Subject: I know that feeling.
Author:
Posted on: 2013-12-20 21:16:00 UTC
I end up with Italian written with English words quite often.
Subject: I know that feeling.
Author:
Posted on: 2013-12-20 21:16:00 UTC
I end up with Italian written with English words quite often.
The first chapter of Sergio Turbo's masterpiece (uh, maybe?) in the totally awesome Media Enhanced Writing (If it works...) is now avaible!
*notices weird stares*
Ahem... Let's try with a synopsis, shall we?
What looked like a normal mission for Sergio, Nikki and Corolla ends up being something bigger as canon characters disappear and ghosts from Sergio's past come back.
Says it all, doesn't it? Anyways, this multichapter story isn't exactly a "normal" PPC story, for two reasons:
1) It's more of the final actiom "movie" about Sergio and Nikki (to the point that the working title was Wings Of Canon: The Movie). All known loose ends and even some unknown ones will be fixed up by the end of it. For the same reason, though, it might not sit perfectly well with the PPC. If it doesn't, it won't be considered canon.
2) With this story I'm experimenting with built-in background music. It's a bit of a crude system, but I hope it works.
So, here it is. I worked something like one year and half, maybe even two on the plot of this thing. I hope it is good enough.
Thanks to Desdendelle, Firemagic and DawnFire for betaing.
http://wingsofcanon.blogspot.it/2013/12/blank-sprite-mission-report-01.html
http://rc1587.wordpress.com/2013/12/20/blank-sprite-mission-record-01/
I fixed up the grammar stuff pointed out (thank you all guys) and modified other things (changelog inside)
It should be more readable now.
and back at a computer where spell check works for English.
I would have removed the left would, but I’m really not sure whether this would be right or German written with English words.
HG
I end up with Italian written with English words quite often.
The indirect statement is a question, so the correct syntax is "how long the surveillance part would take."
MEW doesn’t work for me, it’s just distracting,. But that’s only me. I never understood how my brother could listen to music and do homework at the same time. I can imagine that it works for others when it technically works smoothly (obviously it doesn’t at this stage of evolution).
Concerning the story, my knowledge of Puella Magi Madoka Magica and of Alarm für Cobra 11 is very limited, and I know Sakura and Nanoha only from reading your missions, but I still want to know what will happen next. So this obviously works.
Grammar problems:
Why it isn’t in the manual?
Shouldn’t this be Why isn’t it in the manual?
.
as there was no indication of how long would the surveillance part would take
There is one would too much?
HG
I quite enjoyed the music, but two of the players (the one right before "Sergio raised a hand to stop her as he noticed the lights of a vehicle coming through the curtains." and the last one) didn't work, for some reason.
The story itself was quite good, though, (despite my non-anime-ish knowledge; seriously, I know none of the involved continuums) and I can't wait to see where you're going with this. Good luck!
-Aila
Well, I like the plot, and the... intrigue, I guess, that's building up in it. The mystery, maybe. And I like the idea of the MEW (have to ask - did you get the notion from my Pistons of the Plot Continuum, which also featured clips of music, though admittedly not embedded?).
What didn't particularly grab me was some of the implementation. Now, partly that's the lack of paragraph breaks (you know what I mean) throwing me off, and partly I think it's a 'this isn't the writing style I usually read' thing - but it's also linked to some specific things. Things like your characters leaping to conclusions - such as that Nanoha will be next - and they just... happen to be right. It takes a Sherlock Holmes to get that much information from a sample size of two - and the only reason he can do it (as Sam Vimes would tell you) is that he has the writer on his side.
Another thing that doesn't work for me is lines like 'either Nanoha accidentally blasted up something in Germany and the GSG9 anti-terrorist unit is after her'. Er... say what? Is this something from the canon, or something from another canon that just features submachine guns, or what? I'm guessing there is a logic to it - but it's a reference to something I have no connection to. In fact, there's nothing fandom-y in there for me to latch on to. That's not really a criticism, of course - but it's a reason I can't get into it.
I'm also wondering whether you've recently read Jasper Fforde. The line about 'Besides, isn’t this truck too... definite?' doesn't seem to follow from the 'they're Defectives' discussion. It would, however, fit nicely with Fforde's generics. Alternately, I guess you could be going for 'Suvians don't plan that well', but the word 'definite' throws me off.
While I'm talking (and will I ever stop?) you also have a small amount of repetition. Things like Sergio explaining why he doesn't like the Codec, only for Anne to respond with, 'You aren’t a fan of it, am I right?'. Well, no, he's not a fan - it gives him headaches, for one thing.
But as I said at the beginning, I do like the plot. I kind of hope that you'll drive the writing style a little further into action-military, actually; at the moment it reads as a cross between that and a mission, which isn't a comfortable hybrid. Once they're off-mission, the style can really come out (though of course keeping the PPC humour in place).
Anyway, good luck! Big stories are always hard, I know.
hS
Nanoha has quite an habit of... uh... making friends by blasting them up with magical beams. Usuallly with quite a bit of collateral damage.
There's a reason The Nanoha Trio (me, Desdendelle and Firemagic) often does team missions in that continuum... and it's the powerlevels.
GSG9 is Germany's anti-terrorist unit, and the van's license plate was German.
So, the joke pretty much was "either they're our kidnappers, or Nanoha just blasted up someone there and is wanted as a dangerous terrorist"
The jumped to the right conclusion thing actually has a reason. Let's just say that it is the other way round...
I actually didn't read the Pistons and Fforde. I kinda came up with the MEW on my own, just inspired by fanfiction with suggested soundtrack. I just made things easier by adding the music itself instead of just the name, but it messed up the paragraphing.
About the equipment thing, I though that bits like Defectives would have generic stuff.
Thank lyou for the concrut!
Namely, I can't scroll effectively because the blog is covering my scroll bar with stuff that pops out from the side about a "Blog Archive" at the top and a thing that says "Send feedback" at the bottom. I can scroll using the arrow keys on my keyboard, but anytime I click a music player I have to re-click on the text to get my scrolling capability back, and it's a pretty big hassle to have to go up and down to click stuff in the first place. I'd have to go without the music to get through it with a minimum of scrolling irritation.
Also, the lack of double line-breaks or indents to set off new paragraphs is a serious turn-off for me under any circumstances. I don't want to ever have to guess whether a paragraph continues onto the next line or whether it's just that the last sentence is the right length on my screen to look like the paragraph is continued with the next sentence.
Sorry. {= (
~Neshomeh
... When I get out of hospital, that is. Atrial fibrillation isn't a good thing.
Since the Media Enhaced Writing was pretty much a fiasco (hey, did you know it is the Italian word used for a kind of straw-covered bottle used for wine, but also used to designate utter failure like in English?) I decided to drop it and use my usual mission blog (thus getting rid of the sidebars)
The right music can help setting the atmosphere, but my attempt to mix it with writing simply needs far more advanced html-fu. And it might not work even then.
And your idea of having BGM to go with the story is a very innovative one. Find someone who can tweak the HTML more, and you might have a winner on your hands.
I'm intrigued with the idea of this story, and I don't think that this will run afoul of the no-emergencies rule. Granted, I am relatively new, but unless I am mistaken, the problem with PPC Emergencies was that they affected EVERY PPCer, so if a Boarder was unwary, he'd be setting a mission in the midst of an emergency. But IMO, something like this, if handled correctly, might not run afoul of that. Of course, an Oldbie might have a different idea.
As for the story itself, it's pretty well-written. A few gripes:
"Wake up Corolla and come out, you were right!”
It should be "Wake Corolla up and come out; you were right!" When you are telling someone to wake someone else up, the name goes between the words "wake" and "up." Also, if the two independent clauses are supposed to be said as one sentence, then a semicolon, not a comma, should connect them, hence the semicolon before "you were right!"
The male Agent took his Benelli M4 shotgun from it, and kept rifling through the shelves in search of something else.
You have a misplaced pronoun: What does "it" refer to? Apparently, you meant for the pronoun to stand in place of the Benelli's shelf, so say so:
"The male Agent took his Benelli M4 shotgun from its shelf, and kept rifling through the shelves in search of something else."
“Well, I was keeping it ready as an emergency weapon,” Sergio justified himself, “those tend to be useless without bullets.”
Was he saying one sentence or two? Consider these fixes:
“Well, I was keeping it ready as an emergency weapon,” Sergio justified himself, “and those tend to be useless without bullets.”
“Well, I was keeping it ready as an emergency weapon,” Sergio justified himself. “Those tend to be useless without bullets.”
Keep up the good work, and I, for one, want to see where this story goes.
I don't think this runs afoul of the emergency rule; it's being kept quiet for that selfsame purpose, that is so there won't be widespread chaos (more than the usual for HQ, anyway).
I think that so far, even if its tone is a little more serious than the PPC would bring you to expect, it's got a good atmosphere to it. I also like how we're setting up quite a bit of intrigue right away, both on Sergio's personality and on what's going on around them. And even now, I get the sense they may be related, though I trust that'll be revealed soon enough.
Really, I think that's the strength of this so far. I want to read more about what's going to happen to these characters, and I want to see how this'll pan out. So on that, this is successful.
I also like the subtle ways that you've allowed the SO to have a little more dimension. The Flowers are tricky bastards to write for, and I think you've given the SO new dimension without making it seem OOC for him. So good job on that.
If I had anything to complain about, I'd complain about the embedded background music. I found it did match what was going on, but I don't know, I don't think that BGM really works in a written setting where people can finish reading the music in question before they're done. It's a nice idea, but in practice it can be very distracting when it comes to reading. So going forward with the remainder, I would suggest not using the background music.
But other than that, this is turning out to be pretty damn good so far, so keep up the good work!