Subject: New DIC Mission!
Author:
Posted on: 2012-01-20 14:41:00 UTC
In which Florestan and Eusabius deal with extremely fickle formatting.
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1C8IkLCnTLE4oiP0AZJPwC_uCS9PQfbp4rr-TawFfn0w
Seriously, the formatting is really bad with this one.
Unfortunately, there were no minis or loot to be had from this mission, but on the flip side it is extraordinarily short. (13 pages)
So yeah. Crazy times are had with this one, as always.
I liked how you played with the changing fic formats and had them affect Florestan. That was definitely a unique problem to this fic, and it's good that you focused on that. (It might have been fun to have both the agents get sick from it, to underscore how bad the shifting was.)
But speaking of Florestan's reactions, you have him getting angry frequently here, and a lot of the time I don't really understand why. He keeps reacting to the fic quotes we see by calling them stupid, but it's better to show the audience why Florestan finds them stupid, rather than just labeling them as such. This is especially important in a chaotic crossover like this one, where it's pretty much guaranteed your audience won't understand at least one of the continua involved. You did do this well with Viper, explaining how her fic-given backstory completely contradicted her canon one. But something like Tails being an orphan with no family is something not everyone would know.
Also, you've made a mini-Darkside in your charge list: it's Organization XIII, not Organization 13. (Another fun thing you could have touched on: only Nobodies are part of the Organization. Is the replacement!Tails in this fic a Nobody?)
...Owch, talk about your bad fics. At least your agents took care of this one. (Seriously, how do all those different series go together?!)
That's the long and short of it.
First off, I really like how you handled the shifts from prose to script and back. Good job on that.
I have to say, however, that I did not really like the mission. There were several problems:
1) Almost everyone is a character replacement. While I agree that Tails definitely was a replacement, there was no evidence that Sephiroth was, except for the CAD saying it. Viper's altered backstory was also not enough to make her a replacement, in my opinion. I don't know about Shifu, as I am not familiar with the character, but I would guess that he was also not a replacement, just very out of character.
A replacement has to have more than just superficial changes. Like Tails. He had uncanonical powers, was out of his world, answered to his given name (which, I seem to recall, he hates) rather than his preferred nickname, and bore no resemblance to his original characterization. He was a replacement.
1.5) Why kill three replacements, but neuralyze the fourth? Whatever the method, keep it consistent.
2) Some of your grammar is off. For instance "When the shift ended, Florestan found himself leaning against a nearby house as he shook his head." That is a very awkward sentence. We don't need to be told that the house is nearby; it would have to be if he is leaning on it. How is it that he found himself doing these things? Did he not know that he had leaned against a house? It would be better written as "When the shift ended, Florestan leaned against a house and shook his head."
This is not the only example, it is just the one that came most readily to mind.
2.5) Never use the term "soon after" ever again, please. You are trying too hard to tell us the order of events, when the narrative already does that for you. "He opened the bottle and took a swig of the Bleepto-dismal soon after." That is a clear example. The order of events is clear from the sentence, making the "soon after" redundant.
Also, you used "soon after" eight times in thirteen pages. That includes where you used it twice in one sentence. "Both agents closed their eyes soon after, with Florestan activating the neuralyzer soon after."
3) The assassination was anti-climactic. It just kind of happened. Tails stood there while they read the charges, Eusabius pulls out the pikestaff, and then Tails is dead. Why didn't he fight back? He has shown that he is not afraid to kill people without a second thought. I think that this was a major missed opportunity.
4) That's it for my specific notes on problems.
Like I said earlier, the way you handled the shifts was excellent. I would also add that you did a good job of explaining why Viper's new backstory was so wrong. I don't know anything about Kung Fu Panda, so I had no way of knowing that they had completely reversed her backstory. I didn't feel lost at all in regards to what was happening in that continuum.
If you want to talk in-depth about anything that I've mentioned, you can feel free to email me at the address listed on my Wiki page.
-Phobos
So I went back and took out all the soon afters and stuff.
As for some of my stuff.
1) Viper's being a replacement is actually backed up by stuff that was revealed about this fic's version of her backstory after the point I stopped at (where it was revealed that a) she somehow knew who Tails was and that b) they had both been stuck playing something called "The Game", which I assume is something from a continuum I don't know). Also, she's wangsting when we first see her: Viper doesn't wangst. Ever. She's fierce, independent, and extremely courageous (as shown in both the first movie and the canon short film Secrets of the Furious Five), so wangsting would be completely OOC for her. Knowing her, she'd do her best to rise above it. (It also doesn't help that her in-fic backstory completely contradicts the canon information that Viper's first instance of courage was fighting some people who were seriously injuring her father.)
And trust me, Shifu is completely out of character, so much that he couldn't see his canon self with a pair of binoculars. Compare the way he is in-fic with these two clips from the two movies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJiu2VSYShY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_Og8K81M6E&feature=related
As per your suggestion, though, I ended up changing that small bit about Sephiroth, so...
1.5) D'oh! That was an oversight on my part. Dang it, I didn't even realize that I had an inconsistency there! Ugh, and I'm usually better about finding those things, too... *facedesks*
2) So in other words, avoid narrative redundances. Okay: I'll try to work on that in the future.
2.5) Fix'd.
3) I... I got nothin'.
Like I said, it takes more than being OOC for a character to be a replacement. If anything, they were probably possessed. Also, as far as Viper goes, it doesn't really matter what happens in the fic if we never hear about it. So far as I was aware, that one scene is all we ever get with Viper in it. More importantly, though, your agents and the CAD shouldn't know about it if it hasn't happened yet, and you can't charge for something you don't know about.
I don't see anything in those two clips that would lead me to believe that Shifu is any more out of character than anyone else.
I am not convinced that Sephiroth was out of character in the scene we saw him in. Did he have more to do later in the fic, as well?
I'm kind of disappointed that you don't have any answer for number three.
All of this, as well as issues in pacing, makes me think that there is a larger problem, here. I want you to be very honest with yourself when you answer this question: Did you rush the mission and cut it short because you were afraid of making it too long again?
And for me, that one scene also had more than enough uncanon in it for me to charge.
Shifu... Okay, let me put it this way: Shifu is the old man of the bunch. He's out of touch with pop culture trends, he's a lot more mellow than the fic would have you believe he is, and he isn't so easily insulted by one of his students calling him a jerk. So that's why I had him replaced.
No, but in my eye, any villain character who in canon pulls all the stops to kill various other canons who does something stupid like lifting a guy as if to stab them and then being like "oh, never mind, I'm gonna let you live because the plot says so" counts as someone being OOC for me.
The reason I don't have an answer ties into my answer for your question you left at the end. I won't say it was rushed because I don't think it was, but yes, I cut the mission short. I went to great pains editing it so it would stay below thirteen pages no matter what happened.
How can someone even manage do that? As usual, the mission was a highly entertaining read :D Can't wait to read more on about your agents.
I've seen someone manage to do much worse stuff, so... yeah. Crazy times are had with that. You know how it is.
Thanks for the feedback!
That was painful just to read snippets of. I'd hate to actually be there, living through all of that...shifting.
Have a chocolate cake, as congratulations for killing this abomination of formatting. It was spawned by Weaselcake himself, so it's naturally delicious.
Now, you say there's an even worse fic? Do you mean one with worse formatting or just worse in general?
Thanks for the cake: I'm sure F&E will appreciate it.
Even worse fic? Well, my next mission is probably going to go tackle an MLP/Mario fic that has a metric ton of awful spelling, so... yeah. Help them, dear, help them.
Good job getting rid of that fic. I really like Kung Fu Panda and it was awful to see what it was doing to the story.
Also a good mission. Eusabius might want to look into getting one of those advanced CADs that can block tense shifts.
I was really annoyed by this story too, especially the way it gave Viper a non-canon grim!dark past.
Thanks for the feedback! :D
I enjoyed reading this. Good job!
Although, what about Axel? Was he actually in the fic? Or was he not because he was never shown?
Axel wasn't in it because he was never shown. Besides, after Tai Lung escaped from Chor Gohm, it's not likely they'd ever use that prison again, especially since Chor Gohm was created to house one man. I think, anyway. So he was never shown, and thus was safe.