Feb 2009 Archive, part c

Seriously though, its as good a PPC as I've ever seen. Curse you for beating me to the first Haloverse PPC. :p

Would you be willing to beta a Haloverse PPC I'm writing in the near future?

Well, you know I've read it, but still. Well done mate.

(I should know, I've sent the last three months betaing it.)

Ahem. Yes. Well done, KG. As I've told you elsewhere, it's funny, and I particularly liked the Agent interaction. Marcus is great fun, with his "seen it all, done it all," attitude. We need more veteran Agents. There's a few from before Crashing Down, but I can't think of any Agents that are currently active from Reorg-era and before.

Could you just email me all of them? I'll try and take a look when I have free time.

I'm somewhat busy, so it may be a few weeks before I get anything in in any case, but what would you say to images in... distinctly unrealistic styles? Specifically, that of The Order of the Stick? I can do that pretty well, at least for fairly standard-shaped people (as opposed to, for instance, insectoids or multi-headed creatures), but I worry that it wouldn't fit with other submissions or the tone of specific sections.

I'm incredibly busy. I was going to reply to this once I'd actually read the script, but haven't had a chance to do that yet, much less pull out descriptions needed for enviromental drawings (which is what I'm best at). So I'll try, but no promises.

... and colour pictures way back at the beginning of my gallery, so you can work on them from those: http://chelonianmobile.deviantart.com/

...but I'll try.

Megatokyo does, Girl Genius does, Ctrl+Alt+Del does... And the books always sell pretty well. If you start a webcomic (which I plan to do one day soon too, actually) and then want to publish it later, it's fully possible. If you plan on publishing a totally different story than your webcomic, that's even simpler. As for using your real name, most webcomic artists do for ownership reasons. Like Adrian "Adis" Ramos, or Tim "Absath" Buckley. Of course, there are dangers to posting your real name online, but that's just something you have to decide on your own. If you end up publishing your work, people are going to know who you are and be able to connect your identities anyway. You could always create a pen-name for yourself and use that for your published work too (like you suggested). Heaven knows you wouldn't be the first writer to do that.

I can't think of any "repercussions" in that it might make it difficult to get something else published later on. Hell, it might even look good on your resume if it got popular.

Well, the problem with the PPC and ISBN publishing (digital books would also get ISBN) is that the PPC is fanfic based and fanfic has some copyright issues. I think that was the trouble TM wanted to avoid.

A webcomic isn't necessarily fanfic, so you could avoid the infringing someone else's copyright problem. I know of a few webcomics that are also published in albums that you can buy and put on a shelf. Usually with some "not previously published on the Internet" material to make them more interesting for purchasers.

Getting an on-line following might actually be a good jumping ground to becoming a published author. You may not be able to publish (with ISBN) what you had previously published on the internet, but that's because publishers like to have exclusive exploitation rights for a set period of time. You'll just have to write something for them that you haven't posted on the internet.

I guess the advice would be to keep your fanfic related stuff separated from the non-fanfic stuff. Though even if you did it would still be possible to link the two (they post from the same IP-address for instance).

There's nothing wrong with having a comic and a novel going, so why should it be different for a webcomic and a novel? Unless you were planning to use existing images or characters: then it starts to be more like fanfiction.

If you're worried about it, use a different screenname and put it with links to your normal one. It'll be easy enough to get rid of the links if you need/want to.

Much as I hate to think it, anyone who tried would probably have little difficulty linking out internet lives to our real names. I hate that. Webcomics would probably get less attention than fanfic, though, so you might not have the same issues. I'm not sure. I'd err on the safe side, wherepossible.

*wanders off grumbling*

Okay, I know I have a long way to go before receiving the green light: I have read only a small part of the Original Series and I joined the forum only two days ago. But as I said, Agent Cal is very enthusiastic about his job. He has little patience and a short attention span, and he holds a very high opinion of himself and his capabilities. But in truth, it's mostly me who just can't wait before starting.

Since I don't have the authorization to post official PPC missions, consider this as nothing more than a practice, not an actual mission. Please tell me how to improve.

The following, an assassination operation, is based on this badfic. Only the first page is important.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2165630/1/Black_Rose_of_the_Sea


__________________________________________________________



Cal was busy putting wallpaper in his brand-new office in the PPC headquarters when the console on his desk emitted a strident BEEEEP. A badfic with a particularly blatant Mary Sue had just been detected in the Potterverse, as the young agent saw when he looked at the screen. (Technically, Cal was not yet an agent, but "Agent Cal" just sounded cool.)

He wondered what to do about it. He had joined the PPC no more than a few days ago and had only begun his training yesterday. He had not even read the full 300-page protocol and all the old mission reports, and though he understood the basics well enough, he was strictly forbidden from going on an operation (let alone a solo operation) until he was ready. If he went, he could get fired before even becoming an agent. On the other hand, everyone knew that nearly all secret agents, cops and detectives routinely had to act against their superiors' orders to solve a case or stop an atomic bomb. If Cal wanted to be taken seriously as a PPC agent, he was expected to Go Rogue at least once; the sooner the better.

Eagerly, he went to his wardrobe and put on his grey trenchcoat and fedora. Anyone with a fedora, be he a gangster, an investigator or an archaeologist, obviously meant business. In the huge mirror he had recently installed, Cal saw that he looked every bit the sexy badass he fancied himself as. But something was missing... Ah, yes, the eyepatch or sunglasses. Which looks the most hardcore? He tried both at the same time, but it was slightly uncomfortable (not to mention silly-looking). In the end he settled for the eyepatch: it suited much better to his pulp detective style. He would keep the sunglasses for Sundays, when he wore his MiB suit and tie.

With the console, Cal generated a portal to the Potterverse, where a Sue may already have started her vile work to destroy the fragile continuum of J. K. Rowling's fifth and best novel. According to the report, this Sue who went by the name of Marina Rose Black was the daughter of Voldemort and the adoptive heir of the Black family.

Stepping into the portal, Agent Cal emerged in a dusty and dimly-lit place that looked like the living room of an old house. He was alone here, and it appeared to be the middle of the night. On a wall was the family tree of the Blacks. He was at Grimmauld Place, then. There was probably no better place to meet someone who called herself the heir of the Black family. Cal tried to find the best spot in the room to hear and see what was going on.

Suddenly he felt something creep along his neck. With a muffled cry of disgust, he threw to the ground a small hairy creature with very sharp teeth that had somehow managed to get under the collar of his trenchcoat when he inadvertently got too close from the doxy-infested curtains. Nasty vermin: if he remembered correctly, doxys were venomous.

After a minute of silent waiting, he distinctly heard the front door of the house creak open not too far from there. The song-like voice of the Mary Sue resounded in the corridor:
"Baba! Kreacher! I'm home."

The old house elf and the painting of Sirius' mother responded immediately, greeting Marina Rose Black warmly. The fifteen-year-old Sue, coming back from her vacation at the beach, acted as if she owned the place — and indeed, she did. For some reason, none of the sleeping members of the Order of the Phoenix heard her noisy entrance. She went upstairs and remained out of Cal's earshot for a long while. All of a sudden, angry shouts came from the second floor: Sirius Black had finally met her, and they were having a heated argument about whose house this was. A few minutes later, Molly Weasley's voice was defending Sue against Sirius' understandable burst of rage. The shouts eventually ceased.

Some time later, Molly and Sirius walked down the stairs and entered the living room. The young PPC agent hid behind a couch, wearing his fedora very low as if it could make him harder to see. Marina soon came into the room and attempted to explain her presence here to the two canon characters. Before long, Albus Dumbledore's head conveniently appeared in the fireplace to tell Sirius and Molly that the house did indeed belong to Her Sueness. As Agent Cal crept closer, he heard the headmaster of Hogwarts say something that made him feel like he had just swallowed broken glass:

"...she will be the one who decides the end of the great war, it is all placed in her hands and I'd rather keep her here and safe before we have to allow her near the dark."

Cal almost groaned aloud. What is wrong with Harry, anyway, that makes suethors think he is unworthy to be the one who defeats Voldemort? Trembling with outrage, he waited for everyone to leave the room and go to sleep.

Half an hour later, the ancestral home of the Blacks was silent again. Moving like a shadow, Agent Cal went in search of Sue's bedroom. When he found it, he quietly closed the door behind him — there was enough moonlight to see everything. Marina Rose Black was sound asleep in her bed, her blue-black hair framing her somewhat Asian features. First step: master her, so he can tell her the list of her crimes against canon before dealing with her. Cal took off his fedora and pressed it on Sue's face to smother her. She thrashed wildly — that is, until the young agent sat on her body to keep her immobile. With a wince, he heard two of her ribs crack noisily under his weight. After a minute Marina stopped moving, unconscious.

Cal firmly tied the girl to her bed and stuffed a piece of cloth into her mouth to keep her silent. Then he woke her up by poking the broken ribs with a finger. The Mary Sue's eyes flew open to stare at him with surprise and terror.

"I'm Agent Cal," he said, taking on a menacing voice that was perhaps a little too theatrical, as he showed her his membership card of the Dungeons & Dragons club (he did not have his PPC card yet). "You must have heard of me?" The Sue shook her head. Cal was a bit disappointed. He went on solemnly: "In the name of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, I charge you with disrupting the canon, interfering with the character of Dumbledore and being a Mary Sue. As jury, judge and executioner, I declare you guilty and hereby sentence you to death. Execution is to take place immediately."
Cal's gloved hand slipped into one of the bottomless pockets of his trenchcoat.
"I have good news and bad news. The good news is that, as a typical pulp hero, I can't hit a girl." His tone then became apologetic: "The bad news is that I am quite resourceful."

He pulled from his pocket four large doxys he had found in the curtains. While the Mary Sue writhed helplessly against her bonds, he put one doxy on her face, one on her throat, one on her chest and one under her pants. With clinical detachment, he watched her squirm and emit muffled cries for nearly ten minutes before she finally succumbed to over thirty vicious bites on every part of her body. Her dead eyes stared at the ceiling in mute horror.

Satisfied, Cal untied the twisted corpse and dragged it to the kitchen downstairs. With some difficulty, he somehow succeeded in stuffing it into the pantry, though he had to make extensive use of the bone saw lying on the table. Since Marina did not have much meat on her, Kreacher would probably manage to get rid of her body in only a few stews or roasts. His task done, Agent Cal opened another portal and quit the now much cleaner Potterverse.

.

Be sure to leave your sanity at the door and welcome to the PPC. :)

I like your intro. Quite creative. And Cal promises to be a pretty amusing Agent.

Anyway, greetings. *tips her Hat* I'm Lycaenion, commonly found practising my evil laughter, torturing people with useless zoology or Star Trek information, or forming weird conspiracy theories.

I do hereby give you chocolate, an easily concealable weapon of your choice, and a towel. You'll probably need all of them.

(Oh, and for more completely useless information, I've been studying French in school for the past four years. The fact that you're a native speaker is rather awesome in my opinion.)

"Should he be based in a TARDIS or a Response Center?" asked the receptionist to the daisy.

First, allow me to put on my beta hat and pull some faces.

Well, actually only one face, but ah well. Every time you've had someone's actions and then their words, you've separated by a line, rather than the usual two. This really isn't necessary. The speech doesn't have to be on a new line as soon as it starts, so long as it's on a separate line to the previous speaker's.

*throws beta hat aside*

Greetings!

Will we be seeing you in the DBS at all? We're always looking for new recruits who can handle the squick. Either way, welcome. We could have really used you about six months ago, you know.

Oh yeah, that, er, gift thing. *hands over cheap and nasty bottle of wine* Enjoy!

By now, Cal was surrounded by a small crowd of people, who all seemed rather happy to see him. Some of them, however, were making the expressions of dismay common to those who have encountered a short person with bony elbows and a vicious mindset. Mad Maudlin (for it was indeed she) pushed Makari aside and stood in front of Cal, looking him up and down- although the heavy eyeliner made it hard to tell exactly where she was looking. She grinned slowly. "Nice hat. Welcome...to the PPC!" This was accompanied by a menacing laugh. She continued, "I'm Maudlin Hart, although you can call me Mad Maudlin, or just Maudlin. Anything else will result in pain. Please, deposit your sanity in the provided bucket; I assure you it will not be needed here."
Cal looked at the bucket. It was blue, and the words "Warg Fodder" were written on the side. He could understand why this person was called mad. "I-"
"DID I TELL YOU TO SPEAK?" Maudlin shrieked. "I don't think so! But you can speak anyway. And here is some chai tea, and here is a shiny crystal thing, and here is some Suenicorn jerky, and they are all for you!" She handed Cal these items, then bowed low and disappeared into the crowd.
What a strange person, Cal thought.

(seriously, though, good job finding the front door. Good luck locating it again, though...)

As for the traditional welcoming gift, here, have this umbrella. It, er, may be a little sharp on the end. But that's okay, right? Better to stab things with.

And I'm sure plenty of us would be more than happy to beta read or whatnot. It's a good practice anyway. =)

So yeah. Good to meetcha. I'm me; I mostly go after video games and anime, so we probably shan't encounter each other much outside of the Board. Still, best of luck~!
(especially with Harry Potter, sweet Lorelei! the majority of the 'fics on the Pit make me want to claw eyes out. Not particular as to whose.)

Welcome to the PPC.

Good luck with your fandoms. Hopefully you can serve them well.

Oh, by the way, have you heard of Rose Potter? Its a Harry Potter Bad fic.

Anyway, have some bleeprin and a spork. Sporks are cool.

You'll need it when you meet Lux. Or random fangirls.

I'm Oozaru Angel, technically I'm a PPC writer too but, seeing as I haven't completed a mission in more than two years, nowadays I'm more known for writing fanfiction in the anime fandoms and as one of the course coordinators for the Official Fanfiction University for Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles (or simply OFUTRC). Call me Angel, Oozaru or simply OA.

It's nice to meet you! I hope you have fun here.

Have a prinny suit. This particular one was, strangely enough, dressed in a trench coat and fedora, so it should suit you just fine. These generally grant an increase in miscellaneous RPG-related stats and an uncontrollable urge to tack 'dood' to the end of every sentence. Oh, and being thrown while wearing one is usually quite painful. Explosively painful.

That means there's an exit? What am I still doing here?

Welcome. There is no such thing as incompetence in the PPC. You can't leave a badfi...il the job is done. By that very definition all agents that come out of fic alive are competent.

And the pseudo-Marty Sam gets the wind knocked out of his sails...by the receptionist.  Very clever.

*is thoroughly amused by your introduction text*

We've got a Department of Personnel rather than a HR Office, but that's just technical nit-picking.

Anyways, welcome to the insanity. You look like you'll fit right in.

*gives Gabriel a PPC bumper sticker*

You'll need it to catch up on your sleep in random places.

Welcome! *shakes hand* Always good to see new people, particularly enthusiastic ones. I obviously don't need to give you any links, but may I suggest you read the wiki's "Permission" article, if you haven't already? Saves a lot of confusion.

That said... well, actually, I haven't much more to say. I like your little intro there, and Cal sounds like he'd be quite a lot of fun to read, particularly when his bravado fails to kill the Sue (or whatever sort of mission you're planning to do).

So yes, welcome! Thanks for coming. :)

Welcome to the PPC! I'll let July give you links to the wiki and whatnot, as that's her thing, but in the meantime have an egg whisk! It's shiny, gold-plated, and whisks not only eggs but spambots and author wraiths! Use it for good and not evil.

There's a great community called whatwasthatbook that exists for answering questions exactly like this.

Are there established Minis for Metal Gear Solid? I mean, I haven't seen any mention on the list, like kg and I figured it would be like, a mini-REX but it would great if somebody could confirm/disprove that.

There's only been one mission into M*A*S*H before: Through Time. And there is no mention of any minis in that.

1) From what I've heard, the DORKS enables you to change your disguise while still in the fic. Otherwise, you're stuck as an Orc or whatever for the whole mission. I may be wrong, though.
2) Ja, fraulein. In TOS, Jay and Acacia got the actual thorns and branches and eighteen-feet-tallness when they used Entwife disguises.
3) Demons. Hmmm. It depends. What continuum is this demon from?

I think a really big portal would be a reasonable approach.

If you need persuasive power, you could always borrow/hijack an Imperial Navy fleet from 40k - as long as you set the rules to Battlefleet Gothic instead of fluff-verse, they're just as good as Chaos.

with some of it. "Snapping back into place" and all of that could take care of at least some of your problems... unless it's so badly abused it doesn't know what's what. I'm not sure. It's not the sort of scale I usually tackle on a job.

I'm not being sarcastic here, it's a solution I think could be tried. If you could make a portal big enough, you could just portal the fleets and other canons back to their home continua.

*creepy voice, evil grin* I've been waiting...

I do hereby give you a lot of chocolate, a towel, a sharp and pointy object of your choice, and, since you mentioned it, a ferret. It can live in your RC, and you can probably train it to like eating Sues.

Glad you're here. This is going to be fun. =D

I see oyu like redwall. You heard about the OFU of redwall? if you need more information, i can tell you.

So, welcome and have some bleeprin and a combat spork as gifts.

Welcome, welcome to you, PVOD.
I hope your stay is less traumatising than it promises to be.
...what?

BTW, will your Agents be in a TARDIS or a Response Center?

I salute you as a sister - that is, as if you were a sister, not as if I was your sister, or maybe the first one, or maybe both...

Hang on, let me start over. I'm Cassie, and I am overenthusiastic. I welcome you into our ranks and hope that you don't miss your sanity too much. Here is your gift of greeting; a bag of pebbles and a Random Shiny Object.

See you around!

Welcome to the PPC! Be peaceful, sister, for it is righteous. I gift you with a shiny bit of crystal and some chai tea. Use them well. Please deposit your sanity in the provided receptacle. *holds out bucket marked "Warg fodder"* I think you'll find you're better off without it.
And aren't ferrets "sharp knife/sword-like objects" anyway?
-Mad Maudlin

"Overall, I am a self-proclaimed tomboy nerd with a love of sharp knife/sword-like objects, ferrets, and large birds of prey."


...I think I'm going to like you.

I'm new here, too. Welcome to the Headquarters. If you watch a lot of Happy Tree Friends, you are probably very qualified as an Assassin. In many places it is frowned upon to use a potato peeler as a lethal weapon, but not here.

On a completely unrelated topic, I offer you a potato peeler. Make good use of it.

*hands over a prinny suit* These are very good items in RPG settings, give you the urge to say 'dood' at the end of every sentence, and are made of pure win.

To use for catching random moments of sleep between missions.

I see you've already been given The Links, so I'll just limit myself to a friendly "hello!" and wave a little flag for the Department of Mary Sues. *waves flag*

Welcome a'Board! Have a bottle of Bleeprin (you'll need it) a keg of Bleepka (see above), and a mongoose! ...On second thought, *looks at name* have a whisk and a sentient towel.

Another Tamora Pierce fan! Sweet! Just out of curiosity, why limited to Tortall? I've always preferred the Circle books, myself. My agents welcome you, as do I! There's a lot of interesting 'fics there to be dealt with. And when I say interesting, I mean they will make your eyelids twitch lovely and wonderful. As an aside, have you heard of Steelsings? It's a fairly good roleplay (or at least it used to be, I don't know how true that is now), and you meet a lot of cool people.

Anyway, welcome to the Board! Feel free to leave your sanity at the door-- most of us do.

I gift you with an egg whisk! It's shiny, gold-plated, and whisks eggs, author wraiths, and spambots! Use it for good and not evil.

Welcome to the insanity!

Welcome to the PPC. You should check out the PPC Wiki at
http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Protectors_of_the_Plot_Continuum
and also read the original adventures http://www.misssandman.com/PPC/ppc.html
It's great to meet you :)