so hard?)

The Storywords

Wow, that's a lot of betas. Actually that almost worries me, since it means any problems may have been filtered out - but I suspect Vixenmage wouldn't let that happen for a Permission piece.

I'm flagging a few somewhat 'off' uses of linking words in your sample - for example, 'as well as that stony, burnt smell the more experienced Rangers and Avengers told the rest of the elves was that of troll shamanic magic' feels a bit heavy on the 'that's, and 'If things would have gone as planned' just sounds strange - but since those are the only two I found in the first page, and I'm actually looking for them, I don't think it's a problem. Again, the second sentence I just referenced is quite long - but I haven't tagged any others as being too long, so it's not a major concern.

As to the rest of the piece: I've already mentioned that Anebrin's reactions are bothering me, and I'll expand on that. He comes across as confused and disoriented... but not disoriented enough. He seems coherent enough that he should be reacting more strongly to what's happening - particularly if (and I don't know if it is) teleportation is possible in his canon.

I'm also somewhat concerned over how lax the Marquis is getting over recruiting proceedures. I'm sure there used to be at least some paperwork... actually Dafydd tells me he had to wait two days for them to find a copy in a language he could read - and then another two days while he filled it out. But this is the PPC, we're a bit haphazard over that sort of thing, so no real problems there.

Overall, I'm quite impressed. I went back and reread your last request thread, and the comments there were mostly that your writing was bland and unexpressive. I think you've fixed that quite well (although, always room for improvement), so unless someone's spotted something I didn't...

Permission Granted.

Go wild. ;)

hS

PS: The glasses-related comment in Anebrin's thoughts amused me, possibly because I've played around with the idea myself. ~hS

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