May 2011 Archive, part a

It's always good to see new faces, though I must admit that I'm a bit disconcerted to see that you're designing a Genius character since I'm also planning a character from that template.

Anyway, Welcome to the party! Have a silver spoon, a lemon gecko, and a star for steering tall ships by.

Fair winds!

Now you can throw BBQ parties!

Have some pepper shakers and a yellow rubber snake!

Here's a sonic screwdriver, should be useful.

Ooh, another troper! Yay! Nice to meet you!

Welcome, new friend! Have a crown of feathers!

Welcome, new friend, to the PPC Posting Board!

Here, have some chocolate, and enjoy your stay!

Welcome to the Board! Have a pet cat, a tinfoil hat and a largeish mat.

Hello and welcome, good sir or madam. Take a free muffin. Don't worry, they're perfectly harmless.

Here, have some freshly baked brownies, courtesy of Agents Ian and Lee of RC 6237, as well as a plushie Wraith from the Stargate Atlantis continuum, courtesy of Agents Orion and Mal of RC 404.

Hi, have some fudge!

We've never met, but I get the feeling we're going to get along just fine. Whose your favorite A:TLA character?

Enjoy this hard disc! *handles a stone disc to him/her*

Howdy, Tira!

You're big on nWoD, eh? Give us a shout over on IRC sometime, one of my agents is based off a world that's based off nWoD, I'd be interested in seeing what you've got in mind. I think there are a couple nWoD players here, I think Adamantine has mentioned Genius: The Transgression before, and I've also started working on an alternative game called Mercenary: The Asskicking.

Hey there! Welcome to the PPC! =D

Here, have some Shostakovich for the road:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC-pqRMasPQ

Feel free to settle in. We love new people here. =) At least, I do, since I'm probably still new-ish myself. And is that a Pokemon reference I detect? Hoorah!

Don't feed it Sues or Stus.

Nice to see you. Stick around a while.

hmm... let's see. Here you go, have a purple hat, A half-dozen ivory keys, and a star for steering tall ships by.

Hope you have a good times here!

Hello! Hi! Aloha! And a bunch of other greetings, most of which are rather illogical and insane!

Fair winds!

Now you can throw BBQ parties!

Heh, nice to meet you! Have a nice time on the board!
Have...um...A femur and a lemur. Don't give the femur to the lemur, though- it'll chew on it.

*gives chocolate*
Here's a snack in case you get the munchies. ;)

Don't feed it Sues or Stus.

Welcome! Here you have a bottle with the seven deadly sinns. Use them wisefully.

So anyways, I'll be probably taking a month or so of lurking, as was suggested, and my demon will probably be practicing with the nice shiny beam sword he got.

Why hello there, new guys are always great to have. =D

I don't know about being an intern, as that's best left to the guys in charge, but it's nice to have a fellow newbie here.

So here; have some Ives for the road:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU85bUyDPWs

Welcome, new friend! Have a Beam Sword!

Hi, have some fudge!

Have a pet cat, a tinfoil hat and a red gnat.

Welcome to the PPC Posting Board! I hope you remembered your sanity, that is, to leave it at home where it belongs. You'll find you'll have no use for it here. *offers a basket* Have a muffin. Don't worry, I made a few mistakes with the first batch, but I'm pretty sure these ones won't threaten to stab you.

Internship schminternship. Just say hello and act natural, lurk on the board for a month, start thinking about your agents, and ask all the questions you need. We're a friendly bunch, unless you catch us coffee-less. Once your month of lurking is over, just put up your Agent profiles, a link to a sample of your writing skill, and a link to whatever fic you want to tackle first, and our lovely Permission Givers will give you the thumbs-up or thumbs-down.

And relax! You look nervous. Have a free lemming. His name is George and he eats walnuts. I'll leave the others to their pokes and plovers and such.

Have fun!

You do need permission to write a spinoff, and that process is detailed here: http://ppc.wikia.com/wiki/Permission

Other than that, welcome!

*A camera turns on again, and an out of breath demon sits back down* I just realized you do most every kind of canon. I can do, among other things, star wars, Final Fantasy, Super Smash Bros, and Final fantasy if you do those. I apoligize for having to send two application videos.

Kinda reminds me of the Fill the Plotholes I did with Nume and Cameo back when I was just starting to wrap my head around the idea of writing missions--only this is much, much better constructed. Seconding the love for Jack. It's not easy to make something like a zombie adorable, but you've done it!

The idea that the canons might be aware of the wrongness while being forced to act against their natures is creepy, and definitely reinforces the PPC's purpose. It's cool to get an outside perspective on the agents as much as the "badfic," too.

~Neshomeh

I know others have said this already, but the POV shift made this mission very entertaining. It would be fun to see different canon characters' reactions to the madness going on around them during a badfic.

Sad to say, I would probably be a lot better at L4D in this Suefluenced, where-are-all-the-zombies? version...

I especially like how you did it from the canon's POV, that was a nice change of pace.

I don't even know Left 4 Dead, but I love this.

I gotta write some Parody Sue stuff myself at some point when my exams are over. Tell me if you wanna join in, I'd love your expertise :)

I loved it. You did great.

Different, but fun to read. And my fondness for Jack just keeps growing. He's so crazy and weirdly adorable, and makes me giggle. XD

...that I was already doing missions, and would therefore had characters that would be available to be used.

Of course, with the humongous amount of characters to choose from, mine probably wouldn't be interesting enough to be chosen... *plays worlds smallest violin*

Hm... well, looks like the Permission Givers have given you advice, but feel free to use my agents. Your visual novel idea sounds intriguing.

I would really love to see a PPC-themed visual novel. Do you have any idea who would be the point-of-view character, though?

PS: I don't have any agents.

I really do like this idea. If I get my Permission, you may use my characters in this novel of yours. Though, I would advise you get Permission for this idea of yours before you do anything with other peoples' characters.

I've always been a big fan of storytelling through images as well as text. I'd be very curious to see if a PPC-themed visual novel would work. A sample of your intended work would probably be advisable.

Oh, and you're welcome to use my agents if you like.

... I'm going to say the following:

A lot of people do PPC-themed writing samples, and (shockingly, I know) we don't tend to descend on them in fury. However, as I'm sure you know, a writing sample is intended as a sample of your writing, not your drawing skills.

However, as a sample of visual-novel-ing, a visual novel is ideal. Depending on what you mean by the term, it may also count as a writing sample (depends how it's done). So my opinion is this:

Go ahead and do it, with any cameos anyone offers (it's always best to ask rather than assume - people can be surprisingly touchy about who uses their agents. I'd say you can use mine, but they're all several years out of date). For permission-giving purposes, we'll consider it a sample of your narrative skills. Depending on what it looks like, we might then ask you to render a scene in prose form (2-300 words or so) just to be sure - but not a full-length writing sample.

hS

Get Permission first, and then when you make this I will be thrilled about this.

I would be totally OK with you using any stuff I make up, with citation to wiki.

Just gonna say though, this had better be epic. :)

After all, samples are needed to get an idea of the grammar and overall writing capability of the candidate, so a visual novel gives less informations.

But sure is a nice and original idea. While I can't speak for the more expert oldbyes, I want to read it.

Maybe all that's needed is a little written text to showcase your writing (a prologue?), and for characterization etcetera you can use the visual novel. Feel free to use my Agents for it.

Even when they aren't missions.

Their descriptions are on their Wiki pages.

I would probably be better able to tell out of characterness for this story, what with my literal days of playtime for World of Warcraft, if I actually paid attention to the story in it.

Of course, the story for Wow involves doing all of the big dungeon raids which I never got very far in.

...That just sounds bad.

So, yeah...only skimmed the first chapter and I can already tell you that the canons are badly out of character. They all speak and act like they are five years old (no offense intended to any five-year-olds who may be reading this). This includes the idea that your first attempt to defend your city should be for your leaders to charge blindly into the opposing army (which also happens to be headed by almost every leader of the other faction, for some reason).

Also, the spelling, punctuation, and grammar are frelled.

And as for ReginaTheNinja's question: You cannot be a different race than your biological siblings in any world that I am aware of. It has more to do with the Sue wanting to be extra special than it does with Warcraft.

Wow, that sounds painful. I don't really know anything about World of Warcraft, but how could she be a different species than her brother?

...and even I think that this fic is colossally bad. I mean, seriously!

Goodness. If I didn't have a mission in the works, I'd totally take this. >_>;

It's pretty horrible.

Is the review discussed on the page about a Doctor Who novel where they fight Mary Sues or something? Because if so, I think I need that book.

Anyone with half a brain knows that Bella and Edward- and most of the other characters, now that I think about it- are Mary-Sues.

Twilight in the Mary Sue products? That's a very appropriate section for that book to be a part of!

Oh geez! I love this! And Twilight is full of Mary Sues...yet, adolescents seem to love it? What does this tell you about America?

At some point I'm going to learn not to click on this kind of link at school, because if the teacher had been in the room, I would have gotten in trouble for disrupting class by laughing ENTIRELY too loud (and for being on here instead of typing the latest idiotic essay assignment.)

It's good to see Twilight listed under Mary Sue products

I didn't get it when I first looked at the image.

And then I scrolled down and saw Twilight under suggestions for Mary Sue products.

This has made my day. Thank you, good sir. =D

Your site seems to have some rather annoying pop-ups that are getting around Firefox somehow. Perhaps you can find someplace without them before getting too established where you are.

As for the sample and everything else, I don't see why you shouldn't have Permission, so it is granted. {= ) I will add that the concept of a "srs bsns professional" agent has been done (most recently by Agent Orken), so it may not be wise to push that angle too hard. The idea is only funny because it's not normal in the PPC, after all. If everybody starts doing it, it will lose its charm really fast. Anyway, how uptight can a guy with blue hair really be? {= )

~Neshomeh

Another Warcraft Paladin. Agent Brightbeard would finally have someone to talk to other than the insane Troll Priest he calls a partner or the Bronze Dragon that has a thing for muscle-bound blue men.

That could be good for him...if he is not already irrevocably insane. It's hard to tell with a Dwarf.

Have a pet cat, a tinfoil hat and a yellow gnat.

I don't know who you are, but that's not gonna stop me, so welcome back.

Here, have some Scriabin (in three parts!) for the road:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2UFPH-8lNE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Rl-VKk9Mz0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZWGinctFJM&feature=related

Don't feed it Sueish honey.

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

{= D Party in the Lounge. We should throw one. \o/

(Guess I'd better mop up all those e's first, though.)

~Neshomeh, who is quite excited. Nyez.

Hi, have some fudge!

Welcome back! Hope you have a nice time!

Fair winds!

Now you can throw BBQ parties!

*comes out of lurkerdom to poke B*

Welcome back!

Oh, Orken. You try so hard to be a jerk, but if you keep showing mercy to Sues and being understanding toward your annoying partner, you'll not be fooling anyone for long. ^^ Being human rubs off on you, doesn't it?

So, yeah, finally got a chance to read the last mission and this, and had fun. I really do enjoy the fact that Thomas is the homicidal psychopath of the pair. It's never quite what I expect, which is awesome.

Some SPaG issues persist--for one, when addressing someone with a title, as in Agent Thomas, the title always needs to be capitalized. Since you're writing for Orken, you have to keep an eye on that. I recommend making use of the Find feature when you finish writing; it's a good way to check that your usage of X is consistent with its context each time X appears.

My moment of zen: Orken unbending enough to clean up puke. Beautiful. ^^

~Neshomeh

Have I ever mentioned I love Orken and Thomas? Because I do. They are brilliant.
Also--love the vomit thing. Not vomit itself, just the whole vomit thing in this interlude.

...what are you going to do next?

It was fun to read and I'm seriously curious about what will happen next.

Also, since I applied for permission, I'd like to ask you for the Sue. Just in case I get permission, of course.

My first thought: Redundant, because the PPC Wiki has a very very involved Mary Sue definition already.

My second thought: This is pretty much exactly the same as PPC standard Sue definition, and condensed into a different format from the wiki entry-- simplified for brevity, as well.

My third thought: You have an on-site reference to what is essentially the PPC standard, which is more of immediate glossary reference than redundancy, sort of like an official document. I see lots of these sorts of appendices in official docs I sort, so that almost has an inside-the-fourth-wall implication that just as your spin-off has more of a military spin, so does the supplementary material.

In other words: Just as most branches of the PPC are shaped like themselves (Anime division has tons of anime-like antics, video game division makes lots of game references, lit divisions use literary in-jokes) so is Tangodown! in that respect

Conclusion: Don't see anything wrong with the definition or having it there. You may want to link to the long-format Mary Sue entry on the PPC wiki-though. This is a spin-off, and thus isn't exactly self-contained.

But still, I admire the completeness of the definition, without going into the variation between many individual Mary Sues-- which is what the Wiki is for, anyway and you'd not want to post about in the first place. :)

Here's some food!

Sue brutalization should be fun. I'm looking forward to that also.

AND HELLO :D

...we got fun and games.

Anyways, I bequeath to you a grapping gun. Aim high.

Well met, rookie! Please enjoy this experimental jetpack as a welcoming gift. Remember not to use it indoors.

Ooh, another troper! Hi! Hello! Aloha! And numerous other greetings of varying levels of sanity!

Have fun on the board!
Have a cream pie and a fox plush!

Welcome to the PPC! Hope you enjoy your time here. Have a collection of plastic sporks! They're a cross between a spoon and a fork.

I believe we met earlier on the chat, but welcome nonetheless!

Have a mouse with jellyfish DNA spliced in! It glows in the dark!

Hey there, welcome to the Board! Here, have some chocolate, and enjoy your stay!

G'day! Here'a a bottle of Sue repellent. You'll need it.

Hi! Have some fudge!

Fair winds!

Now you can throw BBQ parties!

Have an awesome-laced cookie. It helps surviving badfic... not that you need that.

Seems like you're one of these persons who naturally produce brain bleach.

Have a pet cat, a tinfoil hat and a large mat.

Stay a while, and have some crackers. And an old hat. And a Dutch oven.

We're glad to have you aboard.

I think you'll fit in just fine! ^_^ Have a box of Girl Scout cookies for your stay.

Don't feed it Sues or Stus.

Hey, a fellow newbie! Welcome to the PPC!

Here, have some Schoenberg for the road:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGWai0SEpUQ

Welcome, new friend! Have a Sweat Drop Generator! Adhere it to your forehead, and the next time you start to sweat, it will all be absorbed into the generator and combined into a single, expressive super-drop.

I'm nearly up on my month of lurking/learning, so I was wondering on Permission as well. Mainly, is your writing sample a sporking of badfic, or is it something else entirely? Do you just propose the badfic that you intend to spork and wait for approval before proceeding, or do you spork it right off the bat and put that up for Permission givers to review?

(Sorry for tacking on to your questions, Karen!)

Fair winds!

Now you can throw BBQ parties!

Hello! Have a spool of green thread and a pack of rubber bands.

Have a pet cat, a tinfoil hat and a little mat.

Here's some food and water!

Hi! Hello! Aloha! And a multitude of other greetings of varying levels of sanity!

Here's a crowbar, never know when you might need one. ;)

Welcome, new friend! Have a shark kennel!

Don't feed it Sues or Stus.

Welcome to the PPC, and it's great to see a new guy here!

Here, have some Webern for the road:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN9qJ4oJdvc

*hides c*l*b*a*n links quickly.* I mean welcome to the PPC, have a collection of sporks.

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

Hello and welcome! Have a hubcap crab and a conical hat!

The hubcap crab is a crab made from an abandoned hubcap! It makes for a good minion.

The conical hat is made of Tin Foil and Duct Tape, so it keeps conspiracy theorist out, and deflects most weaponry!

Hi, have some fudge!

Well met, rookie! Please enjoy these fancy sunglasses (suitable for all occasions) as a welcoming present.

Have some awesome-laced cookies. They help against the Suefluence.

Herro from great Democratic People's Republic Of Korea! Let me give you Dear Reader Cookies!

Ah, okay. Thanks for the tip c:

As for fandoms, I rather like Redwall, Harry Potter, various small books, and Pokemon.

I already welcomed you on the IRC, so it'd be silly to do it again here. You may want to share some of your fandoms, though.

I guess it's my turn to make some riddles. In celebration of the fact that in many countries film titles are translated, the topic I choose is films.

Different; Sibling
Container; Canines
Flood, country
Argument, society
Game; Kid

Last one may be most difficult as I cheated there and translated the film title to Dutch and then back to English.

The first was easy:
Sunflower Offical

With the aid of my dictionary the third is: Acacia Bird.
My dictionary is blanking on Lycium as well.

Question though: how do you count most correct? I mean, I've now posted two answers for everyone to see. Anyone could copy my answers in their post and add one more and come to most correct.

Will he keep the teeth?

That teeth-thing's gotta hurt pretty horribly...

You tend to use commas too much, when you should be using periods, or shouldn't use them at all. It's not that much of a problem, but too many commas lead to run-on sentences, which tend to detract from the flow of the narrative, which is a shame because otherwise it's quite good.

See what I mean? It's not really that big a deal, just one of my pet peeves. Of course, I tend to use periods too much and make my sentences far too choppy, so take that with a grain of salt.

L'Homme Arbre

P.S. I think you did a good job on Lux; many characterizations I've read of her go something like NYMPHO OMG NYMPHO LOL NYMPHO. Nice to see someone who understands she has a bit more character to her than that. Not very much more, admittedly, but some...

P.P.S. Also, hooray! Another person who didn't know about using the crash-test dummies for YouFics and had one of their agents get possessed in bizzare, shape-altering ways!

Due to the sheer oddity (and therefore, uniqueness) of our commonality, I have decided we are now Best Board Buddies for Life. I will be cyber-stalking you all around the Net in order to post nice things about you and your writing in the bizzarest of all possible places. Get used to it.

P.P.P.S. No, not really. (Unless you want me to.)

Another good spinoff to illustrate why you need a crash dummy, and a nice demonstration of Luxury's personality.

I linked your mission to the crash dummy wiki page. Poor Cadmar... shark teeth=not fun!!

I wonder if Luxury's ever met Jack Harkness...

This was really funny. I remember you talking about this mission and it really turned out well.

And Luxury... oh god Luxury.

Whyfor did they start asking money?

I see no such thing on mine.

Check out Tripod or Bravenet. I believe they both offer site builders if you're not into HTML, but if you are you probably want Bravenet--I don't know if Tripod will let you just do it anymore. I could be wrong, though; I haven't made a new account there since they introduced Webon (the site builder).

~Neshomeh

You need an invite code; I've got several, though, if you're looking. Actually if anyone's looking, especially in wake of the DDOS attacks.

The rich text window never worked for me either. Have you tried pasting in the text and then switch to html to manually add in the cut? at the start and at the end (both without spaces, space between cut text stays).

I'd say Wordpress can be used. Unfortunately, I don't know much of it as I actually use Splinder, an Italian blog website. (If you look in carefully, there are still some Italian word here and there despite the fact I translated the whole template in English)

Id's say that Splinder works well, but unless you speak Italian it won't be a good choice for you.

As a PG, I'm not really prepared to say yes or no until this plays out and you've decided what you want to do, but I will say I share some of the issues others have mentioned with the guy I'm now thinking of as Victor Borge for reasons that the linked video ought to make clear. It's gonna be really hard to overcome that sort of first impression, so I'd suggest taking plenty of time before making up your mind.

~Neshomeh

Disclaimer: I'm not a PG but i'll give you my 2 cents anyway.

I'm seeing enough errors that I'm going to go line by line:

First thing I notice is a weird transition at the end of the first paragraph. It implies that the agent is actively being lectured by the flowers, but that is not the case.

recently assigned to the Department of Mary Sues

Of all the things to say for the very first descriptive text of Karem you use that? This is the introduction! This line should give you the foundation of this character's personality. It shouldn't tell you what department she's in.

I don't have the same problem with parenthesis that DML does: the insert about Triple seems to fit fine, although the exact words are a bit clumsy.

I also disagree with DML about the front-loading descriptions. They have their place, and the first introduction of the main characters can certainly stand to have two sentences each of description. It's to-the-point and not remotely purple.

After a moment’s consideration, Triple walked over to the right side of the room and placed his armchair near the bathroom door.

Did his armchair become pocket-sized since the last time it was mentioned?

Triple called over his shoulder, speaking in a cultured accent.

A what?

Radiating about twenty feet from the door in all directions on the walls, ceiling, and floor were scorch marks that told the explosives expert a very large bomb had recently gone off in the RC.

I would think that his memories would tell him more than his bomb expert skills. The intro implies he was involved in causing it.

~~~

Okay, my first impression of Triple is that he's just unlikeable. My face is literally scrunching up reading him. He's got super strength and could easily do the job that multiple people are having trouble with, but he won't because he's a prick.

Triple’s lower left eyelid began to twitch sporadically.

At this point I'm surprised he has a human face. I was expecting some kind of ceramic mask instead. In fact, it makes it easier for me to swallow that he's an inhuman statue. I can't imagine an actual person like this.

“Cease at once, or I will not allow you any of the Bleeptea on the upcoming mission.”

Awesome. He's her boss too.

“Celebrian.” Triple spoke without inflection. His partner immediately collapsed on the floor and began to twitch in a way that was altogether disturbing.

And he's abusive and manipulative. Seriously, this is just horrible. He's sociopathically torturing his partner.

There is literally no flaw you can give to this guy that will justify how much of a prick he is. Why do you hate Karen so much that you give her this as a partner?

Sorry, but Triple is unsalvageable as a character. I strongly suggest starting over with him.

AFAIK it's discouraged to make your writing sample for a Permission request actually about the agents you write for.

1) Am I just misunderstanding, and it's actually perfectly fine, as long as it's not an actual mission?

2) Just about everyone writes their agents in the permission request anyway. Does the Permission Request page need to be fixed to make it more clear this is frowned upon?

3) Should that policy be changed? An intermission with the agents actually sounds like a good way to get familiar with the characters and see how they might write a mission.

Howdy there.

I'm not a permission giver, but I can give you a bit of honest feedback. The beginning of the episode rubbed me the wrong way; it felt like an infodump. This tends to be something I seem to see quite a bit in badfics and as a result, describing all your character's clothes and minutae up front raises quite a number of red flags at the start of the story.

Another thing I tell everyone is to avoid parenthesis in your narration. Using them to inject sides into your narration is a big no-no, especially if they stand out from the rest of the narration itself or completely take it in a different direction. Doing so tends to be sloppy work. As a rule of thumb, never inject exposition in brackets into your narration, ever, as it tends to break up the narration itself and detract from the feeling of reading it.

If you can use indents, as well, use them or block paragraphing, but never both simultaneously. I prefer to try to use manuscript (indented) formats, because block paragraphing tends to cause the story to become too spaced-out and as a result of everything been to spaced out, linebreaks lose their presence, especially if you're viewing it on a large-format display like mine in plaintext or HTML; that's another reason I use PDFs for my work, because some HTML forms parse out spaces unless you word them using character codes which are a clumsy and awkward way of doing it. I suggest looking up a tutorial on how to do manuscript format; Google returns a lot of good hits and that'd probably be a great place to start for formatting. Formatting's always a killer and I still find myself tripping up over it from time to time.

Thirdly - flaws are not the be-all end-all way to avert Stuism. Under the definition that I follow [Tangodown!, 2011], a Stu is a character that undermines: a) The believability, consistency and/or integrity of its own portrayal, its setting, its author, or the ability of the audience to suspend disbelief. Triple stands out as something that deliberately tries to be too cool, and as a result tends to cut it very close for me. Character flaws, either great nor small will affect this, but it is perfectly possible to have a Sue that displays character flaws and still manages to meet one of or all four of the Tangodown! criteria. While I know that not telling everything up front is a good thing, bear in mind that most readers will develop first impressions of both the character and your ability to write very quickly and in an environment like the PPC's, arguably where we're trying to show up other people's Mary Sues, there's not much room for error. If his calmness and perfection is a facade, take it, play it up, run with it. Just never figure that you're going to be able to take it and run with it later. Keep your audience in mind; net audiences are something of a mixed bag on the internet; often they will not take your word for it that 'it gets better later' and just move onto the next thing. Because your series will not be a coherent work on paper sitting on someone's desk, it is likely they will see some parts of a story and not others. Saying "it gets better later on" or "I'm saving that for later on" is an extremely easy trap to fall into, and it can be dangerous.

Lastly, treatment of "newbies" like that isn't something I personally would encourage or like to see. Jokingly referring to "FNG Syndrome" is one thing. Going out of your way to label, then marginalize or sideline a group is another.

Good luck and keep writing.

Further Reading
DML, (2011, May 4), Tangodown! Specification MS101, Retrieved May 8 2011 from Essays - Tangodown!: http://delta-mike-lima.webs.com/info/TGD-SPC-MS101.pdf

In all honesty, I did not like the writing sample. The spelling, punctuation and grammar were fine, from what I could tell, but there were a number of other problems.

1) ??? being what he put on the application is a good idea, but carrying it over into the story is not. I think it would have been better to use whatever name his partner calls him, or something of that nature. It is hard for someone like me, who hears the words in his head as he reads, to translate ???.

2) The Vampire Rant. Just... No. It completely took me out of the story. It would have been fine if it had been from the character, rather than the narrator, and if there were some reason for the rant. So far as I can tell, there is little about this character that would lead me to say "that guy is a vampire." So, to have a rant like that, with no provocation, just seems really off. Also, if you are going to put something in a story, it is just stupid to tell the audience to disregard it. If you don't want us to pay attention to it, then don't put it there in the first place.

3) ??? has superhuman strength, the ability to remember and recite the List Of Things I Am Not Allowed To Do In The PPC beyond 1176 rules, his furniture is unaffected by an explosion in a confined space, and he looks perfect ALL THE TIME. His only flaw is that he hates being dirty. And that seems not to be a flaw so much as a berserk button (even though he seems to have no emotion) that causes him to threaten a Maintenance worker and his family for something that would be out of said worker's control.

4) Karen is really paranoid that the Flowers are out to get her. So, why is she still here? Why did she join up in the first place?

5) Explosion in the RC and the bricks. I'm asking. I see no reason for either thing, though you may have reasons in mind. Also, how did she manage to harness people to the sledge? That takes a fair bit of work and would not be easy if the person being harnessed was struggling.

I cannot speak for Permission myself, being not a Permission Giver and also not being a native English speaker, but I liked it very much. Sure this is one of the oddest couples here in HQ (and Triple-Question-Mark is creepy).

Only one thing: how the hell did Karen stole clothes from Nikki, the Agent I'm going to introduce in my next mission? I was thinking a coat-turtleneck-jeans combination too.

It can be a difficult thing to make me laugh out loud at stories sometimes. You, however, managed to do it twice during the conclusion of this mission. Well done!

The one issue I have is that this story almost comes off more like a MST than a mission in places. The agents don't really do anything except snark at the badfi...il the ending: they don't really interact with each other or the environment except through dialogue. It feels a bit static to me.

Still, other than that, I loved it. Looking forward to your next one!

Are we supposed to be beta-ing, or just reading? And can I get a link to the fic?

Very very amused. Slightly sorry for Caleb, but I think it's probably not wise to offer sympathy to someone if you can't stop giggling that long. ^_^

I would also like some Bleeprin to erase the images of bacon shagging, thanks. {X D

~Neshomeh

...is that you can embrace any of the large number of action movie russian bad guy stereotypes and still be correct :P

She looks fun.

I agree with DS that the tense shifts and sudden appearances of "I" in the narrative are a little disjointing, but not enough to make reading unfun, so whatever; it's your spin-off, your narrative style is up to you. I appreciate your grasp of how the Laws of Narrative Comedy work, so enjoy!

~Neshomeh

Disclaimer: I am not a permission giver. I will now proceed to give you my 2 cents anyway.

The biggest problem with the writing sample is an inconsistent narrator. It waffles between being a neutral omniscient observer (with a snarky personality) and being from Kara's perspective. It should be one or the other. Another thing about an omniscient narrator - they know what's going to happen, so it obviously wouldn't have said 'fortunately Kara was only aiming for Regina' since it already knows everything will go horribly horribly wrong.

Another big violation is that it uses "I said." There should never, ever be a first person pronoun used by a narrator in a third person perspective fic.

I also note:

1)Tense inconsistencies. Her skills shouldn't be described in current tense if the story is described in past tense.

2)Logic fail. Someone getting hit by a water balloon is not a quiet, easily missed event. People tend to scream in surprise, water splashes everywhere. Most likely the whole cafeteria will be aware of what happened after the first one, if not the second one.

3)Logic fail 2: Even if not everyone in the cafeteria noticed right away, how the heck did Regina miss it? While silliness is embraced in the PPC, unless Regina hails from the Looney Toons world this is still a stretch. You didn't even mention anything that might distract her enough to not look around.

4)This is obviously the start of a mission. You shouldn't be writing any part of the mission at all until you have permission.

So as to avoid double posting.

Well, first of all, many thanks to PoorCynic and DML who betaed the sample piece.

I'm applying two agents for DMS, Freelance division, namely:

Joan Ford, about 40 years old, a Tolkien-elf raised in Earth, probably a Noldor since she has black hair and grey eyes. She was adopted in a Led Zeppelin show, and has two bad habits: a nervous tic, which makes her cover her ears with her hair, and the necessity of talking about her relatives --who have always done something similar to what she's witnessing/talking about, etc.-- Apart from that she's balanced, usually not showing the normal amount of insanity of an average agent's until she gets to kill the Sue. She also has an issue with shiny things.
Bob Nothing, 15 Yshkatk-ian years, more or less 22 Earth years. In fact, Bob has an unreadable/unpronounceable name, which made people call him something easier, and no surname. He's still in his freshman year, in the PPC as well as dealing with the many new races he's meeting everyday, so he usually sticks his foot in his mouth or is close to it; he also finds everything funny and is constantly amused. He thinks even the Laws of Narrative Comedy and the Ironic Overpower are funny and is constantly tempting them; of course, they don't fall for it that easy, but eventually they'll teach him not to tempt them.

This is the sample:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Nptwmo6nuv4fn0qkcRn4Yk4ZWZStkox9bKd67V09Q6c/edit?hl=en&authkey=CMeU4J8J#

And this is the fic I intend to spork:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5343123/1/Beyond_Love

Very nice assassination method there :) .

Am I mis-remembering, or did the Suethor plagiarize the opening of "A Scandal in Bohemia" at the start of her fic? The first two quoted paragraphs remind me of Watson talking about Irene Adler, but I'm posting from work and my books are at home.

Big ol' Sue, chocolate eyes and all... Good take-down. I like your execution method.

I seem to recall discussing this one in the chat when it was first found. We were all aghast at it. It really, really needed killing!

Another highly entertaining mission.

Are there actually any Holmes badfics that don't center on Holmes and his one true love?

But seriously, that whole "Holmes in love" thing nearly made me sick. Jeez, what gives Suethors those kinds of ideas?!

How is she in love with a Muggle?

BECAUSE HE'S THE G****** BATMAN

What was the author smoking when he or she wrote that first badfic?

After the weird stuff I've been finding lately, a straightforwardly godawful crossover Sue (named "Raven Godchild," FFS) will be a nice change. I think I want to kill her.

Hi, have some fudge!

Fair winds!

Now you can throw BBQ parties!

Have a pet cat, a tinfoil hat and a brown mat.

Welcome back! Hope your sanity can survive a second round!

It's good to have people returning, even if I don't know who you are.

Here: Have some three-part Stockhausen for the road:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuEw-yBX6Mk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wwmh-yNlZY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOORMSo9WZ4&feature=related

Don't feed it Sueish meat.

With a mecha... and flamethrower... with a melon?

...

All these fics... so gross... and so unfunny...

Excuse me while I go vomit in the corner.

*ten minutes of projectile vomiting later*

Okay... Yeesh...

When I get around to requesting permissions, I'm adding Falcon Thrust to my list of fanfics I wanna spork. Even if I know absolutely nothing about the world of "The World Ends With You", I will saunter through the sporking, damn it! This... thing deserves no less!

Your sample piece was quite good-- I didn't spot any grammatical errors. Granted, I do have a bit of an issue with the formatting, which needs a bit of work-- either stick to one line between each paragraph, or indentation every single new line. Or both, preferably. That, and I'll expect language warnings on your pieces if you're going to be swearing-- we do have a pg-13 code, so language warnings are a Good Thing.

But those are both very easy fixes; your characters are interesting, your grammar and spelling are excellent, and your writing style is nifty. Permission granted! I look forward to your missions in general.

I'd also like to use RC 43042, but I'm admittedly not entirely sure if it's available.

Fair winds!

Now you can throw BBQ parties!

Since you mentioned it in the chat, here is a tin of Paperclip Cookies to welcome you back. Indeed, I do not throw anything out. I make no guarantees of their edibility. *g*

~Neshomeh

So hi, Hawkelf. Have an awesome-laced cookie.

Don't feed it Sues or Stus.

Welcome back to the mad house. Have a Ukelele made of Sapient Pear Wood.

It really seems like a ton of people are coming back to the Board right now. Maybe it's because summer is coming and that's the right time of year to do it. That's part of my reason for coming back, anyway.

Have some welcome-back chocolate!

Hi, have some fudge!

I don't remember you... but then again I only arrived in 2008, so that's probably a valid reason. In any case, welcome back to the Board!

I hereby present you with a bag of pebbles and a Random Shiny Object. May they serve you well in your defence of Canon.

Also, hi! :D