New Floaters Mission!

New Floaters Mission! by HerrWozzeck on 2012-05-27 13:45:00 UTC

Concrit and spoilers. by Ellipsis Flood on 2012-05-27 18:23:00 UTC Reply

While it's a good thing that you cut down the length of your missions without rushing them too much, there's a number of things I don't know what to make of.

1. It's still kind of a drag. The beginning's okay, but then we get that whole thing with the Stu being aware of the PPC and Karlheinz joining the crew. There it slows down immensely.

2. Where does the Stu get his PPC-awareness from? I feel like I skipped a part, because suddenly the Stu acts outside the Words and banishes the agents to... somewhere. He specifically mentioned the PPC. Even if he noticed the agents, how does he know what the PPC is?

3. Karlheinz Scare. Aside from having a German name for no reason (Or was it revealed that Scarecrow was German later on?), he's just there. Wherever that is. And even though one of his first statements is that he wants to kill the Stu in a gruesome way, Cindy calls him agent material. Last time I checked, castrating someone could be considered torture. Also, he's a cheap copy of L.

4. As said, when Karlheinz appeared, the general quality took a nosedive. Where were they while they were delivering exposition to each other? Why is Tigress suddenly in World One? How did all that happen and why didn't Cindy at least try to follow it.

5. Show, don't tell. Even if you hadn't mentioned it, I could have told that you didn't immediately work with the whole Death Note rip-off thing. It's more or less awkwardly shoehorned in by Karlheinz L, who just happens to know the fandom. And is not in the least fazed by what's going on.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I have a theory. Karlheinz didn't exist in the original story. I'm not sure if the whole 'sent to three dimensions' thing wasn't there either or if it was just handled differently (with the agents returning earlier, like Cindy did). But Karlheinz really looks like an expository character.

Let's see... by HerrWozzeck on 2012-05-27 19:41:00 UTC Reply
1. Really? The way I look at it, I was building stuff up until the agents were banished. Or, I tried to, anyway.
  
  2. Okay, so basically, I should take this as my cue to make it obvious that he had stolen PPC technology at some point and thus knew what the PPC was. I left it unexplained for a reason: any explanation into how he knew what the PPC was would've made the mission longer than it is. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, you know?
  
  3. I intended Karlheinz to come off as a sort-of-sadistic-but-not-really-quite-as-evil version of Kirill, though from what you mentioned I think I may have taken it a bit far. And Cindy decided he was agent material because... well, as sadistic as he is, Karlheinz sees the unfortunate implications behind the Stu's actions, he actually thought to fight back against the Suefluence, and he's slightly on the insane side. (I'm surprised you didn't catch on to most of that, but hey.) Apart from the sadism, everything else is there. And if Karlheinz Scare is a cheap copy of L, that was completely unintentional seeing as how I don't actually know Death Note all that much. (Remember, I needed Data to catch the Death Note rip-off thing.) But yeah, you're right that the guy's name is German for no reason, so... Maybe I'll change it to Jason or something.
  
  4. I should've explained that thing relating to your first question better: they were off in Scarecrow's lair when the exposition was being traded. *makes mental note to expand on that* In terms of Tigress suddenly showing up in World One... Don't ask me, the story that was sporked didn't bother to explain it either.
  
  5. This one, I've said my piece on, so I won't drag it out too long. I will say this, though: when Data pointed the whole Death Note thing out, I said to myself (and him) 'wait, I have to address this somehow'. Since I couldn't fit it in anywhere else without making it feel weird for the agents (Anneli, Cindy, and Xanthus would not know Death Note), I felt the best place to put it was in an area where Karlheinz could explain it.
  
  Either way, I have to correct you on the 'Karlheinz is there for exposition' thing you say I have, 'cause that's actually not true. Karlheinz actually wasn't going to provide any exposition until Data pointed out the Death Note thing. After that, it was like 'okay, so we have someone here who might know stuff, let's have him be the one to point it out' There were a lot of different angles I was thinking about when thinking of this mission, but the one angle I always gunned for was to involve Scarecrow in the proceedings in some way.
  
  So yes, I've gone back and tried to fix some of these issues by now, and I'm still ironing out issues.

Re: Let's see... by Ellipsis Flood on 2012-05-27 20:43:00 UTC Reply

I notice you edited some things. Still, I don't feel like you really got what I meant.

1. In that case, you should be building up stuff for the whole mission. Actually, yeah. That's what you do. You build up stuff, then there's the climax, aka Sue-slaying in our case, and then there's some wrap-up with neuralyzing canons, fixing stuff, and so on.

2. One of the things you edited. That doesn't make it much better, though. There was a Stu running around in HQ and nobody noticed? That's not really something that should happen, and you brush it off like it's nothing, oh and give back that RA before you get killed, dude. Nobody even mentions it afterwards.

3. Aside from the fact that I don't really see Kirill in this... where does that personality even come from? He was designed to be this story's L. You even mentioned that. What you did was basically to take a character that would play a major role in that fic and... dunno, make him into something you liked.
To the edited version: He acts way more natural now. Still, the fact stays that you took one of the more prominent characters in this fic and turned him into your OC. You pulled him out of this story. That's not something you do unless this person's about to be grossly mutilated. And unless there's more about 'Jason' in the fic that you haven't shown us, there's not really anything. He does what L did in Death Note. That shows nothing but the fact that he's smart enough to not show his face.

4. Well, it's much clearer and way less forced now. Still, shouldn't Cindy at least wonder what Tigress is doing there?

5. To point something out doesn't mean that you should shoehorn it in mid-mission. You could have just as well worked with subtle foreshadowing. Or have CADs be confused. Even if the agents don't get it and probably wonder what a Death Note is.

Also, something that slipped my mind until now: I miss the humor in it. It's so dry. Where's the funny things happening, where's the Ironic Overpower screwing things up?

Re: Let's see... by HerrWozzeck on 2012-05-27 21:22:00 UTC Reply

So further edits go through.

1. Yeah, the pacing slowed a bit... We'll see what I can do with that.

2. I'll add something in to that effect, then.

3. Okay. To the part in red... that would matter, if Scarecrow had actually been treated as a character by the fic. I couldn't say anything more about what Scarecrow did in-mission after Chapter three, because he basically becomes a non-entity after that. He gets something like one line in Chapter 5, and it's mentioned that the main characters hide from him in Chapter 6, but both of those appearences are the only other times in the fic where Scarecrow is ever really brought up. All we know about Scarecrow from the fic is that he's against Kronos, the fact that he's against Kronos is apparently evil (somehow), and that Kronos is hiding from him. There is literally nothing else that this fic does to even try to give Scarecrow anything resembling a personality. Essentially, after it's exposited that the Sue and the Stu are hiding from him, Scarecrow is never mentioned again. Basically, despite the fact that he's standing in for L from Death Note, Scarecrow isn't a character so much as he is a plot device. And on top of that, he's a plot device that doesn't even amount to anything noticeable: we're supposed to get false tension from Scarecrow's presence, but it adds up to nothing because the author doesn't actually do anything with it. Hell, the author doesn't even have his Stu and Sue try to find ways to stop Scarecrow. As for doing what L did from Death Note: from the way I understand it, L from Death Note saw the unfortunate implications behind Kira's actions and actually attempted to fight back. Doesn't that count for something?

5. Hm... *CAD reading solution comes to mind* Lemme run with that.

Oh, almost forgot! by HerrWozzeck on 2012-05-27 14:44:00 UTC Reply

I'd like to extend major thanks to Data Junkie for beta-ing this mission. Trust me, without him, one of the aspects of the fic that was really bad would never have been pointed out to me.
Re: New Floaters Mission! by HimochiIsAwesome on 2012-05-27 14:16:00 UTC Reply

Thank the mother of FrUK that fic got sporked. It was such a bad rip-off of Death Note that I didn't even realise until it was pointed out!
Also, Glass. I approve of the nickname. It sounds like the sort of nickname I'd give.
Karlheinz is an... odd name, to say the least. I immediately think of a koala and some beans, but meh, that's me. I really like his character, though. Can't work out why, but I do.

Coincidentally... by HerrWozzeck on 2012-05-27 14:28:00 UTC Reply

I didn't realize how much of a rip-off of Death Note it was until I took the mission to get beta'd. I took it to Data Junkie for my first pass of beta-reading, and he picked up on the similarities immediately. I swear, without him I never would've known how much of a Death Note ripoff it is.

Karlheinz is a real name, but it went to a German guy. (Specifically, it was the first name of German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.) I'm glad you like him!

Re: Coincidentally... by HimochiIsAwesome on 2012-05-27 14:36:00 UTC Reply

And that there's lovely proof that betas are incredibly helpful.