Weighing in.

Permission Request Resubmission. by Sneezier on 2010-06-25 17:18:00 UTC Reply

Since I haven't got a clear answer yet for my permission, I have to resubmit this.

Agent Joseph Trevor
Age: 19
Home Continuum: World One
Department: Floaters
Species: Human
Height: 5’ 6”
Hair: Black
Eyes: Green
Weapon Preference: anything rope-like (usually chains), flails, sledgehammer
Lust-Object(s): Kallen Kozuki (AKA Kallen Stadtfeld), Rosalina, Samus Aran.

Appearance: A caucasian male with a usually build and normal limbs. His black hair tend to be messy and often obscures the back of his neck. His attire consists of a black worker shirt with a Floaters flashpatch, goggles (*usually on his hat), a plumber's cap, a jacket, overalls, a tool belt, and boots. He sometimes wear a leather jacket.

Personality: Joseph is best described as a childish pervert and somewhat of a comedian. His quality of jokes may vary and they tend to be groan-worthy, especially during missions. Dispite this behavior, he's extremely good in video games and very knowledgable in gaming and anime. Many people wondered how this immature dude got into a university. When partnered with Centurio, he tends to annoy the robot, either directly or indirectly.

Agent Centurio
Age: 5
Home Continuum: Superior Defender Gundam Force (Neotopia, to be precise)
Floaters:
Species: Robot (Combat Mobile Citizen, to be precise)
Height: 4' 9'
Hair: N/A
Eyes: Red
Weapon Preference: Swords, Guns
Lust-Object(s): Angleyne, XJ9, Splash Woman.

Appearance: He looks a lot like a short and stubby Hyaku Shiki from Zeta Gundam. Because he can't wear clothing, his body painted black with thin red strips on his arms and legs. The only clothing he wears is an army beret with the DF Flashpatch on it.

Personality: Centurio was the bot with the persona of businessman, a spoof of robots being mindless drones. He usually acted all professional and snarky. Due to his personality, some view him as cold and uncaring but his inner compassion contradict his coldness. His fandoms are mostly fantasy oriented, which was unusual. He's secretly a Harry Potter fanboy but when people pointed it out, he tried to deny that. Sometimes, he'll make up conspiracy theories which were usually ridiculous in content. Much to his dismay, he has put up with Joseph's antics.

My writing sample is on this link (It was Beta'd by Eloire): http://sneezier.livejournal.com/602.html

Weighing in. by Neshomeh on 2010-06-25 19:41:00 UTC Reply

It looks like Sedri was waiting for more input (and time) in the previous thread, so here's my input:

I'm a bit dubious, too. No offense to Elorie, but the story doesn't look beta'ed much beyond spelling to me. Also, you had a chance to fix the issues in this repeated post, and there are still issues. That doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. I know you have some personal challenges with grammar, but what that means is you have to work extra-hard to overcome them, not that we can let the problems slide. You're going to need a really committed beta--it looks like Pretzel volunteered, so that's good--but the final state of the writing is still your responsibility, not hers or anyone else's.

As for the characters, I seem to recall some concerns about Centurio being overpowered, and your sample doesn't show any signs of the humorous interactions we've been expecting. Basically, it's just Centurio bossing Joseph around and Joseph going along with it. If that's how the missions are going to end up, they're not going to be very interesting.

If you think you can overcome all of those doubts, then I'm willing to give you the chance, but it's an awful lot of doubt.

~Neshomeh + $0.02

I will. by Sneezier on 2010-06-25 20:10:00 UTC Reply

The writing sample is about introducing my agents but when I'm writing missions and interludes, they will banter on some subjects, their relationship will be like an old married couple.

I will overcome my grammatical problems, mainly on my tense.

Oh, that's the old version of Centurio. The final version isn't overpowered, I nerfed him to reasonable levels and removed the unneeded abilities. Basically, he's bulletproof but energy attacks and explosives can damage him.

So basically, I will overcome my problems.

Can you show us the 'final version', then? by Sedri on 2010-06-26 03:48:00 UTC Reply

I agree with Neshomeh; besides the technical issues, I'm not comfortable with the mechanical tone you're using to write this. I didn't laugh, or even smile, and while I'm sure you could cover all bases when writing a mission, that's not what the PPC is about.

Can I ask you to write a short piece - maybe about the same length as this - showing the two of them bantering? An interlude would be best, I think. Set it a while in the future if you want to build up to that stage of their relationship in your missions, but show us that you have overcome your problems instead of telling us that you will. Words mean very little unless they're in the prose of a story.

Also, don't be afraid to be silly. The feeling that I get from your writing sample is that you are being careful to follow all the rules but not going much beyond that. Be silly. Be creative. Have the maintence department screw up and leave a gaping plothole in their RC. Have someone's mini-Balrog dart in to hide and singe Centurio's circuits. Have one of them unintentionally trigger the other's embarrassing phobia - anything you like, as long as it's not completely absurd. Make us laugh.

And a final note - take your time. I know I said "a week", but that's not written in stone. Good writing doesn't come on call; sometimes I find that I need a month to let ideas rattle around in my head before I can sit down and produce something good. I'm not denying your request here - if you can post a truly funny and engaging (and thoroughly beta-read) interlude tomorrow, I'll give you Permission there and then, but if you need longer, that's absolutely fine. Take it. Go as far as to change some of your agents' basic details if you need to, but don't re-post the same Permission request over and over.