Dafydd

This brings back memories of Unreal Tournament moreso than DKC3, especially around the 1-minute mark. Sweet! Also, gratz HoboKa!

I don't know, I was hoping someone would suggest something that I liked better. Something about those three words together rubs me the wrong way, but I'll defer to Polo's judgement. I tried "rescued", but it didn't help. I would like to replace "which allowed" with "allowing" in the next clause, however. Assumed expertise was not one of the reasons I wanted to write the bio. I agree I should have read your sources more carefully before commenting on your bio, though. Honestly, I really don't mind. I am getting a little frustrated about this taking so long, however - not that this is any of your fault. Oh, and, I'd like to ask you not to edit previous posts - when you post a new version, do it in a new post. This makes it easier for us to see what changes have been made and enables us to refer to previous wordings for comparisons and whatnot. There's also this, taken from one of the sources: So, arguably, Proto Man was never completed, at least not by Dr. Light. So saying that Dr. Light "was working" on him doesn't sound wrong, at least not to my ears. But I still take issue with this first sentence - it feels so bait-and-switchy, leaving the reader hanging, but not hooked. Maybe something like "Sometime before Dr. Thomas Light created Mega Man, he was working on a different robot: Proto Man." would do the trick. "Nearing completion" instead of "working" might also work. "A different" still doesn't sound right. How do you feel about "an other"? I must have missed that suggestion of yours - I apologize. I still think it's a little overkill to keep both the quotation marks and "of sorts", however. So, keep the quotation marks, but do away with "of sorts". This is why I love having you on the team, haha. But I don't see a verdict. Which one do you prefer? I still vote on the first of the past tense ones. Also, compare the following... Finally, why is Break Man being Proto Man's alter ego (or the fact he was built by Dr. Light, or that Dr. Cossack was being blackmailed by Dr. Wily in Mega Man 4) not a spoiler? Are we assuming everyone already knows this?

Right. Of course. But it still sounds shoddy in this context. I'll have to think about it some more. I played that game through fairly recently and had no recollection of that. My bad. I'm still not sure it's important enough to mention, however. Besides, it's a borderline spoiler, isn't it?

This is taking forever. I seem to be suffering from some kind of writer's block, so I'm posting this here. - "He was working on a different robot"? - I think we need to put back some of the explanation as to why he fled the lab, although not as specific as it was before. "Reasons he flet were right" sounds bad. - "Was the first creation of Light" would be better as "was Light's first creation". - "Fixed him up" needs to be replaced with something else. - I don't like "got eqipped with". Or "as a result of this". I think "in a state of disrepair and [fixed him up], upgrading his combat systems in the process" or similar would work better. - When is he ever referred to as "Break Man"?- "saved the girl" needs replacing and "of sorts" needs to go. There's also no need for the quotes around "little brother". - "feels" should be "felt". Pretty sure this was mentioned before. - "Almost without fail" is superfluous. - This part is pretty nice.

Just popping in to say I'm not dead. It'll still be a few days before I have a new version. Sorry...

I feel stupid now. Excellent, bio adjusted accordingly. That's another bio down. Thanks for hanging in there, Darklink42.

Hmmm. I just assumed this wasn't available online, since in the original post, it wasn't a link, just plain text. Are there any legal issues involved in linking it? I don't think that's too much, no. But the words "Hyrule Historia" don't actually occur in that label. Should it be "Hyrule Historia: Era of the Hero of Time - Ocarina of Time - The Forbidden Forest"? Sure. It's not like we don't have the space for one more character. I'll wait with editing it again before we've agreed on something though. Thanks. As always, neither I nor Polo ever upload anything to the wiki until the other gives the all-clear, and this thread is where all the magic happens. It might be a day or two before I have something though.

I could say your last few bios got a few pretty big edits too, "so I don't see why it's suddenly a massive issue now, but whatever". Where do you draw the line between what is "your voice", and phrasings that you don't mind us improving on, anyway? Not really. You will still have done nearly all of the work, and you will still be credited as the author. The bio needs to have a few phrases reworded, that's all. Plenty of bios, if not most of them, have needed more work than this. Also, like I said, I have very little issue with the second paragraph, which makes up about half the bio, so it's hardly like none of the time you put into this matters. The ending especially is one I would have never come up with. I won't take the blame for this stress you're talking about. If you're not doing this for the shits and giggles, why are you doing it? I wouldn't be here it I didn't enjoy it. It's not like anyone's forcing me to do anything. Right. That's not how I remember it.

I'm afraid so. Most of the issues I pointed out in my previous post about it are still there. Everything I bolded needs to be rephrased if it hasn't already. Ok. Does that mean we want us to make the edits for you? Thanks, I'll get right on it. EDIT: Done, except... I think I got the rest down, but that one... Do we have a precedent? I left it as Hyrule Historia - Pg. 84 because I didn't know what to do with it.

Sorry, I didn't realize you'd written "the Skull Kid" consistently throughout. That settles that. Thanks!

Dammit, one final gripe. Is it "In The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, the Skull Kid" or "In The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Skull Kid"? Also, Polo, it's been forever since I uploaded anything to the wiki, and I could use the practice, so don't do it for me, but, where does the bolded version of Skull Kid go? It seems a little late in the above quote. And when do we italicize, exactly?

I was considering it, but as Polo said, it feels incomplete. So, all three of us happy now?

Agreed. It gets weird when you say he's lonely when some of his friends left and hadn't been heard from since. Their leaving was more or less instantaneous, but the not being heard from is a long-term thing. Maybe switching the "when" for an "after". And maybe "and didn't come back" rather than "hadn't been heard from since". So, I hope we haven't already had this exact wording in a previous version and are just running this in an endless cycle.

Yeah, I don't know why I said that. I think what I was trying to say, though, was that by "and never returned", it sounds like Skull Kid felt abandoned only after he realizing they weren't going to return, while "never to return" is less definitive in that all it says is that they didn't return. Both are incorrect, however, if they did in fact return. And you're probably right that an altogether different phrase would be a better ending. I didn't really like any of your suggestions (sorry), but I think you're on the right track. Agreed. You're either looking forward to wrapping it up, a masochist, or very, very lonely - all of which is (are?) perfectly normal. I generally like the second paragraph, especially the ending. I don't like the first paragraph, and I've been hesitant to try to explain why until I figured it out, but here it is: sometimes bios have sentences written in a style that doesn't fit with the rest, but in your first paragraph, this happens a on phrase-by-phrase basis in nearly every sentence. I'll mark it down for ya - bolded means daily speech style, italicized means written style, and normal means I don't know: It's not so much the phrases in and of themselves as the contrast in style from one phrase to the next. I'm pretty sure it's a result of trying to reword things to avoid plagiarizing, rather than rewriting it all from scratch. I'm glad you got rid of the more technical details, by the way. Also, "under the alias Break Man, it was put to use". Does "it" refer to Proto Man, or the new battle gear? Also, "only interfering when he feels it is absolutely necessary" should be "felt". But it's also all happening in the future, which makes this complicated...

That's what I was going for, really. Here's what I don't really get about the colon: I thought that, in order for a colon to work, it would also have to work with a period. But "to undertake a quest in Termina. An alternate world closely related to his own" obviously doesn't work, other than possibly in a book title. A comma would work better. So why not a semi-colon? I must have tried to work this out so many times before and I still don't get it.

I didn't know that. Thanks! Imagine if his name was Zersio 4. That's almost Sergio 4. Could be anything. And Italian. Haha, "sorry"? It's not like you owe us anything. That said, you're welcome to chime in anytime: the contributions you've made so far have all been superb, and much appreciated (did I use the colon correctly there?) I see. Well, yeah, you don't want spoilers in the bio, but you might have to write a few here now and then to get me to understand what it is you're trying to avoid revealing. Anyway, I don't see how "abandon" (even without "seemingly") necessarily has to mean you're leaving someone because of that someone rather than external circumstances. M-w gave these examples, among others: The approaching fire forced hundreds of people to abandon their homes. The officer refused to abandon his post. In both these cases, it's a matter of leaving something you'd rather not. So if you want to say that the giants didn't really abandon (as in "forsake") Skull Kid, it's more like they didn't even realize how upset he would be about being abandoned (as in "left behind") than that they didn't do it because of any animosity. Either way, I think "abandoned" would work fine on its own, but if you disagree, I suggest something more ambiguous to get rid of the "seemingly". Would it be too trite to say "never to return"? "And never returned" sounds so definitive, especially since they left one night "and never returned". Unless you're saying they "never returned" that night, in which case, Skull Kid is clearly over-reacting. I think those are my final concerns about this article, and I'd like to get it done soon so we can start hacking away at the other 5 outstanding bios. Not that I'm not having a good time. Just out of curiosity, what difference does changing the colon for a semicolon or a dash in "an alternate world closely related to his own: Termina" do? Which of these punctuation marks is the least and most ambiguous, respectively, with regards to which world is referred to by "Termina"; his own, or the alternate one?

"Deepened" works for me. "Seemingly" does sound rather weak, yeah. Are you saying they didn't actually abandon him? If they never returned, I'd say that's what they did. I've read your sources and I still don't get the whole picture. zircon spells his uncapitalized. So clearly, proper nouns can be in all lower case. (I'm going to be doing this for a few more posts. Sorry)

Missed this earlier: I agree the wording should probably not be identicaly in both bios, but this particular wording makes it sound like Samus is just some random, very unlucky bounty hunter, and like he does this on a daily basis, as casually as brushing his teeth in the morning or watching tv after work. I'll have to think of something else. Seriously, there are capitalized chemical elements? ... you guys should just do what the Germans do and capitalize every noun ever. Now I'll have to look them all up every time I hear one I haven't heard before. And the verbs! Oh, the humanity... However, "according to IUPAC, chemical elements are not proper nouns in English; consequently, the full name of an element is not routinely capitalized in English, even if derived from a proper noun, as in californium and einsteinium." Well, that's 5 bucks down the drain. I'd make a fine Australian, though, coming up with a word like that all on my own. How about "abandoned him" instead of "departed"? Also, I can't seem to think of the appropriate word now, but, rather than "enhancing", something like "feeding on" or similar, the same expression used when saying that, say, the nazis (Nazis?) were feeding on the poverty, dissent and high unemployment in Germany when they rose to power (assuming they did - I'm just making stuff up right now). I'm not sure "feeding on" is really what I'm looking for, but I think it would work better than "enhance" because it sounds so positive to my ears, when what you're really saying is something negative. Not that feeding is a bad thing... EDIT: Then again, saying the mask is feeding on his anger doesn't mean it's making him more angry. Or less. And maybe the mask isn't feeding on anything. I just thought it sounded dark and nice. And maybe "enhance" isn't a positive word at all. How about "amplify", then? Amen to that! Noooo! I made that word up, I get to decide it's not capitalized!

Fascinating. Does this apply to brand names only? I mean, say I discover a new species of birds and decide to name it "oobalabooba" (5 bucks says there's already an Australian bird named just that) - you wouldn't write that with a capital O. And I'd be surprised if "telephone" wasn't a brand or product name as some point, but I've never seen that written with a capital T mid-sentence. Is there a given timeframe for how long capitalization is still valid, or is it just a matter of how long people care to bother? EDIT: ARGHH DOUBLE POST. Sorry.

Subtly subtly I must have missed this before - what friends? Back when he got lost in the woods?

If we were an encyclopedia, I'd completely agree, but we're not. I don't think a bio should rely on another. It's very nice that we can link to other bios for those who are interested, but if our purpose is to introduce characters to the uninitiated, I don't think we should expect them to click on words to find out what they are. Adding "the protagonist" is a small change to make to avoid this. Nothing to add I don't think it sounds forced in, but what I meant by what I said earlier wasn't that you should explain that Pikachu refers to both singular and plural (which is self-evident, really, reading the bio), but that it refers to both one specific, individual Pikachu, named Pikachu (which I believe to be the one used as a mascot for the series) and the species as a whole. This is more aimed towards Polo, really, but, compare with "the dog", for example, which may refer to any one specific dog, or the species as a whole, i.e. all dogs, unlike "Dog" which refers to a dog named Dog. Why is Pikachu written with a capital P when referring to unspecific individuals? You wouldn't write "a Dog". The same thing goes with Pokémon, also. Capitalized, it's the name of the series, but when speaking of the eponymous creatures, it shouldn't be capitalized, unless the trademark holders have some way of overriding normal writing rules. I would think. For a verb example, do you Google stuff, or do you google stuff? Can verbs even be capitalized? If not, can a noun be capitalized if not a proper name or a proper noun? Where's an English major when you need one? As Polo mentioned earlier, don't address the reader as if you're writing a manual. This is the only place you do this in the bio, so it's an easy fix. Overall, the bio is a little on the long side. Things like how they overcook berries are fun little facts that add personality, but remember who you're writing for. On the other hand, maybe reducing the number of paragraphs would make this feel more succinct. Also, "stickers". Are skull kids "monsters of the forest"? Just making sure you're saying what you mean to say. We now have 6 bios in progress, and this is getting hard to organize. I'm putting a block on any more claims until they are all finished.

Nope, not that I can recall. And if anyone did, it's about time someone reminded us. Thanks! Since you wrote the article, Polo, will you make the appropriate corrections? You can search threads near the bottom of the page, you know

By waiting until the second sentence quoted to refer to Termina by name, it sounds as if Termina is yet another alternate world, and not the same as the one you mentioned in the first one. Also, yeah, definitely "pull the moon down" (or even "pull down the moon", though I prefer the former) rather than just "pull the moon".

Nice! I especially like the bassline. Really lacking highs here though, there's no treble at all.

Those were some funny clips I think "wild" would work, yeah, but that looks pretty vivid to me, also. "Focus" was the wrong word there, sorry. What I meant was it's written from a perspective that puts Link in the foreground. Maybe that's how it should be, but I'm not sure. I just read the bios I wrote for Ridley and Kraid looking for a precedent, and while I think it's awkward to mention Samus as if she was already known to the reader, a simple fix in those bios might be to replace "Samus" with "Samus, the protagonist," or "the protagonist, Samus", but regardless, I think those mascots get to stand on their own foot in a way that Skull Kid does not. It makes sense to let Skull Kid's bio refer to Link several times, because we know very little about him other than through his interactions with Link, but in its current state the bio introduces him as a character that Link interacts with rather than an independent being that lives in the same universe. Again, I'm not sure which is correct, but I'd like your input on this.