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Fifteen Rules of Engagement: A Cadet's Guide
FIFTEEN RULES OF ENGAGEMENT: A CADET'S GUIDE
[Written and edited by Force Captain Scorpia]
[Written and edited by Force Captain Scorpia]
Introduction:
With this pamphlet you'll be able to not only help win the war against the treacherous Rebellion, but also survive the equally important war at home! Catra is a super-important member of the Horde (the second-in-command!), and as a cadet you will be interacting with her on pretty much a daily basis.
Catra is the most awesome person in the world, but she can be testy at times. As such, abiding the following rules of engagement will greatly improve your chances at both being a productive cadet and knowing proper etiquette!
Abiding these rules might even save your life one day!
Nah, just kidding.
Mostly.
Rules:
1. Do not greet Catra in a way that seems too nice or friendly or well-meaning. Do not greet her with "Hello!" or "Hey!" or "Hi!" or "Howdy!" or several other words that begin with the letter "H." Do not, under any circumstances, ask her about the weather or other common topics of small talk. In fact, try to dodge small talk by any means necessary, however tempting it may be.
2. Do not greet Catra unless greeted first. If greeted first, respond with the utmost composure and apparent disinterest. Catra will give you a mean look if you sound too happy or conversational.
3. Do not converse with Catra unless it is a verified emergency between 0000 and 1200 hours.
4. Do not converse with Catra unless it is a verified emergency between 1200 and 0000 hours.
5. When conversing with Catra, do not bring up the word "Adora." She definitely doesn't like it when anyone says that word. In fact, just to play it safe, refrain from saying similar-sounding words when in Catra's presence, such as "adorable" and "admire." That second one doesn't sound much like "Adora," but you can never be too cautious!
6. Do not say the word "Adora" when around Catra. Sorry, just a reminder.
7. No, seriously, don't do it.
8. Do not try to act like Catra is your friend, or pal, or chum, or buddy, or comrade, etc. She is your commanding officer and you will respect her!
9. Never refer to Catra by name alone; only best buddies get to call her by just her name. Instead, you should precede her name with "second-in-command," or, if you want to keep things short, use "captain." While the rank of captain does not technically apply to Catra, she has gone on record as liking the title. It's like being the captain of a pirate ship, or something. Isn't that cool?
10. Make extra-sure to not disturb Catra when she has retired for the night, or the morning, or the afternoon. Catra is the second-in-command of Lord Hordak's army, and she needs her beauty sleep. She needs her beauty sleep so much, actually, that she requires between ten and fourteen hours a day.
11. Sometimes, Catra will sit by herself and appear to be awake, when she is actually taking a cat... nap.
12. I'm sorry, I couldn't resist that one!
13. In the event that Catra is taking a nap, do your absolute best to not interfere. She may appear like a corpse, or someone who passed out after drinking too much mead, or one of those creepy mannequin doll things, but just leave her be. In due time she will be back to her normal self and everything will be mostly right with the world.
14. Did you know Catra purrs when she's happy?
15. Finally, do not repeat any of these rules to Catra herself; she'd get mad at me if she found out.
Conclusion:
Keep this pamphlet on your person as often as you can, or, if you don't feel like it, at least keep it in a place where you're sure not to misplace it. Trust me, I lose stuff all the time; it's pretty annoying. For example, one day I was having a bagel for lunch, right? With real toasted bread and butter, so you know it was the good stuff. Anyway, I had split my bagel in half, as you sometimes do when eating a bagel, and I had eaten one half when I had to leave for a second to talk to a fellow officer. When I came back, the other half was gone! Somebody must've stolen it.
Which one of you stole my bagel?
Anyway...
Now you know, and knowing is half the battle!
this was an incredibly creative fic with how you decided to format it, and i salute you for that! not only did you nail scorpia's personality in your writing, but you also managed to bring out catra's: the way scorpia perceives her, that is.
i would have loved to read more of this, not because i think the word limit, well, limited how much you could write (it's perfectly well-rounded and doesn't actually need more to it), but because i personally enjoyed it too much to want to leave it at that :) i wonder what catra would do if she discovered the pamphlet after all?
i would have loved to read more of this, not because i think the word limit, well, limited how much you could write (it's perfectly well-rounded and doesn't actually need more to it), but because i personally enjoyed it too much to want to leave it at that :) i wonder what catra would do if she discovered the pamphlet after all?
I hate being the grumpy-guts of the writeoff, so I'm going to preface this by saying that I genuinely enjoyed this entry. It's funny, simple, and a great use of the minific format: completely self-contained. I had fun, for the most part, reading it, and that's the most important thing. (Plus it's in my top half.) Besides, I'm never really grumpy: I just like going into detail about things that could be better because I like to think it's more helpful for everyone.
This entry has a lot of promise, but there are a couple of places where it didn't quite live up to that promise. You start strong, with arguably the funniest joke of the round in points 3 & 4, which are a brilliant use of repetition (& a clever way to up your wordcount to boot.) But this is followed by points 5, 6, & 7, and that's where I started to feel almost let down by this entry's reliance on repetition. And I think part of that might actually be because of the title.
Ok, bear with me here. Your title tells us we're getting fifteen rules of engagement: the humour from points 3 & 4 comes from taking one simple rule and dividing it unexpectedly, so that the two combined imply the exact opposite of what each implies by itself. But that humour also comes from the title: the very fact that we know there will be fifteen rules of engagement sets us up not to expect this sort of split. It's funny not just because Repetition Is Good Comedy™, but because we've been specifically placed in a mindset where we don't expect it. I love this!
Points 5, 6, & 7, however, aren't nearly half as clever. The comedy of this sort of repetition is merely that the point is laboured so strongly it gets multiple entries. On its own, this is silly and fun - here it just falls flat, because that's just a fraction of what made the joke before it so good, and it's adding very little to the story.
This is something that happens several more times throughout the piece. While it does work to build Scorpia's voice, I'd prefer to see this entry rely less on repetition for humour: you've got enough good jokes in here to tell me that you know how to write good jokes, author, and I'd rather just see you write more good jokes than throw in another point that just repeats the joke from 3 & 4 but worse (c.f. 11, 12, & 13 as a triplet, which arent quite the same as 5, 6, & 7 but have the same feeling to me of being unnecessary.) At the end of the day, author, you've promised us fifteen rules, and by extension fifteen jokes: don't throw away too many of them, or your audience can feel cheated! It's all about finding the balance between new material and repetition, and I think you've fallen on the wrong aside of that line with this entry: it's always better to err on the side of new material, imo!
Even so, this is a fun entry, with great voicing and a few great laughs. All my complaints above essentially amount to structural complaints that result in fewer laughs! I'd love to see this polished up post-contest, author: do let me know if and when you do.
This entry has a lot of promise, but there are a couple of places where it didn't quite live up to that promise. You start strong, with arguably the funniest joke of the round in points 3 & 4, which are a brilliant use of repetition (& a clever way to up your wordcount to boot.) But this is followed by points 5, 6, & 7, and that's where I started to feel almost let down by this entry's reliance on repetition. And I think part of that might actually be because of the title.
Ok, bear with me here. Your title tells us we're getting fifteen rules of engagement: the humour from points 3 & 4 comes from taking one simple rule and dividing it unexpectedly, so that the two combined imply the exact opposite of what each implies by itself. But that humour also comes from the title: the very fact that we know there will be fifteen rules of engagement sets us up not to expect this sort of split. It's funny not just because Repetition Is Good Comedy™, but because we've been specifically placed in a mindset where we don't expect it. I love this!
Points 5, 6, & 7, however, aren't nearly half as clever. The comedy of this sort of repetition is merely that the point is laboured so strongly it gets multiple entries. On its own, this is silly and fun - here it just falls flat, because that's just a fraction of what made the joke before it so good, and it's adding very little to the story.
This is something that happens several more times throughout the piece. While it does work to build Scorpia's voice, I'd prefer to see this entry rely less on repetition for humour: you've got enough good jokes in here to tell me that you know how to write good jokes, author, and I'd rather just see you write more good jokes than throw in another point that just repeats the joke from 3 & 4 but worse (c.f. 11, 12, & 13 as a triplet, which arent quite the same as 5, 6, & 7 but have the same feeling to me of being unnecessary.) At the end of the day, author, you've promised us fifteen rules, and by extension fifteen jokes: don't throw away too many of them, or your audience can feel cheated! It's all about finding the balance between new material and repetition, and I think you've fallen on the wrong aside of that line with this entry: it's always better to err on the side of new material, imo!
Even so, this is a fun entry, with great voicing and a few great laughs. All my complaints above essentially amount to structural complaints that result in fewer laughs! I'd love to see this polished up post-contest, author: do let me know if and when you do.
First time commenting on a She-Ra round, as I just finished watching the show. Since we have a lot of newcomers, I'll put this header on my comment for every story, since I don't know whether the new people will read the whole discussion thread or just the one for their story.
The write-offs were originally from the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fandom, which has an unusually high caliber of writing standards. Or at least it used to. Sure, there's plenty of bad stuff here, but when you attract that large an audience, you attract a proportionally large number of very good writers, and those tended to congregate in a couple of key places. One, in reviewing groups that helped writers develop, and two, in places like this, that at their best function more as a writing workshop than a competition.
Since I haven't actually started reading any of these as I write this intro, I'll say I don't know how the average writing quality of any given fandom compares to MLP, and it's possible that the critiques given by the MLP veterans will come across as harsh. That's not the intent. I wouldn't spend the 15-30 minutes it takes per minific for me to read, digest, and write up a response if I was just trying to be mean. We all really do intend to help you improve your writing.
I'll put all this above a break so people reading the whole thread will know where to skip down to on subsequent posts.
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Rule 11 seemed to be set up much better for a joke about being catatonic.
This is really funny. I'm struggling to say much about it so it doesn't look like I'm being stingy on the comments, but it worked so well. The voicing is perfect for Scorpia, and the jokes about Catra are funny. I think you could get away with the repetition more in a longer piece unrestricted by word count, but as it is, it tends to smack more of "I could come up with more material, but it's easier to copy-paste the same things a few times and hit the 750 words."
This is a good example of something I talked about in one of the other reviews, and it's whether a gimmicky format makes the story better. Here, it absolutely does. Simply giving me the text of the pamphlet is much funnier than, say, showing Scorpia writing it and getting the text of it as she does. Of course, the latter could be done well, too, if we get additional jokes related to her writing it or making her observations in the first place that inspired her to record them. But then the story has a shifted focus, so for what focus it does have, I think this was the right way to deliver it. The gimmick enhances the story.
I'm going to further echo >>QuillScratch 's point about the repetition, because there's an interesting thing here about how comedy works. You make a joke via repetition that's funny on two levels. Then you go on to make two more jokes via repetition that are only funny on one level. The name of the game with humor (and horror and mystery, incidentally) is escalation. You want to order your jokes so that they get funnier and funnier. When you couple that with the concept that each time you do the same thing, it becomes less effective, that escalation is even harder to accomplish when it's the same joke. It has to be funnier in a vacuum, and it has to be even funnier because of the depreciation of the first instance's humor. So you either have to really turn up the dial on what's funny about the repetition, or you have to go to a new source of humor to lend some variety.
This was a fun read, though, and it actually contains a subtle character arc to it, as it implies a lot about how Catra's promotions have changed her and how her relationship with Scorpia has developed.
The write-offs were originally from the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fandom, which has an unusually high caliber of writing standards. Or at least it used to. Sure, there's plenty of bad stuff here, but when you attract that large an audience, you attract a proportionally large number of very good writers, and those tended to congregate in a couple of key places. One, in reviewing groups that helped writers develop, and two, in places like this, that at their best function more as a writing workshop than a competition.
Since I haven't actually started reading any of these as I write this intro, I'll say I don't know how the average writing quality of any given fandom compares to MLP, and it's possible that the critiques given by the MLP veterans will come across as harsh. That's not the intent. I wouldn't spend the 15-30 minutes it takes per minific for me to read, digest, and write up a response if I was just trying to be mean. We all really do intend to help you improve your writing.
I'll put all this above a break so people reading the whole thread will know where to skip down to on subsequent posts.
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Rule 11 seemed to be set up much better for a joke about being catatonic.
This is really funny. I'm struggling to say much about it so it doesn't look like I'm being stingy on the comments, but it worked so well. The voicing is perfect for Scorpia, and the jokes about Catra are funny. I think you could get away with the repetition more in a longer piece unrestricted by word count, but as it is, it tends to smack more of "I could come up with more material, but it's easier to copy-paste the same things a few times and hit the 750 words."
This is a good example of something I talked about in one of the other reviews, and it's whether a gimmicky format makes the story better. Here, it absolutely does. Simply giving me the text of the pamphlet is much funnier than, say, showing Scorpia writing it and getting the text of it as she does. Of course, the latter could be done well, too, if we get additional jokes related to her writing it or making her observations in the first place that inspired her to record them. But then the story has a shifted focus, so for what focus it does have, I think this was the right way to deliver it. The gimmick enhances the story.
I'm going to further echo >>QuillScratch 's point about the repetition, because there's an interesting thing here about how comedy works. You make a joke via repetition that's funny on two levels. Then you go on to make two more jokes via repetition that are only funny on one level. The name of the game with humor (and horror and mystery, incidentally) is escalation. You want to order your jokes so that they get funnier and funnier. When you couple that with the concept that each time you do the same thing, it becomes less effective, that escalation is even harder to accomplish when it's the same joke. It has to be funnier in a vacuum, and it has to be even funnier because of the depreciation of the first instance's humor. So you either have to really turn up the dial on what's funny about the repetition, or you have to go to a new source of humor to lend some variety.
This was a fun read, though, and it actually contains a subtle character arc to it, as it implies a lot about how Catra's promotions have changed her and how her relationship with Scorpia has developed.
A Retrospective
I've been playing too much Apex Legends, because this went through my head this morning.
Anyway...
I'd like to thank the newcomers for participating and contributing to what is yet another pretty damn solid round of She-Ra. I swear these rounds have a higher standard of quality than original and MLP rounds; maybe that's just because there are fewer participants, but I think it's also that everybody, for some reason, is on their best behavior with She-Ra.
Or at least not their worst.
Some quick responses to >>QuillScratch and >>Pascoite since they had the juiciest criticisms.
First, Quill.
You're kinda right, in that this entry has closer to 10 jokes than 15. However, that's 9 more than in your usual comedy mini-fic. I'd say that, even if we're being conservative with how many jokes land here, you're still getting a lot of bang for your buck, which was the aim with this entry to begin with. I wanted to write something in response to the typical structure of a comedy mini-fic, in that you basically have one big joke at the end, and maybe a couple small jokes sprinkled before that. With "A Cadet's Guide" I wanted to appeal to a school of comedy I personally love, and it is also sadly a school of comedy that is an endangered species at best in this day and age.
Putting rules 3 and 4 so early in the list was a mistake, I'll admit. Especially since those two were, weirdly enough, the hardest for me to get right, and normally you'd want to save the jokes you worked the hardest on for last. Of course it would make even less sense for me to place 3 and 4 at the end, so...
Again, it's strange to criticize a comedy for not having enough new material when it has far more comedic material than your average comedy mini-fic. Hardly a line goes by that isn't either a setup or payoff, and the jokes come in rapid succession. There is obviously some repetition to it, but as you said, Repetition Is Good Comedy™.
I have to say, though, that you seemed to put more thought into the mechanics (one might even say the science) of the comedy than I did. I just kind of went with whatever, which naturally resulted in a piece that should've been more polished.
Now on to Pasco.
Goddamnit, you're right! I FUCKED UP! REEEEEEEEEEEEE!
It's not copy-pasting if you change a few words to make it look like something different. How do you think The Force Awakens made so much money? :p
I mean, it's not really a story? A big criticism that surprisingly nobody brought up. Then again, readers are way more forgiving about non-stories for mini-fic rounds. I figured going in that if I was to write the pamphlet itself that I couldn't make a proper "story" out of it. Sure, there's a lot of characterization for Scorpia, and also Catra, but I couldn't do much to squeeze a proper arc in there. I figured that what this entry lacked in plot, it would make up for in comedic firepower, and I think I largely succeeded there.
I hope to see more comedy entries like this in the future, and not just because it appeals to my specific sense of humor. I think we need more comedies in these WO rounds that go for quantity over quality, instead of always going with the one big joke that may or may not land. It can get really fucking banal to read so many comedy stories that are structured in pretty much the exact same way. That's how storytelling stagnates, my dude. We need some experimentation thrown in there.
So even though it's not perfect, I'm glad my entry got quite a positive reception. Actually, this is like the first time I went in an unorthodox direction with my WO entry and the readers all but unanimously bought it, so let me have this moment plz. !>_<!
I've been playing too much Apex Legends, because this went through my head this morning.
Anyway...
I'd like to thank the newcomers for participating and contributing to what is yet another pretty damn solid round of She-Ra. I swear these rounds have a higher standard of quality than original and MLP rounds; maybe that's just because there are fewer participants, but I think it's also that everybody, for some reason, is on their best behavior with She-Ra.
Or at least not their worst.
Some quick responses to >>QuillScratch and >>Pascoite since they had the juiciest criticisms.
First, Quill.
At the end of the day, author, you've promised us fifteen rules, and by extension fifteen jokes: don't throw away too many of them, or your audience can feel cheated!
You're kinda right, in that this entry has closer to 10 jokes than 15. However, that's 9 more than in your usual comedy mini-fic. I'd say that, even if we're being conservative with how many jokes land here, you're still getting a lot of bang for your buck, which was the aim with this entry to begin with. I wanted to write something in response to the typical structure of a comedy mini-fic, in that you basically have one big joke at the end, and maybe a couple small jokes sprinkled before that. With "A Cadet's Guide" I wanted to appeal to a school of comedy I personally love, and it is also sadly a school of comedy that is an endangered species at best in this day and age.
But this is followed by points 5, 6, & 7, and that's where I started to feel almost let down by this entry's reliance on repetition.
Putting rules 3 and 4 so early in the list was a mistake, I'll admit. Especially since those two were, weirdly enough, the hardest for me to get right, and normally you'd want to save the jokes you worked the hardest on for last. Of course it would make even less sense for me to place 3 and 4 at the end, so...
It's all about finding the balance between new material and repetition, and I think you've fallen on the wrong aside of that line with this entry: it's always better to err on the side of new material, imo!
Again, it's strange to criticize a comedy for not having enough new material when it has far more comedic material than your average comedy mini-fic. Hardly a line goes by that isn't either a setup or payoff, and the jokes come in rapid succession. There is obviously some repetition to it, but as you said, Repetition Is Good Comedy™.
I have to say, though, that you seemed to put more thought into the mechanics (one might even say the science) of the comedy than I did. I just kind of went with whatever, which naturally resulted in a piece that should've been more polished.
Now on to Pasco.
Rule 11 seemed to be set up much better for a joke about being catatonic.
Goddamnit, you're right! I FUCKED UP! REEEEEEEEEEEEE!
I think you could get away with the repetition more in a longer piece unrestricted by word count, but as it is, it tends to smack more of "I could come up with more material, but it's easier to copy-paste the same things a few times and hit the 750 words."
It's not copy-pasting if you change a few words to make it look like something different. How do you think The Force Awakens made so much money? :p
But then the story has a shifted focus, so for what focus it does have, I think this was the right way to deliver it. The gimmick enhances the story.
I mean, it's not really a story? A big criticism that surprisingly nobody brought up. Then again, readers are way more forgiving about non-stories for mini-fic rounds. I figured going in that if I was to write the pamphlet itself that I couldn't make a proper "story" out of it. Sure, there's a lot of characterization for Scorpia, and also Catra, but I couldn't do much to squeeze a proper arc in there. I figured that what this entry lacked in plot, it would make up for in comedic firepower, and I think I largely succeeded there.
I hope to see more comedy entries like this in the future, and not just because it appeals to my specific sense of humor. I think we need more comedies in these WO rounds that go for quantity over quality, instead of always going with the one big joke that may or may not land. It can get really fucking banal to read so many comedy stories that are structured in pretty much the exact same way. That's how storytelling stagnates, my dude. We need some experimentation thrown in there.
So even though it's not perfect, I'm glad my entry got quite a positive reception. Actually, this is like the first time I went in an unorthodox direction with my WO entry and the readers all but unanimously bought it, so let me have this moment plz. !>_<!
I think it is a story, though, as I said in my review. There are a lot of little anecdotes implied through how Scorpia determined these rules, and how some of them originate before or after Catra got promoted. It speaks to how their relationship has evolved and how they interact. If that was serendipitous, then so be it, but it certainly felt like it was by design.