Dafydd
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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"?Sometime before Dr. Thomas Light created Mega Man, there was a different robot he worked on.
- 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.This robot, Proto Man, was the first creation of Light, although it wasn't long after completion that Proto Man fled the lab for reasons he felt were right.- "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.After some time, the evil Dr. Albert Wily found him in a state of disrepair and fixed him up.
- 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.As a result of this, Proto Man got equipped with new battle gear.
- When is he ever referred to as "Break Man"?Under the alias Break Man, he put these new weapons to use in an attempt to stop Mega Man in Mega Man 3. Despite these initial confrontations, he stopped helping Dr. Wily out in Mega Man 4, when Wily kidnapped a young girl to blackmail her father. Proto Man saved the girl, which allowed his "little brother" of sorts to stop Wily.- "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.After that, Proto Man took a neutral approach to the conflicts started by the bat-haired maniac, only interfering when he feels it is absolutely necessary.
- "Almost without fail" is superfluous.Proto Man is often seen wearing his trademark black shades and a slick yellow scarf, and he almost always hides his brown hair under his helmet. He also is known to whistle to announce his arrival before he shows up, almost without fail.
- This part is pretty nice.He prefers more mysterious clothing while dressing casually, such as trenchcoats and slacks. These facets of his character work collectively to uphold the aura of coolness he continually projects. He feels conflicted in regards to the ongoing war between Dr. Light and Dr. Wily; one is to thank for giving him life and the other is responsible for saving it, yet the two are constantly at odds with each other. Proto Man enjoys his life of solitude, and consequently seldom keeps in contact with those concerned about him. But no matter what happens, he always looks out for Mega Man; after all, isn't that his duty as the older brother? -
Just popping in to say I'm not dead. It'll still be a few days before I have a new version. Sorry...
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Yeah, I left out "Hyrule Historia" because I figured it was a given.
I feel stupid now.
The full label would look like:Hyrule Historia - "Era of the Hero of Time - Ocarina of Time - The Forbidden Forest"
I guess if we go with this, the page number won't matter, since there'd be no mistaking of this full label/section for any other part of the guide.
Excellent, bio adjusted accordingly. That's another bio down. Thanks for hanging in there, Darklink42.
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Some other bios reference article names in magazines and player's guides, which I think is fine. Darklink42 used only one page
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?
to credit the section it's in would require the full label "Era of the Hero of Time - Ocarina of Time - The Forbidden Forest" (I think). Is that too much?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"?
Do you suppose maybe writing out "Pg." as "Page" would be more fitting?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.
Also, I added another source Darklink42 used (the race of Skull Kids on Zeldapedia).Thanks.
Just lemme see what it looks like first, that's all I ask.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.
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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?I never had an issue with using my voice in the previous bios I've written, so I don't see why it's suddenly a massive issue now, but whatever.Edit it if you must, but then it'll be as if you wrote it as you had originally planned.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.
And then what point was there for me to go through all the stress I went through writing those first two versionsI 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.
butcherRight.
screamsThat's not how I remember it.
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Proto Man's bio looks fairly workable to me. You have any nitpicks you want to get out of your system, my fellow editor?
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.
also i like to write things with my own style which tends to switch between written and speech (it's also how I tend to talk). all writers tend to have their own voice when they find it that makes their writing unique, and this is mine. i can't really change those phrases without killing my own voice, and for reasons i'd hope are obvious i can't exactly do that.Ok. Does that mean we want us to make the edits for you?
Stuff about formattingThanks, I'll get right on it.
EDIT: Done, except...
Hyrule Historia (the name of the official Zelda.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.
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Sorry, I didn't realize you'd written "the Skull Kid" consistently throughout. That settles that. Thanks!
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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?
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I was considering it, but as Polo said, it feels incomplete.Does it hurt anything particularly if we simply leave the sentence to end at "...abandoned him one night?" If it doesn't work, your suggestion works for me.So, all three of us happy now?
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She believes that the mask completely possessed the forest imp, deepening the anger and loneliness he felt when some of his closest friends abandoned him one night for unknown reasons and hadn't been heard from since.
Agreed.For now, all I can think of to make this more workable would be to cut "for unknown reasons."
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,The other part, "and hadn't been heard from since," gives the Skull Kid a reason to be distressed over his friends' non-communication and sets up the (true) possibility of them returning. Or did you have something else in mind, Daf?deepening the anger and loneliness he felt after some of his closest friends abandoned him one night and didn't come back.I hope we haven't already had this exact wording in a previous version and are just running this in an endless cycle.
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"Never to return" sounds just as definitive as "and never returned" to me.
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.
I say keep your original wording.Agreed.
Last sentence has been changed once more. Is it odd that I look forward to reading your guys' thoughts and edits on these?You're either looking forward to wrapping it up, a masochist, or very, very lonely - all of which is (are?) perfectly normal.
After a brief delay, Mk. III of the Blues Bio is done (named as such purely for the alliteration).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:
Sometime before Dr. Thomas Light created Mega Man, there was a different robot he worked on. This robot, Proto Man, was to be the first creation of Light, although it wasn't long after his creation that Proto Man fled the lab for reasons he felt were right. At some point after his departure, the evil Dr. Albert Wily found him in a state of disrepair and fixed him up. As a result of this, he got equipped with new battle gear. Under the alias Break Man, it was put to use in an attempt to stop Mega Man in Mega Man 3. Despite the initial confrontations, he stopped helping Dr. Wily out in Mega Man 4, when Wily kidnapped a young girl to blackmail her father. Proto Man saved the girl which allowed his "little brother" of sorts to stop Wily. From here on out, Proto Man took a neutral approach to the continuous conflicts, only interfering when he feels it is absolutely necessary.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...
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That's what I was going for, really.I'm just going off of memory here though.-"force Link to undertake a quest in Termina: an alternate world closely related to his (their?) own" Maybe?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.
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I didn't know that. Thanks! Imagine if his name was Zersio 4. That's almost Sergio 4. Could be anything. And Italian.But zircon's not an element like me, it's the compound ZrSiO4.
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?)Yeah, sorry I've not been contributing to this thread, just reading along, learning what I can, and mostly thinking "looks good" about whatever I see.Eventually, Link finds out that the giants left because they had a duty to fulfill, not because they were angry with the Skull Kid. But that's nothing something that's really found out fully until the end of the game when the four giants are all awoken and called forth. In the mean time the Skull Kid was convinced it was because they were angry with him, and had left him behind to be lonely and miserable.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".
and never returnedWould 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?
- The approaching fire forced hundreds of people to abandon their homes.
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Moved up and edited once more. I like "abandoned", but I added "seemingly" since the truth is ambiguous (to someone who hasn't played through.) Does that weaken the sentence though? Also changed "enhanced" to "deepened". Thoughts?
"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."Unununium" is a proper noun since it's my name.
(I'm going to be doing this for a few more posts. Sorry)
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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."grips bounty hunter Samus Aran in his claws..."EinsteiniumSeriously, 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.Congratulations, this thread is the only place your word appears.
enhancing the anger and loneliness he felt when some of his closest friends departed one night and never returned.Edits have been made above. I went with "closest friends" and added some specificity about their exit as well, since "departed" by itself didn't sound right.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!I love working in this thread, I always get to learn new things about the English language.I'm also going to give some serious thought about how to incorporate Oobalabooba into a conversation.Noooo! I made that word up, I get to decide it's not capitalized!
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And about capitals - yes Dafydd, Pikachu (capital P) refers to both the ones found in the wild and the one officially named that in the anime; creatures are also called Pokémon with a capital P like the series; and you Google stuff when you use that specific search engine. It's just the concensus; lowercasing those words feels unnatural to most.
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.
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it subtly takes control of the Skull Kid, subtly influencing his personality
Subtly subtly
She believes that the mask completely possessed the forest imp, enhancing the anger and loneliness he felt when his friends departed and never returned.I must have missed this before - what friends? Back when he got lost in the woods?
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(And personally, I don't think you need to add "the protagonist" when referring to Samus in Kraid and Ridley's bios, since they both link to her bio, and that one talks about her role as the protagonist of the Metroid series. That should work.)
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.
Any other comments or concerns welcome.Nothing to add
Pikachu is a small yellow rodent-like animal from the series Pokémon. [...]Pikachu, referring to both individuals and groups, are quick and agile, overcoming their low physical strength and endurance. [...]
The only part I don't really like is where I put in the bit in the second paragraph explaining how the name refers to both singular and plural. I know it explains it, but it also feels kind of forced in.
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?
Lastly, one should never grab a Pikachu by its tail. They will quickly turn around and bite you.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".
Unlike other monsters of the forest, skull kids don’t appear to be evilAre 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.
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Regarding the whole reporting any inaccurate information thing, I just wanna check if anyone's brought up the Spider-Man article
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?
Sorry if it's been brought up before, there were like a hundred pages to control+F through and I only have access to this computer for a few more minutes.You can search threads near the bottom of the page, you know
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What began with a chance musical jam, however, would later force Link to undertake a quest in an alternate world closely related to his own. [...} which he uses to pull the moon from the sky in order to destroy the alternate world of Termina.
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".
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Nice! I especially like the bassline. Really lacking highs here though, there's no treble at all.
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Dafydd - Re the "flexible" imagination bit, I'm thinking maybe "wild" or "trippy" would work better.
Those were some funny clips
I think "wild" would work, yeah, but that looks pretty vivid to me, also.Skull Kid:- Re Dafydd's thoughts, I actually don't think Link is given too much attention here, but I do agree that the last sentence draws focus away from the Skull Kid.
"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.
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Upon further reflection I might pick it back up... I've been thinking about how to word it this time, one that isn't as unintentionally close to the source.
If you take our advice and rewrite the bio to be less dependent on previous knowledge of the Mega Man universe, I think you will automatically have to write something that differs significantly enough from your sources. Naturally, any mention of Mega Man, Dr. Wily or other mascots would link to their respective bios, but don't make your Proto Man bio rely on them being there. Good luck!
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Thanks for the Proto Man source comparison, guys - I have to admit I've been lazy with that sort of thing.
@Mirby, in addition to what DarkLink42 just told you,
plus i already did 2 bios for the recent batch of additions; don't want to take too many, ya know?There's nothing wrong about writing many bios in a short period of time, as long as you keep cranking out quality stuff (and if it's not good enough, we help you get there). No 14-day wait between submissions in this project
"Flexible" in this case was my way of saying "vivid" (would you rather I said that to be clear? or is "vivid imagination" too trite?).Maybe it is too trite, but I'll let you decide
I'd be interested in hearing other suggestions though. It's not an expression I use very often, and I don't really know another word that could replace "vivid", or what you're really trying to say in the first place. I understand having "vivid imagination" as being able to really put yourself in an imagined situation, really picturing that chair over there as a fire-breathing dragon; hallucinating at will, so to speak. I don't think having "flexible imagination" would mean the same thing at all (my first interpretation was "bi-curious sexual fantasies", but it didn't take me very long to dismiss it as incorrect), but regardless, I think I need an example to even know what you mean by it. Doesn't mean the bio has to be changed.
I'd say "one of which, Sunny Funny, is the flower of his affections" both introduces Sunny Funny and the fact she's the flower of his affections, while as your previous wording suggests that the character Sunny Funny, but not the fact she's one of Parappa's anthropomorphic friends, is already known to the reader. Well, enough patting myself on the back...Technically, both Sunny Funny wordings do mean the same thing. But your version makes a more solid connection, whereas I introduced her name as an afterthought.Although he is the main antagonist of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask,Scratch "he is". Verb-less clauses are fun.
of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, the Skull Kid made his debut in the prequel, Ocarina of Time.From Wikipedia: "A prequel is a literary, dramatic, or filmic work whose story precedes that of a previous work". So for OoT to be a prequel of MM, OoT would have had to be released after MM, which is not the case. Since Link is a child in MM, though, and since OoT ends with Link an adolescent or even adult, with any logic MM should really be the prequel of OoT (assuming, which I am, that Link is the same incarnation in both games). Confused yet? I know I am.
Whatever the case may be, it’s up to Link to navigate Termina and the nuances of time in order to set things right.I think you're focusing too much on Link throughout, but ending the bio like this really makes Skull Kid feel like a supporting character in his own bio.
I don't really feel like doing Marth anymore, someone else can take it.Sorry to see you leave, but glad you took the time to let us know. Thank you!
OCR Mascot Bios - 20 more up for grabs!
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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?