Talk:Hummingbird

From Herocopia

Should we split up Hummingbird into two entries? I think it's ok for now, but we should probably split them if a later issue after CS:Beautie has Hummingbird I in it, since I think having intertwined entries for two different heroes in the same appearance list is confusing.

 tom

I'm with you here. Might wait to see if she will use that name in future. I've been for splitting up all the characters Confessor, Jack in the Box into the different people who've been under the mask, I've just been outvoted. To me it would help sort out for each character and would make it easier for editing.

I know it might be harder if we discover that there have been multiple Cleopatra and N-Forcers, but to me it be more consistent if we had Confessor II, Jack in the Box II and so forth.

Zack

You mean, Jack in the Box III, don't you? ;-) My own personal suspicion is that there have been many Cleopatras, each one merging into the next incarnation (this explains the 3rd person speech that mostly occurs, with the occasional first person personal reference). Look at the picture in the CS:Beautie lettercol, where I think we're seeing what we call Cleo1 turning into Cleo2; I suspect we're going to see this happen late in the DA series. (Might be worth putting this in the Cleo1 speculation section.) I can live with the current convention (I wrote it up for the FAQ), but I certainly agree it's a bit awkward at times. JG, are you willing to explain the reasoning behind it?

 tom

I too would prefer more consistency in this, but in the other direction. Only one Cleo listing, one Confessor listing, and so on. One listing for every superheroic identity, with all the people who've held it listed together. I think it keeps things simpler and streamlined, and it avoids information repetition.

 Yiding

^^Yeah :) The so forth was meant to encompass all the II's and III's, etc. I'm with you on the Cleopatra theory to some degree there after seeing that teaser cover. But from what I remember the first Cleo seemed to have English as a first language. The second speaks more of a backwards English, like she's not as familiar with it...

What Yiding said was the main reasoning for it and will probably be JGs answer. I've always said it'd look better being thorough and not as awkward with having the vital stats and appearances having to be listed for three different people on one page. I think chopping it up would make it easier and shorter to read per character.

EDIT: But I do see the other side. The Lion and the Unicorn have had at least two different people as the heroes but only have one page. Even with multiple N-Forcers, I think he fits better as only one entry. Part of it too, I think is how "big" a character or if they've been featured. Jack in the Box and the Confessor have both been featured a bit and we have quite a bit of info on them. If we got a story looking closer at N-Forcer or the others, then I see branching them out.

Zack

Hmm... I hear what you are saying. For some, I think we can list multiple versions in one entry. For example, under "Name" we could just have a bullet list giving all three Jack-in-the-Box civilian names. The main awkwardness, at this time, relates to the timeline issues. If we had solid timeline entries, so that a reader could just follow what's happened over time across multiple versions, then one entry works. But, right now, many characters just have an appearance section but no timeline section. It gets really confusing tracking multiple individuals down an appearance section due to all the flashbacks and different story times in AC. So, I vote that we don't do a huge rewrite until we figure out how to handle timelines and have a lot more timeline entries.

However, even when we do get timelines working properly, I suspect there isn't a "one size fits all" solution. For example, what happens when one is a villain and the other a hero (Quarrel I and Quarrel II)? Double-listing is accurate but seems weird, whereas having one entry under heroes and the other under villains seems right. What happens when an earlier version shares nothing with a later one (e.g. Flying Fox)?

So, in the long run (when we have solid timelines), I think combining entries is actually better, but I do think there will be a couple special cases that don't work and which should be split.

 tom