Beta notes on "2 Minutes to Midnight" by MagsAndX5ever (XMFC injoke fic)
Following on from these awesome ficlets by Aesc. Magneto is a fanboy of the Magical X-Men comic and cartoon series, especially the lead character, Professor X. He writes fan fiction under the name MagsAndX5ever.
This is the tale of the first time Magneto had a story betaed.
Also on AO3, where the formatting is a bit better. I'd recommend reading it there.
-
I'll be making my beta notes in this color so you can pick them out easily! Thanks for inviting me to look this over, you know I've loved your other stories. My first note is: you label your stories as "Professor X/OMC". But isn't Magneto a real person? I think he might even have an AO3 tag from some Real Person Fiction that people have written for Yuletide.
So I think you could go ahead and label it "Professor X/Magneto" if you're writing about the real guy. But then you need to label it "RPF" and some people won't read that because they're squicked by reading about real people. This is one of the reasons I've been suggesting that you change your OC to Metallic Man.
Okay, here we go...
2 Minutes To Midnight
I think it's standard to spell out the "two" in a title.
It's the title of an Iron Maiden song. I'm not changing it.
by MagsAndX5ever
As the night wore on toward midnight, something in the darkness... hungered.
Nice opening! Sets up the intrigue fast.
Nearby, the mighty Magneto made his way through the deep of night. Movement to the left alerted his honed senses, and he whirled to confront the challenge. "Am I attacked?" he bellowed. "Show yourself!"
This makes Magneto seem a little... high-strung.
He's vigilant. I'm not changing it.
Drawing nearer, he discovered it was only a discarded full-length mirror, undoubtedly thrown away due to a spiderweb of broken glass near the knee. The mirror showed a tall, broad-shouldered man in a uniform, the sweep of his cape obscuring his silhouette to enhance any foe's perception of danger. A helmet protected his head and face, revealing little but his eyes, glinting now from steel grey to green, as they tended to change with his moods.
I hate to say it, because I like this description a lot, but this kind of thing is why people have been calling Magneto a Marty Stu. One of the things you reasons you asked for beta notes was figuring out why they keep saying that about your OC, and this is it. A lot of Sues/Stus have eyes that change colors with their moods, or eyes that are otherwise special and unique somehow. I'm not saying Magneto is really a Stu! I'm just saying that when you label a character an OC, and pair them with the main character, readers make assumptions based on things they've read before. But I bet nobody would even say boo about this if it was Metallic Man.
I'm very aware of the human susceptibility to prejudice.
I'm not changing this description to cater to morons, though.
Turning from the abandoned mirror, Magneto cocked his head, sensing something awry. His misgivings were borne out when, moments later, an English-accented voice shouted, "Back! Get back! Someone help me!"
Right into the action! That's great!
Within moments, Magneto arrived on the scene and charged in without hesitation. While humans uselessly screamed and ran in circles, a young man was using a length of pipe to ward off an enormous grayish-green creature, with tentacle-like limbs and dozens of faceted eyes. The young man took one hand off his weapon to touch his brow, flinching as his mutant power foundered in the face of the beast, which lashed out a tentacle and struck the pipe from his hand, leaving him helpless.
Wasting no time, Magneto lunged in front of the other man and used his magnetic power to transform the pipe in the creature's limb to a blade that flashed through the air. Gore and ichor flew everywhere as Magneto turned the creature into living sushi. A gobbet of fluid from the beast struck one of the remaining panicking humans, who fell over in a dead faint wetting himself in terror.
JSYK, this description is automatically going to up your rating if you're posting to FF.net.
I don't want children reading my stories anyway.
In moments, Magneto had decapitated the beast; he widened the blade into a platter to hold the head, placing it neatly next to the body.
If you do take my advice and change Magneto to Metallic Man, he could just turn the alien into metal, which would take out the violent blood stuff and give you a lower rating, too.
The last of the shrieking humans fled the scene.
Except the unconscious one!
I wrote that the last of the shrieking humans fled the scene. Obviously the unconscious one isn't shrieking.
Okay, fair enough! But I think you should mention the unconscious human again-- I wondered what happened to the guy. Also it seems a little out of character for the Professor not to notice that someone fainted and go help.
The whole point of the story is that Professor X realizes he doesn't have to care if some human falls over wetting himself... in fact, I'm adding that in.
Gross. But that does make it clearer that the "gobbet of fluid" didn't do anything but scare the guy who fainted. And I guess the Professor could know telepathically that the guy was just scared, not hurt. You could still stand to add that in, though.
No.
Magneto turned to the other man.
"I owe you a debt, my friend," said the man. "That alien beast was quite immune to my telepathy. But allow me to introduce myself." He extended a hand. "Professor X."
You described Magneto when he first showed up, but you don't describe Professor X! I realize readers of a Magical X-Men story all know what the Professor looks like, but it's still fun to see him through other character's eyes. What does Magneto particularly notice about Professor X?
I'll think about it.
"I know who you are," said Magneto, with more pity than scorn. "Professor X. We meet at last. I am Magneto. What do you think of your precious humans now?"
"Magneto!" exclaimed the professor. "I've read your polemics on the internet.
This is another moment where I need to know if your Magneto is the real person or not in order to concrit. If he's an OC who just happens to have the same name and powers, then okay, but the real guy posts his rants to our internet, and in Magical X-Men they don't use the internet, they use "the Wired" and it runs on magic, not electricity. So the professor wouldn't have seen the real Magneto's work unless you explain that somehow.
Just because they don't talk about using the Mundane internet on the show doesn't mean they never would. The Professor in particular is a curious scientist and he would check it out. It doesn't need an explanation. It's obvious.
I respected your eloquence but I never agreed with you, then." He looked around sadly. "I always thought that an outside threat like this alien would unite humans and mutants. But now... it seems I must reconsider everything I thought I believed."
Professor X changes his mind really fast here. Also it would help if you made it clear this story is set before the fourth episode of the second season, "Chimera Strikes"-- when the Professor was fighting a monster in that episode and a human abandoned him to fight alone, the whole point turned out to be that you couldn't judge a whole group by one person, and you couldn't judge a person by one incident.
Worst episode ever.
"It's not that you need to reconsider, but that you need to admit the truth to yourself," Magneto said sternly. "You know humans are not our equals. For that, we can only look to each other."
The professor gazed at Magneto. "I must admit," he said softly, "I like what I see."
Again, this seems really fast? I know it's fanon that the professor is flirty, but that's really only based on a couple of scenes and not everyone characterizes him that way.
They have chemistry. I'm not changing it.
As Magneto grinned, Professor X added, "You have a remarkable smile."
"I've been told it's a little frightening."
"That's just what I like about it."
Here's another moment that would make some readers label Magneto as a Marty Stu. The Professor is instantly attracted to him and compliments him. Magneto hasn't even shown any outward interest in the professor. I know you don't like shy, blushing Professor X and that's fine, that's just as much fanon as leather pants Professor X. But this is the kind of thing that gets you comments complaining that these aren't Magical X-Men stories, they're Magneto stories where the Magical X-Men characters show up to fawn over Magneto and make him seem cooler. No one would have complaints like that if the character were Metallic Man.
The two men looked into each other's eyes for minutes on end. At last the professor broke the stalemate, inclining his head with a chuckle.
I don't get what's funny...?
Elsewhere in the city, the same bellowing roar that had emitted from the beast Magneto had slain filled the air.
"Another one!" said the professor. "It might be a full-scale invasion. We have to confront this new one and stop it as well."
"You'd risk your life for unworthy humans?"
"It's our planet too, we must guard it. As well, some of young people who seem human now are only mutants yet to manifest," Professor X pointed out. "And after all, a shepherd must look after his sheep."
That was more like it. "Then lead on, Shepherd X," said Magneto.
Laughing, the Professor nodded, stepping over the sole remaining unconscious human without a second look.
Even if the Professor has changed his mind about humans, this seems awfully heartless for him!
It shows how he's grown. I'm not changing it.
He and Magneto set off to confront the threat, the smaller man protected in the shelter of Magneto's cape; side by side, protecting each other, where they belonged.
Great story! I hope my notes were helpful. I really do think a lot of the comments that annoy you would go away and you'd have a lot more readers if you made Magneto into Metallic Man. And you know, some people think Metallic Man might be based on Magneto anyway, so if you think of it that way, you'd still be writing Magneto, just fictionalized a little.
I'll think about it.
***
R&r if you want to see more!
Some readers will be turned off by a R&R request at the end.
Then to hell with them.
http://cesare.dreamwidth.org/162280.html |
comments | Comment at Dreamwidth
This is the tale of the first time Magneto had a story betaed.
Also on AO3, where the formatting is a bit better. I'd recommend reading it there.
-
I'll be making my beta notes in this color so you can pick them out easily! Thanks for inviting me to look this over, you know I've loved your other stories. My first note is: you label your stories as "Professor X/OMC". But isn't Magneto a real person? I think he might even have an AO3 tag from some Real Person Fiction that people have written for Yuletide.
So I think you could go ahead and label it "Professor X/Magneto" if you're writing about the real guy. But then you need to label it "RPF" and some people won't read that because they're squicked by reading about real people. This is one of the reasons I've been suggesting that you change your OC to Metallic Man.
Okay, here we go...
2 Minutes To Midnight
I think it's standard to spell out the "two" in a title.
It's the title of an Iron Maiden song. I'm not changing it.
by MagsAndX5ever
As the night wore on toward midnight, something in the darkness... hungered.
Nice opening! Sets up the intrigue fast.
Nearby, the mighty Magneto made his way through the deep of night. Movement to the left alerted his honed senses, and he whirled to confront the challenge. "Am I attacked?" he bellowed. "Show yourself!"
This makes Magneto seem a little... high-strung.
He's vigilant. I'm not changing it.
Drawing nearer, he discovered it was only a discarded full-length mirror, undoubtedly thrown away due to a spiderweb of broken glass near the knee. The mirror showed a tall, broad-shouldered man in a uniform, the sweep of his cape obscuring his silhouette to enhance any foe's perception of danger. A helmet protected his head and face, revealing little but his eyes, glinting now from steel grey to green, as they tended to change with his moods.
I hate to say it, because I like this description a lot, but this kind of thing is why people have been calling Magneto a Marty Stu. One of the things you reasons you asked for beta notes was figuring out why they keep saying that about your OC, and this is it. A lot of Sues/Stus have eyes that change colors with their moods, or eyes that are otherwise special and unique somehow. I'm not saying Magneto is really a Stu! I'm just saying that when you label a character an OC, and pair them with the main character, readers make assumptions based on things they've read before. But I bet nobody would even say boo about this if it was Metallic Man.
I'm very aware of the human susceptibility to prejudice.
I'm not changing this description to cater to morons, though.
Turning from the abandoned mirror, Magneto cocked his head, sensing something awry. His misgivings were borne out when, moments later, an English-accented voice shouted, "Back! Get back! Someone help me!"
Right into the action! That's great!
Within moments, Magneto arrived on the scene and charged in without hesitation. While humans uselessly screamed and ran in circles, a young man was using a length of pipe to ward off an enormous grayish-green creature, with tentacle-like limbs and dozens of faceted eyes. The young man took one hand off his weapon to touch his brow, flinching as his mutant power foundered in the face of the beast, which lashed out a tentacle and struck the pipe from his hand, leaving him helpless.
Wasting no time, Magneto lunged in front of the other man and used his magnetic power to transform the pipe in the creature's limb to a blade that flashed through the air. Gore and ichor flew everywhere as Magneto turned the creature into living sushi. A gobbet of fluid from the beast struck one of the remaining panicking humans, who fell over in a dead faint wetting himself in terror.
JSYK, this description is automatically going to up your rating if you're posting to FF.net.
I don't want children reading my stories anyway.
In moments, Magneto had decapitated the beast; he widened the blade into a platter to hold the head, placing it neatly next to the body.
If you do take my advice and change Magneto to Metallic Man, he could just turn the alien into metal, which would take out the violent blood stuff and give you a lower rating, too.
The last of the shrieking humans fled the scene.
Except the unconscious one!
I wrote that the last of the shrieking humans fled the scene. Obviously the unconscious one isn't shrieking.
Okay, fair enough! But I think you should mention the unconscious human again-- I wondered what happened to the guy. Also it seems a little out of character for the Professor not to notice that someone fainted and go help.
The whole point of the story is that Professor X realizes he doesn't have to care if some human falls over wetting himself... in fact, I'm adding that in.
Gross. But that does make it clearer that the "gobbet of fluid" didn't do anything but scare the guy who fainted. And I guess the Professor could know telepathically that the guy was just scared, not hurt. You could still stand to add that in, though.
No.
Magneto turned to the other man.
"I owe you a debt, my friend," said the man. "That alien beast was quite immune to my telepathy. But allow me to introduce myself." He extended a hand. "Professor X."
You described Magneto when he first showed up, but you don't describe Professor X! I realize readers of a Magical X-Men story all know what the Professor looks like, but it's still fun to see him through other character's eyes. What does Magneto particularly notice about Professor X?
I'll think about it.
"I know who you are," said Magneto, with more pity than scorn. "Professor X. We meet at last. I am Magneto. What do you think of your precious humans now?"
"Magneto!" exclaimed the professor. "I've read your polemics on the internet.
This is another moment where I need to know if your Magneto is the real person or not in order to concrit. If he's an OC who just happens to have the same name and powers, then okay, but the real guy posts his rants to our internet, and in Magical X-Men they don't use the internet, they use "the Wired" and it runs on magic, not electricity. So the professor wouldn't have seen the real Magneto's work unless you explain that somehow.
Just because they don't talk about using the Mundane internet on the show doesn't mean they never would. The Professor in particular is a curious scientist and he would check it out. It doesn't need an explanation. It's obvious.
I respected your eloquence but I never agreed with you, then." He looked around sadly. "I always thought that an outside threat like this alien would unite humans and mutants. But now... it seems I must reconsider everything I thought I believed."
Professor X changes his mind really fast here. Also it would help if you made it clear this story is set before the fourth episode of the second season, "Chimera Strikes"-- when the Professor was fighting a monster in that episode and a human abandoned him to fight alone, the whole point turned out to be that you couldn't judge a whole group by one person, and you couldn't judge a person by one incident.
Worst episode ever.
"It's not that you need to reconsider, but that you need to admit the truth to yourself," Magneto said sternly. "You know humans are not our equals. For that, we can only look to each other."
The professor gazed at Magneto. "I must admit," he said softly, "I like what I see."
Again, this seems really fast? I know it's fanon that the professor is flirty, but that's really only based on a couple of scenes and not everyone characterizes him that way.
They have chemistry. I'm not changing it.
As Magneto grinned, Professor X added, "You have a remarkable smile."
"I've been told it's a little frightening."
"That's just what I like about it."
Here's another moment that would make some readers label Magneto as a Marty Stu. The Professor is instantly attracted to him and compliments him. Magneto hasn't even shown any outward interest in the professor. I know you don't like shy, blushing Professor X and that's fine, that's just as much fanon as leather pants Professor X. But this is the kind of thing that gets you comments complaining that these aren't Magical X-Men stories, they're Magneto stories where the Magical X-Men characters show up to fawn over Magneto and make him seem cooler. No one would have complaints like that if the character were Metallic Man.
The two men looked into each other's eyes for minutes on end. At last the professor broke the stalemate, inclining his head with a chuckle.
I don't get what's funny...?
Elsewhere in the city, the same bellowing roar that had emitted from the beast Magneto had slain filled the air.
"Another one!" said the professor. "It might be a full-scale invasion. We have to confront this new one and stop it as well."
"You'd risk your life for unworthy humans?"
"It's our planet too, we must guard it. As well, some of young people who seem human now are only mutants yet to manifest," Professor X pointed out. "And after all, a shepherd must look after his sheep."
That was more like it. "Then lead on, Shepherd X," said Magneto.
Laughing, the Professor nodded, stepping over the sole remaining unconscious human without a second look.
Even if the Professor has changed his mind about humans, this seems awfully heartless for him!
It shows how he's grown. I'm not changing it.
He and Magneto set off to confront the threat, the smaller man protected in the shelter of Magneto's cape; side by side, protecting each other, where they belonged.
Great story! I hope my notes were helpful. I really do think a lot of the comments that annoy you would go away and you'd have a lot more readers if you made Magneto into Metallic Man. And you know, some people think Metallic Man might be based on Magneto anyway, so if you think of it that way, you'd still be writing Magneto, just fictionalized a little.
I'll think about it.
***
R&r if you want to see more!
Some readers will be turned off by a R&R request at the end.
Then to hell with them.
http://cesare.dreamwidth.org/162280.html |
comments | Comment at Dreamwidth