Subject: Agreed.
Author:
Posted on: 2010-03-12 10:50:00 UTC
No hard feelings, Max, but I strongly suggest you re-read the Guide To The PPC, particularly the sections on Spirit of the PPC and What NOT To Write.
Subject: Agreed.
Author:
Posted on: 2010-03-12 10:50:00 UTC
No hard feelings, Max, but I strongly suggest you re-read the Guide To The PPC, particularly the sections on Spirit of the PPC and What NOT To Write.
AS I SEEEEP INTO THE BLAAACKEST VOID OF AAAALL- Oh, sorry about that. I like that song a bit too much, that's all...
I, MAXinsanity, request permission to join the Protectors of the Plot Continuum. I swear that I will try to uphold canon, terminate badfic, and to utterly and completely despise the creatures known as Mary-Sues that infest the myraid worlds. I will try my best not just to write, but to prevent myself from being consumed by the drama monster inside. I request that I keep my sanity, or actually, what little is left of it right now. Losing any more of it would make me crazier than my agents. I don't really have any self-insert agents, so I swear that they'll do their best, otherwise they'll have a not so friendly meeting with me about it... D:
And yes, I'll try to keep the serious down. I can't guarantee that I can hold it back forever, though...
- MAXinsanity
____________________________________________________________________
MY AGENTS:
Falras
Age: 14 biologically, otherwise unknown
Species: Mimiga
Gender: Male
Partner(s): Alice Alexandria, Doctor Stephan Grall
Home Continuum: Cave Story
Department: Floaters
Fandom(s): Whatever is needed for the mission
Weapon Of Choice: AWP sniper rifle from Counter-Strike
Lust Object(s): None.
Appearence: Short, with messy white fur covering entire body. Two somewhat long floppy ears, one on each side of head. These are quite tattered, as is his PPC uniform. Dark green eyes. General posture is quite poor, constantly being exhausted from missions.
Personality: Falras is a bit of an enigma. Having suddenly appeared in response center 206 as if he was an agent his entire life, his past is a complete mystery. Unusually sane and calm, Falras is obsessed with work at the PPC, and is capable of navigating HQ quite well. Despite his apparently very high amount of experience, he thinks of himself as superior to most agents, sometimes leaving his partner or partners behind, thinking that they'll only get in the way. Also of note is his extremely serious and stubborn demeanor, not willing to accept failure in any way, or even pulling out of a mission when it's too tough. Falras is also extremely antisocial, only talking with Flowers or his partners (Mostly to whine about how they suck so much).
_________________________________________________________________
Doctor Stephan Grall
Age: 29
Species: Human... Mostly.
Gender: Male
Partner(s): Alice Alexandria, Falras
Home Continuum: (REDACTED)
Department: Floaters
Fandom(s): NiGHTS, Team Fortress 2, Pokemon, and several others.
Weapon Of Choice: Knives, pistols.
Lust Object(s): "Alice", and about a hundred others, all non-humans
Appearance: Mostly normal human, save the unusually angular features. Blue eyes, and wears ugly glasses. Posture is quite twitchy and erratic. PPC uniform is rather normal, but is usually concealed under a white labcoat.
Personality: Grall is highly unstable mentally, being from a parasitic continuum which apparently is filled to the brim with Sues from what intelligence there gathers. Frequently talking to himself or occasionally bursting into song, Grall has strangely fast reflexes, is extremely intelligent, and is also quite friendly and quick to learn. However, Grall can also be extremely irritating to female non-human agents, frequently flirting with them or generally getting on their nerves. This has lead to at least three incidents leading to Grall being physically injured by them, not counting the countless times that Alice has injured him.
_________________________________________________________________
Alice Alexandria
Age: 19
Species: Breloom-(REDACTED) Hybrid
Gender: Female
Partner(s): Doctor Stephan Grall, Falras
Home Continuum: Pokemon
Department: Floaters
Fandom(s): NiGHTS, Team Fortress 2, Pokemon, and several others.
Weapon Of Choice: Hammers
Lust Object(s): None, as of yet.
Appearance: Mostly green skin, except for head and neck, which is tan, along with a "Frill" below the neck. Mushroom-like cap on top of head with two small red sphere shaped protrusions on sides. Hands have only three fingers, with claws colored the same as the protrusions on top of her head. Feet are the same as an ordinary Breloom. PPC uniform is tidy and clean.
Personality: Quite quick to adapt to not acting like an animal, Alice seems rather sane for the most part, only lapsing into aggression when irritated by Grall. The most emotional of the three, and due to the unusual conditions she was recruited in, she displays hatred of the PPC, despite being part of it. Still somewhat paranoid about the entire concept, Alice does not use disguises for the most part, being somewhat afraid of some of the technology at her disposal. Among other problems with her career as an agent, she lacks the drive to kill sues.
ANNENDUM: Keep in mind that if not injected with the batch of chemicals created by Doctor Grall daily, she will begin to become more and more psychotic and aggressive until she goes into a coma.
________________________________________________________
And now, for my writing sample! Some of you out there have probably seen it before, but whatever... It's a mission from the perspective of one of my agents for a NiGHTS Into Dreams badfic.
And here's the link: <a href="http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgcbktf77c2wv5jc5">http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgcbktf7_7c2wv5jc5
...Whoo. It's taken quite a bit of guts to get this far. Let's hope I'll continue getting better at writing...
Just wanted to say that generally Permission turnings-down-of are not permanent "YOU SUCK FOREVERRRR" labels, just "Please try again later" notes. So, if you, by any chance, want a beta, just wanted to drop in. I don't think I know any of the canons you work in, but as per grammar, spelling, syntax, flow, PPC canon... the concerns listed below and so on, I'm generally pretty good at editing and whatnot. So if you want someone to bounce ideas off of or pointers or whatever, go ahead and e-mail me (Vixenmage AT gmail DOT com). I've been kinda looking for something writer-y to do until my muse stops sulking, so I'd greatly appreciate the excuse to muck around in prosaic writings.
Hey, I could really use a beta. My techinical writing is not the best. I really want to improve it, and Trojie suggested I get one. If you are still open, please e-mail me at jdlegacy@comcast.net. Thanks.
In addition to the issues I outlined earlier, there are some others.
Your writing in general leaves a bit to be desired on the technical front; tense-shifts, incorrect capitalisations, bewildering ways of describing other characters for a start.
The bits of badfic you use are few and far between. When you do quote it, you quote vast tracts of it so it's hard to see what exactly you're complaining about.
Your formatting in general I found hard on the eye, with enormous sentences and paragraphs.
The way your Agents have been recruited is just ... wrong ... for the PPC.
I stopped even caring about the fic you were sporking because of the errors in your own writing and the distasteful nature of your Agents. This, I'm sure you'll agree, is slightly contrary to the point of what we do here.
Another point is that with all your mysteries and [REDACTED]s, which as aforementioned are Not How We Do Things, it makes me leery that one of these days you're going to up and mess with something even more fundamental. If you can't operate within the confines of this shared universe as it is, if you have to twist it to feel comfortable writing in it, perhaps this is not the place for you to stretch your creative wings, as it were.
The main problem is that you appear to have missed the point. You've taken our happy, silly, fun setting and darkened it, with your press-ganging and depression. There's no comedy in this mission. I felt uncomfortable reading it, I didn't feel that giggling righteousness at the end that normally I would expect to find at the end of a PPC mission. I didn't feel that it was a job well done.
This is supposed to be FUN. This is supposed to be stupid, and comical. This is supposed to be slapstick. Your writing sample is none of those. It made me sad.
I'm sorry, but you don't seem to have understood the spirit of what we do here, and with that in mind I'm going to say it's Permission denied.
- Trojie
No hard feelings, Max, but I strongly suggest you re-read the Guide To The PPC, particularly the sections on Spirit of the PPC and What NOT To Write.
Um, some points.
Spelling! Please make sure you get someone to look over your spelling (or at least use a spellcheck - 'appearence' is something a spellcheck would pick up immediately) before you post any writing. Given we do horrible things to people who make spelling mistakes, we really shouldn't be making any ourselves.
Warnings! As July pointed out, you need to do this. Lots of PPC Boarders read missions at work, school, or other places where they may have people peering over their shoulders. Therefore using words like 'rape' tends to be a bad idea.
Was Alice press-ganged into the PPC? Recruits are usually volunteers or persuaded in a friendly manner. We don't force people to be in the PPC, and the only things we do scientific experiments on are Mary Sues. I'm not sure what the other PGs will think but I personally am uncomfortable with Alice's backstory in the PPC as I think it creates an unpleasant precedent.
Where's 'Research'? Do you mean Medical, FicPsych, DMSEAR?
There's an awful lot of 'classified' and 'mystery' stuff in their backgrounds. It's okay to just not specify if you're not sure where their stories are going to go in the future, but to deliberately set it up as 'classified'? Normally the Marquis and Personnel in general seem happy as Larry to give out even the mst personal of Agent's information.
I'm going to reserve judgement for now, and finish reading it later. Given past form I'm sure Neshomeh will be along soon :)
-Trojie
I had a look over the writing sample and commented a few days before it was posted, so I didn't feel right about saying yea or nay here.
I will say that my initial response was pretty much the same as what everyone is saying now, though.
~Neshomeh
Note: I am no one of import; I simply felt like making an effort to interact and such. Ordinarily I'd stay out entirely, but my curiosity has demanded that I make an attempt to obtain answers about some things I noticed. You're in no way obliged to listen to me on this matter, but I would appreciate a thought or two in return.
I am certainly intrigued by your choice of first-person and present tense. It's a marked departure from the norm and could certainly bring up many interesting things as time goes on -- though, it may present difficulties as well, given some of the things 'fics do. (Also given that most 'fics tend to be in past tense, and I've observed that Agents tend to match the tense of the 'fic, hence tense wrenches and shutting up on that topic now.)
I will say that your Agents give me a bit of a turn, in places.
On the subject of Falras. The springing full-formed from HQ is odd to my eyes. Most Agents do suddenly appear, true, but most appear from somewhere. And, it strikes me as strange for someone so calm and sane to suddenly start screaming because the mission has taken an unexpected turn. Calmness isn't exactly an oddity in the PPC, though I do find sanity rare and easily lost... well, I don't know if I have room to speak on that matter. Hm, the point I'm trying to make is there's nothing wrong with a calm Agent; in fact, they can be highly entertaining to watch. But, a calm Agent should generally be calm, one thinks, and a sane Agent is likely to lose that precious commodity as time progresses.
Grall is interesting, and I mean this in the good way, not the carefully-neutral-I-don't-know-what-to-say way. I can see much humor coming from his presence and antics. I should like to know where he's from, though; there seems no sense in the redaction, and I can't bring anything to mind that's 'parasitic'. Is it a tabletop or RP continuum, or am I barking up the wrong tree entirely?
On the subject of Alice. I agree with a lot of what July said here. If it's just the killing she hates, as your sample suggests to me, why not work in Bad Slash, or one of the internal departments like Medical or DoSAT, or something that doesn't involve killing? I get that she needs Grall around, but there are ways around that, and the Flowers don't set out to make people miserable. Er, generally. There's a line between disapproval/unhappiness/whygodwhy and serious out-and-out hatred, and one thinks that someone on the hatred side would not be put to work in such a manner. An Agent who hates his or her job is likely going to go flamethrower-crazy a lot faster than others, so it's a bit of self-preservation. (Also, nitpicky crow would like to point out: Addendum.)
The Pokémon hybrid thing is a choice I do like, though.
And, on the subject of the writing sample... well. I don't like to bother people about style -- who knows better than you what you're trying to communicate, after all? -- but there are technical things that keep tripping me up. I'll acknowledge that I'm unusually picky about grammar and punctuation, but... well. A beta reader is a good plan for everyone, no matter how experienced they are.
I'm done being a picky little crow. Going further will make one no friends -- in fact, I have probably grievously offended at least three people already, but I felt the need to speak.
Make no mistake, I do think that this trio has definite potential for excellent fun and good times. But, I, too, am of the opinion that they could be better. I think it would be a good plan to get a second pair of eyes on, preferably someone who can and will tell you exactly what they think without fear of offending or worse.
Best of luck, Max!
Okay. So. (Latidoremefa.)
Let's see here, not a PG, just gonna point some stuff out anyhow though that I would like the PGs to read before they say yay or nay.
First off, Max, you've got Mysterious!surprisefromnowhere!Agent. Very mysterious, very mysterious. And special.
And why is he wearing a tattered uniform? I know we're usually running in the red but last I checked we're generally willing to keep people from accidentally exploding into nudity in the corridors if they pop the wrong seam and the rest of their uniform falls apart.
*stares at Falras disconcertingly* He is seriousness! And not crazy? And 'unusally sane'? Are you sure he's sane? Most agents in the PPC are not quite sane and saying that he is 'unusally sane' implies he has a future breakdown or nine headed his way because one does not cope in the PPC by being just sane. Does not work that way, no siree. You've got to either be a bit nuts or a bit not with the reason brain processing or able to accept every single thing that happens to cope. Otherwise your brain shuts down at things like tree days filled with chlorophyll and bear hands and urple because these are from the strange territory beyond reality where things happen with less than logic and not quite so common sense.
Though I can see how that can lead to Hilarity and the Powers That Be going and smacking him with the Ironic Overpower each and every chance had.
*stares at Grall now*
Okay, so you have this mostly humanthingumfishnot dude. What's with the (REDACTED)? SCP people we are not. The parasitic continuum? How does tihs make sense? If it is a continuum then whtever is there is canon and while might be Sues elsewhere if it's all the same in there it can't be Sues because it is on par with what is there. Does that make sense at all? The pervertedness is interesting as a character quirk, that could be fun to watch, since hammerspace is occasionaly accessable.
*stares at Alice*
Okay, so more (REDACTED). This is no place to hide secrets suchly, it does not amuse or make for sense. You can just tiptoe around it and say BRELOOM HYBRID and avoid what else. The fact that she's part Pokemon is interesting though. Aso, again, PPC is generally not THIS IS A SECRET AND IT IS CLASSIFIED for everything, especially where involves agents and their bodyparts and species and all that. Fairly open type workplace.
Personality makes no sense. Why would she be part of the PPC if she hates it, and if she hates it so why is she being kept as part of it? And disguises are disguises and help on missions where it is required, so that is quite odd. The Flowers might force the agents to do a lot of AUGH stuff, but they don't force people to do the job if they seriously dont't want it. Most people generally accept the terrible missions as part of doing something to help the canon or for own personal reasons that involve
Okay, moving on to the writing thingy.
Wah wah wah. D: Despair and angst and things that are reasonable for your character.
But some things.
1) Does not quite mess with what is at least my view of the spirit of the PPC.
2) I do not quite appreciate looking at my screen and seeing "Rapeface" on it unexpectedly without warning especially since I'm typing this right now and trying to avoid my parents or younger siblings seeing it and going "omgwtf?". Warnings is good. Warnings is nice. Please use warnings for that sort of langauge because not everyone appreciates it.
4) There is no 3.
5) There are better ways to express shouting and yelling and general emphasis besides caps.
6) This is quite angstydark for a community whose pieces generally trend towards the light and moderatly hilarious cracky and happy.
7) Show, do not tell. If this is their first mission and they haven't known each other very long (I am assuming though I can't tell for sure the length of time meant to be implied) she wouldn't know that he is usually calm in the perhaps-I-have-overdosed-on-sedatives-but-am-still-awake way usually even on missions.
I've written too much because I'm rambling and wrapping lines around and around (yay WYSIWYG!) so I'll leave off for now so presumably someone else can go and tell me I was being too nitpicky.
Again, not a Permission Giver.
Looks okay and I'm not a PG. I just want to quibble one point.
At the end of Grall's wossname, this has LED. Not lead. Lead is either a present tense verb or a type of metal.
*twitches, fumes, and runs away to drown self in Ansela's vodka*