Mar 2011 Archive, part a

If people start writing TVTropes fanfictions, I will have officially have lost faith in humanity.

...well, to Agents, I'm not sure TVT is aught more than a website.

The PPC as a whole does exist within the 'multiverse,' but I'm not sure TVTropes does. TVT seems more... outside. And, I'm not sure about if TVT has a personal canon, but I have a feeling they wouldn't mesh well.

May I ask why you're asking? I find myself curious.

A 17-year-old girl was standing in front of a pillar at a very busy train station. Her piercing green eyes searched the crowd quickly. Then she closed her eyes and walked straight into the pillar." Harry learns of a new relative.

======================================================

"Are... are you okay?"

Slinky blinked, trying to parse the words being spoken to her. The world was still blurred a bit, except for the sharp pain on her nose. She sat up from the station's concrete platform and put a hand to her face, which when she pulled back was covered in blood. Her nose was also extremely tender, and didn't feel particularly... solid.

"You just kind of... ran into that pillar..."

Slinky finally trained her sharp green eyes on the boy that was bothering her. At first she thought it was Harry Potter, but upon a second look he was just a plain old rubbish londoner. No lightning bolt at all. He was bending down to help her up, but she would have none of that!

"I do as I please! I am a mighty and powerful wizard!" She even had the bright purple rose tattoo on her cheek to prove it, a token from when Voldemort had attempted to kill her. Her brother Harry had only gotten a richochet of the Dark Lord's Avada Kedavra spell - she was the one truly deserving of all of his fame, and it was this year that she was going to prove it. If only Voldemort's spell hadn't also caused her to be transported to a parallel dimension that she was trapped in until she learned enough magic on her own in order to return to her true home to claim the fortune and glory that was rightly hers!

The muggle boy must have just taken her to be delirious because he ignored her odd pronouncement, choosing instead to help Slinky to her feet. Once standing again, she jerked her elbow away from him ingratiously.

"I don't need help!" she snorted, the motion setting her spring-like pair of silver ponytails bouncing. With vision still slightly blurred she looked again at the numbers above the platforms, making sure that she was at the right spot. The numbers clearly said '8' and '9', and she had run directly at the pillar between them, as that handsome white-haired boy had told her. A pleasant one, that boy, and his two jolly fat friends who seemed to always be laughing.

"Are you sure?" The muggle boy asked, his continued persistence irritating Slinky to no end. She wouldn't be able to try entering the pillar again as long as this muggle stayed around! He was completely wasting her time!

"Yes, fine! Go away!" Her hand fell into her stylish jacket and pulled out her Urple Wand - crafted from Lovewood with a Nymph-hair core that was gifted to her by Father Time during her stay in the Dimension of Fairies - with the intention of charming the frustrating boy so he'd forget all about her and go on his way. But when she jerked from his grip yet again, she perhaps overdid it. Overcome by another wave of vertigo, she stumbled backward and fell off the platform, just as the horn of an oncoming train sounded...

* * *

"How are we supposed to get to Hoggwarts now?" Harry asked frustratedly of his two friends. They sat on a bench a ways down from Platform 9 3/4ths, ambulances and other emergency officials buzzing about the closed station pending the cleanup and investigation of some accident that had occured nearby early that morning. Apparently some girl had gotten hit by a train.

"I'm not sure if something like this has happened before," replied Hermoine. "I can only assume they'll delay the departure until tomorrow, or at least until this clears up."

"Bloody inconvenient if you ask me," Ron mumbled irritably. He idly slipped a few crumbs to his pet rat through a hole in the grubby cardboar box he was kept in, tied up with the rest of his luggage. Scabbers suddenly squealed and dove back further into the box, prompting the trio to notice the return of Hermoine's cat, Crookshanks. The orange feline had a strange stick in it's mouth as it arrived at Hermoine's feet and began to generously rub itself against her leg.

"Don't pick up strange pieces of junk, Crookshanks," Hermoine chided as she pulled the corkscrew shaped wand from Crookshanks mouth. The young witch gave the odd corkscrew shaped wand an odd look. "What do you suppose this is?"

"Looks like some tacky art thing," replied Harry. "My aunt buys them all the time. The garage is full of boxes of the things."

"Well I hope no one payed much for this," Hermoine replied, tossing it into a nearby bin.

"They really are quite tame, aren't they, Sam?"

Sam Gamgee did not really agree, but gave a miserable "Yessir, Mr. Frodo," as he clung to the spike-finned back of the Fell Beast. The black flapping thing winged its way slowly above the clouds. The two hobbits on its back were a little green in the face, but unhurt.

"It didn't protest much at its nest in that maze of rocks, did it?"

"Nosir, Mr. Frodo."

"It's very strange, but it makes a certain sense. It must be tame. How else would anyone control such a monster?"

"If that's what you think."

"How much farther to Mount Doom do you think, Sam?"

Sam gulped down his fear and peered uneasily over the side. "Not far. It's like looking into a summer bonfire down there."

Frodo Baggins' hands were white from hanging on to the spike in front of him. "Go down," He asked the Fell Beast. It gave a spirited roar and they felt the descent in a wide, dizzying spiral. The stink of ash and gas worsened.

"We'll have to ride this thing out again, won't we?" Sam groaned. "I don't know much for flapping beasts and creatures, but this just seems downright unnatural to me. If we were meant to fly in the sky, don't you think we'd have had wings?"

"Yes, you're right. But it is faster than continuing on foot-- could you imagine it, Sam?"

Sam could. "Would fill up a book or two with just, 'we walked to Mordor,' Mr. Frodo. But- agh- this isn't any pony. Do you think it's wise to ride it without a saddle?"

"It doesn't seem to make much of a difference either way. It seems resolute to keep us from falling, in any case. Why?"

"Because it seem to be getting mighty sore on the back, if you know what I mean, sir."

Frodo looked down. Indeed, where he was sitting was rubbed raw from their clinging legs and their packs. The black hide of the Fell Beast was rubbed slightly reddish, if leather could ever be tender. It had several pustules and warts from unclean conditions and they seemed to be irritated.

When Frodo brushed one cautiously, it burst in a shower of steaming-hot blood and lavalike pus. The hobbit screamed in disgust and surprise.

The Fell Beast didn't like that. It had been descending gradually in slow, careful spirals, but suddenly it spooked and plummeted through the heavy cloud and smoke cover. It flipped over. It looped-de-looped. It barrel rolled. Frodo tumbled from his spot on the creature's back, but when the world stopped spinning, he found that Sam --bless him, Sam!- had caught him by his elven cloak. The Fell Beast had caught Sam's pack gingerly in it's considerate jaws. The two hobbits dangled quite safely-- a stomach-turning drop separating them from the floor of the Black Land of Mordor.

Uneasily staring at the thin wisp of sickly clouds beneath him, Frodo felt a missing weight around his neck, and a stab of primal panic.

"The Ring! I've dropped the Ring!"

--

The One Ring was quite happy. It was here, in Mordor. It was close to its master. Sauron's eye swiveled, saw it fall-- Yes! Perfect! Such good fortune!

Unfortunately, it was falling directly into the open mouth of the Orodruin itself.

Sauron ordered all of his Nazgul on their flying mounts to catch it. They were nowhere near close enough. Sauron focused his thought on it, cursing that his body was gone. But there was nothing that could be done.

The One Ring apologized for its bad timing.

Sauron assured it that no, it's OK, it's not it's fault, they were hobbits on a flapping hell beast and the One Ring couldn't have won anyway.

The Dark Lord of Mordor watched as the One Ring plopped into Mount Doom and was un-made. The Nazgul didn't survive long enough to get to the now-located Ring Bearer. The armies of Mordor collapsed into the blasted land they'd come from. And Sauron rolled his Great Eye before being reduced to not much more than a powerless essence.

Frodo and Sam eventually made it back-- two hobbits on the back of a frightening, yet quite civil monster (Named later in historical records Mananca the Gentle)-- and a certain book and a half was reduced to a few sentences involving the riding and tame nature of Fell Beasts.

And that was the end of that.

Alright, I'll take a crack at this.

Chaos by tangledribbons
In the summer after his third year, Harry Potter finds a CD and changes the fate of the wizarding world. Rated T for later content.
***

Chaos had struck the Quiddich World Cup. The Dark Mark had been fired into the sky, and even after the foreboding symbol had made itself known, and even after the chaotic harassment of the spectators had all but died down, tensions were high, and people were fleeing the site in droves.

But Harry Potter was not worried. For he had it all figured out.

"How can you be so apathetic?" Hermione spat at him, trying to break through his glazed stupor. "Don't you realize what has just happened?"

With a knowing grin, he turned to face his nervous friend. "I know exactly what happened. We don't have to be high to look in the sky."

Hermione's face turned beet red. She exploded into a tirade about what could have happened, who it could have been, what spells they could have used, death eaters, Voldemort, cast the thingummywats into the plickensholber spell, yeah yeah.

"Are you even listening!?" She exclaimed.

"Listen. If Magic is all you ever know, then it's easy to miss what's really going on."

"What?"

In a swift, clean motion, Harry Potter got to his feet, walked a few feet into the forest, grabbed a man in the bushes, dragged him out by the arm, stood him in front of Hermione, then knocked him out with crowbar he had been apparently holding the entire time.

It was Barty Crouch Jr. The escaped Azkaban convict.

Hermione looked at her friend, completely dumbfounded.
"How could you have possibly known?"

"Have you ever stopped to look around?" He asked in response. "Like, really stopped and looked at the simple things?"

Hermione remained silent.

Harry nodded sagely. "For instance... Music is magic, pure and clean. You can feel it and hear it but it can't be seen. You can't even hold it, it's just in the air."

Right then, Hermione was struck with a revelation. He had been listening to a CD that someone had thrown out in the middle of the campsite. He had been enthralled with it ever since they left the stadium. What had been on there that had inspired such practicality and reasoning in her friend?

"Pure motherf***ing magic, Right?"
"This sh*t will blow your motherf***ing mind."

Harry Potter's fourth year at Hogwarts would certainly be an interesting one. For he now was a master of magic. And a worker of miracles.

Ok, here goes my shot.

Setting Severus Snape Up by Azuria Asiyarana Annabellah
Harry, Ron and Hermione have decided to place an advertisement in the Daily Prophet under the Singles' Column. Their mission: To find a perfect lady companion for their Potions Teacher, the one and only Severus Snape. But things soon get out of control!

Harry, Ron and Hermione were sitting in the Great Hall. They were enjoying their breakfasts when the owl post came. A Daily Prophet landed in Ron's bowl, spreading porridge all over his face.
He sighed and took the newspaper, reading but the headlines. He was about to pass it to Harry or Hermione when an article called his attention.
Ron went pale and held the newspaper closer to his eyes, probably to make sure he had read right. Then the put the paper down and went paler to the point that the only things still coloured on his face were the freckles. Harry and Hermione watched him in silence.
“Ron, what's going on?” Harry asked. He looked concerned.
As an answer, Ron folded the paper and passed it to him, pointing at a certain article. Harry grabbed it and read:

Teacher that believes 1+1= LOVE
Potion teacher of Hogwarts, black hair and eyes, 5'7”, looks for a woman,
25-40 years, preferably brunette, who likes sundowns and pets.
Contact:

There was a small picture of Snape at one side of the advertisement, and it was signed H.R.H.
At that point, everybody in the Great Hall was laughing and pointing at the three Gryffindor. Malfoy was smiling devilishly, and the Weasley twins were rolling on the floor, literally.
Then Snape entered the room, with a Daily Prophet in his hand, and walked straight to them. When he reached, he leant over Ron and Hermione, between them both, and spoke softly:
“You three, to my office, now.” The last word seemed to be shouted, as much as you can shout while speaking in a soft voice. “And, mister Potter, I don´t like sundowns. Nor pets, mister Weasley.”
“But we didn't...” Harry tried to explain, but Snape was already walking away.
The kids stood up. They still couldn't believe the whole situation.
"We.. we will be able to work it out, won't we?" Hermione said.
Ron and Harry just looked at her and started their way.

"Storys are told around the campfire and Aragorn is probably going to be dead by tommorow"

***

"Here's my story", Gimli began, as the rest of the Fellowship huddled closer to the fire in the cold Middle-Earth night. A few of them were grilling some meat on little spokes of sharpened branches. In the distance, a wolf howled.

"This was some time ago, when Aragorn was paying a visit to my father in Eberor, and we were in a tavern drinking. The topic of, erm, courtship cropped up. Aragorn suddenly got very serious, leaned towards me and asked, 'Tell me Gimli, I am seeing this lovely dwarven girl I met here a few weeks ago, and I am wondering if you had any tips because, um...' He leaned in even closer and whispered something that I shall not repeat here since I am a gentledwarf."

"And?"

"Well, my response was, 'you do realize dwarven women don't have beards, lad'?"

While the rest of them were in fits of laughter, Aragorn snuck to the tent and grabbed a package of something. In the morning when Gimli woke up, well rested, he found out that he had been completely wrapped up in tin foil.

"See you tomorrow once you've caught up with us - Mount Doom won't wait, after all", Aragorn quipped and the Fellowship, sans Gimli, set out.

"Oh, he's going to be so dead by tomorrow", Gimli grumbled as he struggled free of the foil.

All you need to do is graph it out:

While it's true that spelling and grammar can change, that doesn't necessarily mean that they will.

We are well past the conception of the English language, the point where it stopped being a corrupted mishmash of a half-dozen intermixed languages and became a language in it's own right. Nor are we in the Shakespearean era, where a single man could sign his name in twelve different ways and still be recognized as the same person.

The English language today has hundreds of years of standardization, which I think has only been strengthened by the availability of relevant technology. What we have has been formed, tried, tested, and kept because it was effective. The language has been, for the most part, debugged, and major changes - in my opinion - are unlikely.

Roman monuments - the ones carved in stone - had no punctuation. Why? Because when it takes you a half an hour to carve any given punctuation mark, it's not really worth the effort.

Documents from the age of the printing press had both punctuation and lowercase letters because written communication was primarily done by hand. large numbers of identical documents could be produced, but all the originals were done by hand. What you didn't see a lot of were italics, because italics were expensive - you had to pay for an extra set of letters in order to have them in your document. Expense equals rarity, so italics were only added when something was really, really important.

These days, with word processors and laser printers, italics are commonplace; so common, in fact, that they have effectively replaced quotation marks for internal dialogue. Someone - I don't know who - got tired of pointing out that half the quoted dialogue in his book was internal and went Hey, what if I use a different format to indicate internal dialogue? Well, it worked. In fact, it worked so well that it's hard to find a novel that doesn't use italics to indicate internal dialogue.

Ease creates complexity, and complexity requires structure.

So then why isn't chatspeak more complex than the written word, since it's easier? Except that it's not, because chatspeak isn't the use of the written word to convey information, chatspeak is the art of using the written word as verbal conversation. It's an attempt to simulate the spontaneity of the spoken word in written form, and the interfaces used to do so are not really designed for it.

Chatspeak isn't really the next step in the evolution of the English language it's an entirely new facet of the language, built for a medium that the world has no precedent for. I suspect that as interfaces become more intuitive, the complexity of chatspeak will come closer to that of the written word, rather than vice-versa.

Or at least I hope it will.

I'm going to be even more difficult here and start drawing lines between evolution of words and evolution of structure.

As far as changes in the structure of language- grammar and syntax, or constructions like you mentioned with your text message as an example- yeah, I think you're right. We learn the structure of our language in a certain way, and changing it really does affect the meaning of what we read and/or hear. Sometimes the change can be effective- for example, in a text message it isn't really efficient to type out a full sentence with capitalization and articles and things- but I agree with you that it does depend on the context. "Bought small carrotbag" is appropriate and effective in a text message; it wouldn't be in a written report to your boss.

(Unrelated: "carrotbag" is my new favorite word ever.)

Which brings me to my other point- change and evolution of individual words, in my personal opinion, is awesome. I'm going to hold up Shakespeare as an example here, because Shakespeare is my go-to example for everything. Shakespeare invented squillions of new words and phrases, stuck words together, back-constructed words, stuck on prefixes and suffixes and what-have-you, and he could do that because he was writing at a time when English was a) in a state of rapid change and expansion, due to a new medium (i.e. secular theatre, also the printing press), and b) not yet standardized by things like dictionaries.

I would argue that we're in a similar situation now. The advent of the internet and text-messaging and other such new technology has created a space for language to grow and change. The new language constructions that come out of it aren't standardized yet- yes, there are things like UrbanDictionary and so forth, but they're mostly descriptive rather than prescriptive, and I don't consider them particularly authoritative. I think, until our frame of thought catches up with our technology, the language of the internet changes too fast to standardize, so we're looking at considerable linguistic shift for some time yet. And in a lot of cases, I don't think it's a bad thing at all.

That fact that language changes is a form of evolution. Evolution means slow change/gradual development. It doesn't just apply to biological systems.

I can probably better tell you about my own experience with my own native tongue. In Dutch there are a few very common grammatical spelling errors (in translation: saying 'them' rather than 'they'; saying 'bigger as' rather than 'bigger than'; saying 'hele' (adjective) instead of 'heel' (adverb) (can't translate this, but suffice to say that in one particular case people use an adjective where they should use an adverb) ; adding spacing between the different parts of a compound noun (this is called English disease); and not adding spaces after 'te' or 'ten' when they are needed, thus using a different word than meant.)

I once took part in a survey by a research institution about such errors. The questions were: do you come across this error? Do you find it acceptable Dutch? If not, do you think it will become acceptable Dutch? When?

In all these cases the reader or listener probably still knows what the other person is meaning to say. Only language purist grind their teeth.

But language doesn't evolve because 'we just like to text this way: it's easy,' it evolves because the parties involved don't see any change in meaning or loss of information.

Actually, this is exactly why language evolves. It starts with something else being easier to say and because no meaning is lost, the difference becomes acceptable and perhaps at some time the new standard. If there was no reason to say things differently, language would not change/evolve.

Especially the sociolinguistics professors. I spent most of my time at uni listening to the debates. I think the general consensus is that you could argue it both ways, which is the Professional Academic way of saying that neither side has a strong enough argument to completely undercut the other, so they're backing off before they can be humiliated. It's amusing ;)

But as for me personally, I agree with Neshomeh.

Written English and spoken English are two different things. I would just like to state this before we talk about the topic proper. When you write "bought small carrotbag," it might seem clear to your mom, but if you spoke that same exact statement without context, it would sound completely different. Writing and talking are two different things, and I think that text talk has very little effect on spoken English aside from reading those texts out loud and pronouncing the abbrevs.

That being said, I agree that evolution is not the right word for what your cousin described. New words are being created all the time. My word processor recognizes the word "Pokemon," which probably wouldn't have happened fifteen years ago. But that's not evolution. It's just change. I wouldn't even go that far with text talk, because it is essentially just abbreviations. Like you said, Aster, it's all in the context. But languages don't evolve. They change and warp and make new dialects and such. You should watch My Fair Lady sometime. It's one of my favorite movies ever.

By which I mean standard usage vs. nonstandard usage.

Something that we all can generally accept, I think, is that there IS a time and a place for informal, colloquial, slang language. We use shortcuts when talking to our friends because, as Aster points out, no meaning is lost in that context. Same goes for texting, much as it galls me.

However! There is also a time and a place for standard usage. Such times and places include schoolwork, talking to people who you'd like to impress with your intelligence, and writing that you plan to show to strangers. In essence, any time you can't afford to be misunderstood.

Can what is considered standard change? Sure. But only in ways that improve the language's function. Maybe saying "bought small carrotbag" doesn't lose any meaning in that instance, but that became standard, if all grammar converted to such a simplistic, bare-bones functional style, what would we lose overall? Shall we do away with all pronouns and rely on context to tell who the subject is because it's quicker? We could probably get away with getting rid of articles--plenty of other languages get by without them--but what about "of"?

It might be an interesting experiment to try and get through a day without saying or writing "of." It can probably be done... but if you're feeling really adventurous, get rid of--no, wait--stop using some other prepositions, too. See how far cutting these little words gets you before you can't say anything useful anymore.

I could go on and on (and probably will come back later), but I have to work, so I'll just leave these suggestions for further study:

* George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four
* Noah Webster

~Neshomeh

I won't go into too much detail in order to protect the family's privacy, but they seemed very flattered I came. I did indeed manage to get flowers - a bunch of white roses, as requested - and a card. I didn't put everyone's names in because I couldn't fit them all in and I don't want them Googling us, but I did put in a bit about how many people I know will also miss him. The service was nice, mostly attended by locals. Some interesting anecdotes, some good singing by the school choir and one of his friends, and a recording of him reading one of his poems. Being "happy" I went would probably be inappropriate since, y'know, it was a memorial, but I'm glad I was able to go.

Here I am on the other side of the Atlantic. I really, really wish I could go. So yeah, if you do attend and bring a flower in my name, that would be wonderful. Any flower will do. If I were to choose, I'd say a rose, because, you know. It's Redwall.

...I won't be able to get there myself, but thank you so much for offering this, Laburnum. If you could bring a little stone or something for me, that would be wonderful, and go a long way towards being able to pay my respects.

I'd like to be there, buit I live all the way across the pond (as they say), and can't make it.

...So yeah, bring a flower in my name, please. Any color will do.

I'd love to go, but I won't get away from work till four p.m. and even after that I'd be struggling with transport. So yeah, if you could take a flower along in my name, that would be fantastic.

but alas, I don't have the money for the plane ticket. Do you think a white or pink rose would be appropriate for me to request?

. . . you don't need permission, capitalised or otherwise. The Permission Givers on this board only have jurisdiction over stories which actually use the PPC brandname. Their approval would be decorative at best.

However, it doesn't sound to me like you want to create a spin-off of the PPC -- which is the whole organisation and encompasses many departments -- but of the Department of Mary Sues. I suspect by now you've got the hint that there are plenty of pre-existing departments which would fit the role.

However, if you did mean you want to strike out on your own and create your own fictional police force, which would hopefully have all sorts of wonderful quirks to set it apart from the PPC, don't bother asking here for approval, just go ahead and do it. Stick it to the man, that's what I always say.

(It isn't what I always say. But only for lack of opportunity)

You wouldn't happen to be the author of the agent Dusk Daybreak, would you? Because we (that is, Neshomeh and I, mainly) have been trying to get in touch with that person for a while now.

In response to your actual question, I agree with what's already been said; no offense, but there's absolutely no reason to create a new department like this. If you specifically want your agents to focus on Pierce's (and Hunter's) work(s), you could have them be Freelance Department agents who specialise in those authors. That said, I also don't recognise you (though my presence has been spotty for a while now) - are you new or a long-abesnt oldbie?

A) Sorry, but that already exists: All-Purpose Department. They work with continua, not with types of badfic.
B) Are you too new or too old? Because I don't remember you either.
In case you're too new: Welcome! Leave your sanity at the door and enjoy this apple pie!

This seems to me to be pretty much just the Department of Floaters with a more focused... focus. To that end, we don't really need a new department right now, and in any case it's customary to wait around a month or two after introducing yourself before asking for permission to write a spin-off.

So introduce yourself, yes? Who are you? What do you like to do? Who is your favorite author? What of the PPC have you read before? What's your favorite spin-off? Have you done much writing in the past? Can we see some of that? That sort of thing. We really like to get to know you and have you be a part of the community as well as a fellow writer.

Also please take a minute to look over Da Rules, how to get Permission, the Original Series, and A Few Other Spin-offs.

I don't really understand the point of making a new department for something that is already done in other deparments.
You could just make your agents specify in that continua, instead of forming a new department.

Do you mean just kill badfic, or are you talking about, I dunno, unusually absurd stuff like Alanna the Lioness flying away on a winged Bluestar? (Also, kudos for Warriors canon. It's neat.) And no offense, but are you totally new, or have I just failed to notice you?

(I have no actual influence on this. I'm just curious.)

Welcome to the party, have a priceless emerald that I happen to have found down the back of the sofa last night. I promise it's not a trap to lure in the Batman or anything like that.

Welcome to the Board! Here, have some chocolate, and enjoy your stay!

Well met, rookie! Please enjoy this whatchamahoozit as a welcoming gift.

Here, have some snacks and water in case you get lost!

Since you're eagered to get permission, have you thought about which series' badfics or which types of badfics that you want to target?

I took a quick look at a few of your DC's, and they're pretty awesome! Quite like....um, I forgot what it was called, but it was an old show where they'd put on bad movies and make snarky comments through the whole thing.
Anyway, welcome newer-than-me person! Have a carnivorous skateboard, just be sure not to run over people's feet by accident.

Take this! *gives a pip-boy 3000*

Welcome, new friend! Have a plush mosquito!

Your Dramatic Commentary of My Immortal is amusing me so far.

Have.. er.. *searches pockets* ..er.. I had it somewhere... *looks in jacket pockets* Sorry, no go. Have a bit of lint. *tosses*

Welcome a-Board! Here, have a whisk, it's good for exorcisms. :D

*now, runs off to look at this blog*

Fair winds!

Now you can throw BBQ parties!

Hello, new and delicious friend! Have a pet rat, a tinfoil hat, and a overlarge gnat.

Hi! Have some fudge!

Don't feed it Sues or Stus.

I've never heard of Freakazoid before, but the mission was great. The plot thickens with the agents!

...just became my new favorite "What the heck does THAT mean?!" phrase.

Another enjoyable mission. Really looking forward to see where you take the pair of them next... and how long until the DIS finds them.

Wheee! I remember that show! Man I haven't seen an episode in ages...

Anyway, nice job killing this one.

You have no idea how happy you have made me. There are no words. I knew it was a Freakazoid! mission the second I saw the title.

That being said, I was disappointed at how utterly normal and uninteresting that fic was (not your fault, but the Suethor's). What's the point of writing in Freakazoid! if none of the crazy humor is going to appear? I was very glad you had the Freak himself appear in character at the end.

Now, if you'll excuse me. "Whoossshhh! Whoosssssssshhhhhhhhh! Whoossssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I may not know about this series either, but this mission was a good one. Especially with Flip's fanigrl moments!

Dang, so much stolen tech. Can't help but feel that they will smart for it later. *wince*

Deirdre is awesome. I love DRDs. ^^

As for the fic, I know nothing about Freakazoid, but that doesn't stop me from realizing the cliches and otherwise terrible plotting and characterization are... well, terrible. And also, silly names, and not knowing anything about DC, which is a place I've been a couple of times. Good grief.

And meanwhile, with the agents, the plot thickens. I'm looking forward to the next installment!

Oh, and <a href="http://ppc.wikia.com/wiki/PostingNewMissionReports">FYI. Though I'm happy to update this stuff if you don't want to.

~Neshomeh

A Freakazoid Sue. Even after reading your PPC, it's still not sunk in.

Still, brilliant PPC! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Well done!

Ahahaha, I love that movie!
Welcome to the board, have a pair of scissors that can't cut paper! Might be able to cut other stuff, though...

Welcome a-Board! Here, have a whisk, it's pretty good for exorcisms. :D

Great to see you around here! Have a sheet of candy dots!

Welcome, new friend! Have an Orichalcum and a Mithril!

I've seen you around the IRC, so welcome to the Board!

It can be quiet here... but not if people shake it up every now and then!

But have a hat knit from the spun pelts of Cute Animal Friends! Sure to keep you warm in the cold soul-crunching darkness of badfic!

Hello there, slightly newer-than-me-person! Have this radiator-bleeding-key!

Welcome. All me to pass on a magically purple otter from a mystic lamp.

Hi! Have some fudge!

Welcome to the Board! Here, have some chocolate, and pleae enjoy your stay!

Fair winds!

Now you can throw BBQ parties!

Don't feed it Sues or Stus.

I collected a bunch from a different newbie post, so I shall now throw them at people a few at a time.

Use them well. Chocolate + Bleeprin = double helpfulness.

:D

Hi, new and delicious friend, and welcome to the PPC! Have a pet cat, a tinfoil hat, a tiny little spat and a tasty ret.

Have some snacks, water, and a blanket! Just to get yourself settled, you know.

Have a Pan Galactic Gargle Bleeprin Blaster! Don't make my mistake and try to down it in one gulp.

It's only particularly special if you use it in a Dungeons and Dragons world though. Otherwise it's just a regular sword with your name on it.

Wow, what a terrible fic! Brilliant mission though, really well done on it! It's nice to see someone being rescued from the fic too.

but having read a little of the fic in question, no. They could not do this if they tried. They could only do this if they were sincere.

Great mission though. How DO you neuralyze a tree?

Hilarious. Kill it with fire, indeed. And I love July nearly snapping at the end.

Terrible fic! Awesome mission! The charge reading scene is quite hilarious. I also feel that "Pissing off agents" should possibly have been used a few more times. Or maybe, "defiling the hearts and minds of agents, your audience and the rest of the free world." This fic deserved to die in as graphic a manner as possible, and that indeed came to pass.

Glad to see you finally get this monkey off your back. And that charge-reading scene is, I put forth, one of the best I've read here.

I love the ending. {X D

I would have liked a little more of an indication as to what was specifically going on in the fic toward the beginning, but then again, I can understand why you wouldn't want to go into it. Yeesh. >.
Does this mean you're on a mission-writing kick? Can we expect more soon? {= D

~Neshomeh

For burning that fic down, I offer you your choice of any polyhedral random number generator that I possess. They come in Kokiri Emerald Green, Goron Ruby Red, and Zora Sapphire Blue and with any number of sides you can (probably) think of.

I am very glad you killed that. It is exceptionally creepy to have the Kokiri in a highly sexualized fic.

Excellent mission.

Good to see another badfic go down... and in flames, even!

Also, it's good to see more innocents rescued from badfic, and I'd like to see more of them.

Anyway, good job on the fic! Especially taking out the sue!

Sexually harassing trees? Labor? Pedo implications? Seriously? What was she (the badficcer) thinking with all this?! No wonder July burned the stu-replacement tree with JF and killed the dummy sue!

Questions:

Link to the badfic? Because I can't find it, and I want to see if the badfic goes and ruins other things besides the kokiri forest and it's residents.

Are you thinking about renaming Shiori as well as the baby, and what happened to the other OCs?

Where does this fic take place in the PPC timeline, since you were working on this since June 2008?

PS: Kind of funny to see JF argue with July.

I've got an AU going that will eventually have that pairing as one of the main pairings if you'd be interested in reading it.

...PFFT EPIC WIN. I wish I could write songs. Or sing them. Or both.

These are quite good.

It's nice to see you around, anyway! :D

Once again, it's great. However, I do have one minor complaint: The way these were edited makes it a bit hard to understand you at times. Slaughter the World seems to have been either recorded in Mono, or is really heavy on the left side and less so on the right, and while It's Dangerous To Go Alone is in Stereo (sort of), the music is on one side, and your voice is on the other, which is ultimately produces a similar effect to listening to two different Mono recordings at once.

There are PPC carols?! LINKY PLEASE!! I wasn't here yet at Christmas...

This sounds interesting enough that I might give some of these a run. I'd like to know that I'm devil's advocating some decent stuff :P

The risk of any of the massively overpowered Canons (the Borg, the Replicators, Chaos, etc.) becoming aware of the PPC is a mite bit overemphasized, in my opinion. Why? It's quite simple. For such an invasion to be Canonical, it has to be published as Canon. Some author out there has to discover the PPC, decide they don't like us, write an entire invasion... and then convince editors, publishers, etc that it's actually a story worth printing. Not going to happen.

On the other hand, if someone writes it without publishing, it's fanfiction. We happen to be very good at beating down fanfiction.

For that matter, if an author writes something including us, regardless of if they get published or not, we are the ones who decide if it is Canonical or not. If we don't want it to be canon, it's... not. And it's as simple as that.

I am going to assume that having a Great Unclean One as an Agent accomplishes something for your story-telling and narrative, i.e. there is a purpose for it being a Great Unclean One instead of, say, a talking aardvaark. If you could figure out what that purpose is, it would be easy to think of an Agent who fills that niche without being a piece of an evil god.

Since what we have is a multiverse, could it be that Chliever The Corroder could be reabsorbed only if he is in his original continuum? After all, the evil god is supposed to be present only there. If Chliever isn't in his reach, taking him back would be quite hard. So, keeping him out of Warhammerverse should be enough.

That's my two eurocents (€ 0.02) about it.

You're just trying to get around it, so stop doubling back on the issue. You un-canoned your agents, the die is cast, have the spine to stick to that. Though I doubt anyone'd stop you making some new ones if you wanted.

As far as I'm concerned, you're more than welcome to come back to the PPC - of course we love people here with good intentions, and I'm really glad you're trying to fix this particular issue.

However, I don't think the Agent should come back, at least not as an actual piece of a god. You wouldn't be able to get rid of that hypothetical, I think; evil gods and their pieces can't have their inherent natures altered that drastically.

On the other hand, there's nothing stopping you making up new Agents - or, as suggested once when this issue was brought up a while ago, have the Agent be a cultist of some kind who just believes he's a god-piece. Or something along those lines.

*has run out of useful suggestions, so will leave it at that*

I know this Isn't Done, and I'm breaking all kind of laws and whatnot, here. But.

Basically the problem is thus: one of my Agents was kindasorta a piece of an evil god a little. The issue was raised that should my Agent be hypothetically killed, said evil god would reabsorb him and thus know how to get to HQ, and invade the Word Worlds from there. I had actually never come across this detail in my research on this Agent's race. But if it is a real problem, modifications need to be made.

We are a writing community. This problem is exactly as real as we make it. If you don't write the re-absorption, HQ, and take-over, it simply does not happen. Perhaps the evil god has more on his mind? Perhaps he is wise enough to know that the deities of those worlds would fight him tooth and nail, good and evil alike? Who knows? The point is, it's only a problem if you choose to make it one later, and that counts as an Emergency, for which you'd need a consensus of approval, IIRC.

I'm all for internal continuity, but it's also a good idea to keep in mind that accidentally leaving a little plothole that would, if this was real, destroy reality... will not actually destroy reality. If you want to keep writing, nobody's stopping you. If you'd rather have your Agents make a visit to DoSAT and write in that fix first, go ahead. But I don't think it's a big issue at all.

I typed "a while ago" and then "a while back." Sowwy.

Oh god, no. The power of Rowling compels thee! Get the hence and trouble us no more!*Shiver* A Species-Harry Potter crossover?

I...kinda don't want to open it. Is it really as bad as it sounds?

Then I looked the page that was linked in this author's profile, and then...

http://thempregarchive.yolasite.com/aragorn-legolas.php

NSFW nor B

... so I don't start a new badfic thread.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3193309/1/Midnight

Listed as "Valdemar Universe", but actually from Mercedes Lackey's "Dragon Jousters" series. It's not nearly as bad as the fics in the thread starter, but COMPLETELY non-canon -- Lackey specifically stated in "Joust" that Ari has no sexual interest in other males.

At least, the HP/Ace Combat crossover I am sporking right now is not mindscarring. Good thing my Agents are Floaters.

It's like staring at a car crash... It's so horrible, yet my mind wants me to go on. Oh god, it's horrible!

NSFB, NSFB, NSFB, NSFB

Oh, why did I look, WHY!!!! "begins to cry"

Personally, I don't have a problem reading missions in continua I don't know. The reason is that I extract humor from how the agents are reacting more than anything else. If you're worried about the details of the canon going over our heads, focus the humor on the agents. Use more physical and visual types of humor—the spit-takes, the headdesking, the mad scramble for Bleeprin, etc., and especially any weird manifestations of the bad writing. The mental images will provide plenty of humor.

~Neshomeh

To be fair, it can work well even if your reader doesn't know the canon at all. I've recently been reading through a lot of older PPC stories, including a few set in the Fire Emblem 'verse. Despite having no former knowledge of Fire Emblem prior to reading the stories I still enjoyed them and got probably half the jokes involved.

I think a lot of boarders here skip the missions set in fandoms they don't really know. Mainly, I guess, because they think they would not get the joke. Or they read them and accept that they won't get all the jokes. If something ends up as a charge, that ought to be enough information that something was stupid to do. Explaining the jokes is thus not needed, as the people who know canon don't need it and others don't expect it.

If you think explaining is needed, you could make one of your agents an absolute noob about the fandom they got kicked into. Then everything would have to be explained to them.

Not all boarders know LotR (blasphemy, I know).

As you mentioned, it's hard to explain a joke without killing it.

The best way to do it when you don't know who'll know the canon?

Have it explained beforehand. Or have mental shortcuts in your explanation. Or give someone the role of not knowing the canon so you can explain it in character without talking to the fourth wall.

Make comparisons where it works and helps illustrate the point of ridiculous. "Hawk Laguz being the king of Serenes Forest? That's like having Elrond suddenly be Lord of Moria!" Looksee, that gets the point across to us doubly. People familiar with both get a doubly absurd image to be amused at, and those familiar with only LotR get to boggle at the wrongness it'd translate to in LotR-terms and imagine what it must mean for the canon being covered.

There are plenty of ways, just takes a bit of practice and retooling.

I honestly don't know, and I'm as curious as you.
However, I *did* find someone on youtube who read Celebrian, if you're interested in that.

is Ch* Ch*ng's D*sires about??

Well, I did some research, but I can't find it either.

According to some of the links I've found, the fic was written by the user UNpurethoughts on fanfiction.net and should be here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3102895/

Except it isn't. I don't know if the fic was lost, removed, or deleted, but it isn't there anymore, and no one seems to have archived it anywhere else at this point.