Apr 2013 Archive, part a

((Alternate title, My hospitality, let me show you it))

"Fair point," said Gaspard, "but I don't think I'll ever get tired of the beach."

He checked his wristwatch, then his RA. It was still unresponsive. "Cor, I'm going to be late for dinner again. My mother is going to kill me."

The lights in the Generic Hallway went out one by one.

Gaspard, who was on his way home, stopped and peered into the distance. Following the time-honoured horror trope, the lights in the back shut themselves off first, then the ones closer to him, and closer, and closer until a curtain of darkness was sweeping forward.

The spy dove his hands into his Adventure Pouch and pulled a stack of Minecraft torches from it. He stabbed them into the wall and ground surrounding him, creating a little island of light in the now pitch-dark corridor. He plastered himself against the wall and fumbled in his Pouch for his RA. The agent knew where this was going: this was a classic horror setup. He wasn’t going to become one of those stupid genre-blind victims who would blunder off into the dark with only a flashlight and calling out for monsters to eat them. No, he was going to portal to somewhere nice and sunny until Maintenance fixed whatever was going on here. His eye twitched. Hang on a moment: didn’t a power outage in the past lead to some sort of big Emergency or the other?

Time to go, then.

Gaspard pulled out the calculator-like device and frantically keyed in a code for a little beach in Cuba. The RA beeped and displayed an error message: [Error. Portal generator inactive. Contact DoSAT for assistance.]

“Fantastic,” he grumbled, stowing the RA. “Stuck in HQ with the power out. Damn, damn, damn. Next plan, then.”

He pulled his DORKS from his Pouch and set the code for a HEV suit. Retreat to the RC, light everything up with torches, wait it out. Yes. That was good. Small space, easily defendable, choke point. Booby-trap the door, set up motion sensors.

The Kostume System, currently disguised as a packet of instant noodles, flared to life with a sci-fi twanging noise. Seconds later, a heavily armoured Gaspard was shuffling forward down the corridor, placing torches on the wall as he went. If he was going to be blundering around in the dark, he was going to do it silently and wearing several centimetres of energy-shielded bulletproof material.

To: [sturbo.console124204wc759525.rc1597.SOD]
From: [caroline.dosat]

As Corolla functions off of an internal energy source her functions should be unaffected. This should only afflict the technology that was attached to the PPC main power source at the time of the outage. Thus, beings like her and myself are unharmed. Should further complications arise Anne has devoted most of her spare bodies to creating short-term fixes for Agents. It is extremely probable that eventually she will find your RC.

- Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device Humanoid Testing Droid DoSAT Technician Caroline

To: [DoDAEG] & [DoSAT]
From: [lana.console8888]

Hey, I just got back from a mission with Narav and Riaa, and our disguise thingie died right as we were coming out. Narav is Not Happy about being a strange combination of a Pikachu and Canim (don't ask) and I think Riaa might start pulling out the giant shadow-spider legs if her REAL spider legs don't stop being pony feet (DON'T ASK.) Get some of your madboys up here to fix this!

To: [Everybody else, basically]
From: [0.4342944819.console.192.168.2.1.External]
Subject: Power outage?

Uhum. Is there something wrong with HQ's power supply? Des is unable to prepare tea, and he is driving me up the walls, figuratively speaking, as a result. Also, the lights seem to have gone out, and this is somewhat problematic...

^Made of technology

>My sides

You know, Tawaki, that second fic looked interesting, in an 'I want to see how the Flaming Denethor this works and take it apart in a mission' sort of way. Pity, really.

On the other hand, I think I remember you doing this sort of thing on previous April Fool's Days, so it's fun to see again :)

(Also, how do you post a link and have different text displayed? I've forgotten, and can't find the post where I was told how...)

~DawnFire

I loved it! XD (and am extremely jealous, I didn't manage to come up with such things, but oh well XD)

It was thoroughly enjoyable, can't wait to see the "real" mission too!

Gotta be quick, since I'm on vacation and the place I'm staying has no wifi -I'm using a department store free wifi right now- but I will say that that is awesome. Honestly, I'm kind of sad it isn't your actual first misson because it's so creative!

Ooh, very nice! I only skimmed bits of it here and there, (time issues rampant) but what I saw of it seemed quite awesome. I liked the banter (is it banter if they can't stand each other?) between Charlie and Brenda. Can't wait to see more!

I hope Charlie and Brenda's CAD acts like that in the official version of this mission. There should always be somebody around when things get a little nutty to say "Are you kidding me?", and since the CAD is a world-weary, usually-abused piece of nigh-omnipresent PPC technology, it's in a unique position for that role. Also, Edgar's CAD responding to being swallowed by Carrrot by woefully shouting "It's only a model!" made me bust up laughing.

I was a little disappointed that the mission didn't show any of the text from the original fic and the agents' reaction to that text at first. Then it revealed that it was a shortened version of the actual mission and I felt better. In fact, I'm really looking forward to the final version now! Will Edgar show up in that one, too? He did a good job of setting up the jokes, and the "Assassins always sound like criminals" scene wouldn't be the same without him.

If you can't load the Wikia editor, try using a different browser to publish. Sometimes the wiki pages don't process well on certain browsers for a day or two, but it usually doesn't affect every Internet source in the network. You'll just need to log in again in the new browser so that Wikia recognizes you, but you probably already knew that.

(I don't know, I sort of like the white text on the black background. It's not like this on the Other Board, I noticed, which means it's probably more a seasonal joke than foreshadowing for something.)

I found her you see. No, I have no idea how Ivy is short for Laiqualassiel.
Anyway, very funny story and it seems like the kind of thing that could happen with the right malfunctions.

But still funny. I was amused.

Insofar as I remember my high school days (they're only three years ago, after all,) I remember liking different teachers more than their subjects. For example, I had advanced composition with a sarcastic little old woman who we were all firmly convinced was british, and pretty much my entire class asked "how high?" whenever she said "jump." I don't remember liking the actual assignments that much, but I loved the actual class, despite having despised English the year before when I'd had American Lit. My chemistry classes, which I'd expected to be interesting, got really boring aft er the teacher stopped being able to explain things very well, and I won't even trouble you with my junior year Spanish teacher, who was universally hated.

With the right teacher, history can be amazing. (Like Neshomeh, I also read the Horrible Histories, but I also made myself instantly popular with the boys and unpopular with the rest of the girls in first grade when I presented "how mummies were made," and talked about them pulling the brain out through the nose, so my standards of what's cool tend towards the zombie attack school.) I've also had extraordinarily dull history teachers, but luckily I've learned to read between the lines (and to watch Hetalia) so that I can get through those negative charisma point teachers.

What I think the main reason might be for this course being removed or changed is probably because it doesn't sound educational, and parents and school board members want everything to sound as educational as possible. I'm pretty certain the school board at my high school would have wondered what the "educational value" of a class called "Zombie Apocalypse Survival" was, and not even bothered to investigate that it's a class where you read and write about the zombie apocalypse.

Never fear, though: depending on what college or university you go to and what you major in, the fun classes start there. In the past three years I've had the most fun in my Philosophy class, which was surprising given that most people expected it to be boring, an environmental sciences class where we had a field trip every week, Latin (our textbook was surprisingly dirty and we didn't get points taken off for some of our most ludicrous translations, such as "the poured soldier was a column,") and biology, a class I roundly hated in high school.

(Also, math gets violent when it turns into statistics or economics. :D )

Zeroth thought: Pauline, you've probably noticed most people around here - or on the internet in general - put an extra line break between paragraphs. For some reason I've never been able to figure out - but Neshomeh could probably tell me - it makes reading from a screen a heck of a lot easier. Looks awful in books, though...

First thought: On the subject of interesting/enjoyable/educational lessons, I'm going to pull in three examples from my own experience:

-At one extreme, we have my Physical Chemistry lectures at university. These were blighted by the fact that two of our three lecturers actually had negative charisma (one of them literally read the slides out to us - yes, fine, I can do that myself). I had a horrible time trying to learn the stuff, although I did pass the exams with the aid of last-minute revision outside the hall. Don't remember the equations now, though.

-At the other extreme, my wife (Kaitlyn, she's around occasionally) had a... very... uh... interesting lecturer for some course at uni. Her assignments included trying to sell a piece of junk on eBay, and making a new Wikipedia page (without it getting immediately deleted). Okay, that's highly entertaining, and the latter taught her a few things about citing and referencing - but I don't know that she took anything else away from the class.

-And then there's the middle ground.

Erste links
Zweite rechts
Dann gerade aus...

German class at... oh, probably age 15? Could have been as early as 11 or 12. Our classes were firmly based in the textbook, but the textbooks were interesting, with random songs, stories, all sorts. French, too.

Tu comprende maintenant?

I have kept a far better working knowledge of (basic) German than I have equation-based physics and chemistry - and I'm a chemist. My teachers knew their jobs, made the class engaging enough to keep our attention, but also got the words to stick.

(Interestingly, I took German at AS-level - age 17 - and gave up. My only memory is a horrible, pointless creative-writing exercise which I didn't connect with at all. So there's that)

Second thought: I learnt a lot of my history from Horrible Histories (the books, not the TV show), tag line: 'History with the nasty bits left in'. That gave me a pretty good grasp of what things were actually like in the past (in contrast to the rather generic view I picked up in the early parts of school).

But here's the thing: they were still kids' books. They were censored - of course they were, with their charming little cartoony pictures. If I'd opened one and found gruesomely realistic photos, I'd have screamed the house down.

You say: "Do they really think we haven't seen or read about graphic violence before?" My answer is: I've certainly never seen any, and I'm nearly 30 (ohdearstarsI'mold). I've seen films which featured it, but most of that was off-screen (action films and the like). The few occasions when I've encountered it directly in the media, I've wished I hadn't. Nightmares did follow.

(Of course, nightmares also followed Jurassic Park, but I was a lot younger then)

And now I have two children of my own, and (astonishingly, I know) I haven't completely forgotten what it was like to be young. Yes, there will be different experiences - a different world - to shape my children's view of things... but that doesn't mean I'm not going to try and stop them from encountering things which will damage them (in whatever way). I might get a few things wrong - but I'd like to imagine I'll be able to listen to them as well as to me.

Third thought:

If you're going to cut out educating us about violence, why not cut Social Studies for our education on wars, certain books in our English class (The Oddessy is violent as heck, but we still read it). Even science has it's violent tendencies.

Education about violence is entirely different to direct exposure to it. Yes, wars are violent, and yes, school should teach you what that actually means. That doesn't mean they should shove it in your face.

... and the only violence in chemistry is explosions, which don't count, because they are awesome.

hS isn't making himself very clear

So are the other two I found back-tracking from it. I don't think I can form a fair opinion about this without knowing what materials the teacher was using and what actually went on in the class sessions. I mean, the Zombie Survival Guide is pretty harmless, IIRC, but was that it? People seem to be upset about an "emphasis on violence" in the class. I suppose that could have come out of generalizations that all zombie materials are about gore and merciless slaughter, but it could also have been a real, present issue with the materials and/or class discussions. I wasn't there, I don't know what the teacher spent his time talking about.

This is slightly beside the point, but I'd also like to know how the class got started in the first place if "the use of zombie-related materials ... was not approved in accordance with district curricular policies." I'd assume new classes, even optional ones, have to go through some kind of official vetting to be added to the class lists, so who signed off on it in the first place, and why didn't they know it was against their school district's policies? And, parents, don't you pay attention to what classes your kids are signing up for? How did this even exist long enough to be cancelled if it's against everyone's parental and curricular policies?

Too many questions for me.

~Neshomeh

"Parents... were concerned about the violence inherent in the subject matter..."
Is it just me, or did they make a subtle reference to Monty Python?

Honestly, I think a zombie apocalypse survival writing program could be very successful and harmless if done well. While most movies and shows on the subject are extremely violent (it's a situation that allows you to lay waste to endless numbers of human-shaped creatures with no consequences whatsoever), there are many other aspects to consider. Perhaps the largest and most pervasive of these is the element of survival. If you were really in a zombie apocalypse (or any kind of post-apocalyptic scenario, for that matter), you would spend a lot less time dispatching the shuffling hordes and much more time obtaining shelter, food, clean water, etc, not to mention trying to find a way to contact other survivors. (Would you use a radio like in "I Am Legend"?) You can use a lot of creativity here.

There are also aspects of world-building, and things like the origin of your zombies to consider. Did they come from a virus? A voodoo ritual? Are there zombie animals? Do they retain a degree of intelligence? Can they be restored to life (like in "Warm Bodies")?

This is just the beginning. Then again, in a school that suspends students for drawing a picture of a gun, writing about a gun might be equally forbidden.

Hmm.. I think today I'll be my mini-boarder and stay anonymous today.

Normally when people start talking about rights and censorship and whose allowed to marry who (I know not the point, but it's one of those issues) or what constitutes stepping on "pet rights" (also not the issue) or who's allowed to eat what or how far you're allowed to "influence" your children and whether punishment is ever appropriate or politics in general, I bow out of things rather than join the shouting match that ensues when both sides try to voice the "right" opinion.

I thought I might offer an opinion from the other POV here though, since I can hide behind anonymity of not having a set posting name, but rather being allowed to type in whatever one wants, and also because unlike some boards I visit, I don't see this as a particularly liberal leaning (or any leaning really) board, so perhaps a meaningful discussion can be had without things degrading to insults and shouting. (Which is oddly enough how most discussion boards on the liberal sites I'm a part of start out rather than degrade to...)

Anywho, on to the opinions! :3 About parental censorship, yes I think it's a good thing actually because what most teens see as and cry "censorship" at is more their parents trying to protect them, since that's what parents do. Can it be taken too far? Of course, but then again, every good thing can be taken too far. But is not allowing younger children especially (these are 11-14 year olds we're talking about in this article) to be exposed to excessive or gratuitous violence, sex, drugs, profanity, etc appropriate just because they can get it from other sources? I really don't think so. As for the argument that they have seen it before, if the parents are watching what their kids are up to, then no, no they haven't, and those parents that care enough to speak up against this are watching their kids and should be allowed to shield them, from certain things, that is their right as a parent. (Once again everything including this can be taken way too far, but that doesn't mean it should be stopped altogether) I've met children who run wild and destroy things and get into nasty crap because their parents don't want to do anything to "stifle or censor or shelter" them, they don't end up well. Or how about the middle-schoolers that show up with guns or kill themselves over a C or a break up because they don't understand the permanence or seriousness of death due to being inundated with it from a young age rather than sheltered a bit? Am I saying everyone who plays shot'em up games, or watches violent programming is going to go out shooting? No, I'm just saying this "no censorship eva" attitude leads to a lot of desensitization, which can precipitate other behavior. As a less extreme example, think about the 4 and 5 year olds that scream profanities at store clerks or in restaurants because the don't get their way and their parents either do nothing rather than risk trampling their "rights" or "censoring them" or they give in and get whatever the kid is asking for?

Hmm, and I think this too turned into a rant, I do apologize. Strictly the issue at hand, do I think parents should be able to have certain things censored from schools? Yes, in the case that it is a required course/reading/etc. Do I think this was such a case? No, it doesn't sound like it. And as an avid reader, I didn't need such things to keep me interested, I would have gone to the exploratory reading program happily. However, if parents are concerned about the inherent violence to the subject (a valid fear in my opinion) then in this case, as it is optional, don't sign your kid up for it, it's not the school's responsibility to raise your kid, you don't like their program, take time and come up with a way to get your own kid into reading, even if it's just a trip to the library to find appropriate books that interest them and unplugging the cable box , video games and internet for a couple nights a week. When me and my siblings were younger, both my mom and dad would read to us at night for family time. We colored or cross-stitched and they would read. That's how I found Tolkien. It's also how I discovered the difference between fiction and non-fiction.

And as for your cases of not understanding censorship, you said you were 14? 15? No one understands why they can't do what they want at that age, (some people never grow out of it), I know I didn't. But was I emotionally scared by my parents protecting me, even when it was from Scooby-Doo because it was "too dumb" and we didn't need to be watching it? No, I wasn't actually harmed by it in anyway. And in a lot of cases it was a very good thing. I can't stand all that horror/gratuitous violence/gore/etc, I simply can not handle it, I have a very vivid imagination, if you say it/I read it, I see it, and probably worse than it would be had I seen it. Even talking about it I can start imagining horrific things, so I don't think programs that require that sort of thing should be allowed in schools. If parents wish to allow it at home, that's one thing, and again, I don't think an anything is allowed because we can't stop it approach is good, but it's still based more individually than a school saying you must read/attend/watch this that may have age inappropriate themes. Wait another 15 years, or til you have kids, you'll understand it then. As to the history books, I've not ever seen a history text book that had gratuitous or gory descriptions of the wars of history. That's just, I'm sorry, having a fit and saying if you're going to censor one thing for being overly gratuitous why not censor all mention of anything bad ever and be done with it. That is not the sort of extreme all or nothing argument to be making if you want people to respect your positions, and that is not directed at you, it's directed at the internet where people seem to think that sort of attack is the way to win. As for historical accounts, I've read the Odyssey and the Iliad, and yes, they can get pretty bad, but then again they are not required reading til later high school. I've also read historical accounts of Nazi prison camps that really aren't that bad in the graphic/gratuitous description of things area. Were they disturbing and terrible? Yes, but they were able to tell their story accurately and evoke the emotions/outrage that are associated with those actions without describing every single graphic torture in detail. Just sayin'

Sorry to ramble on like that, and rant at things, but there it is...

My first response to this is agreement that, yeah, parental censorship is getting ridiculous. Middle-schoolers are perfectly capable of handling zombie stories. I don't know why some parents think that's not the case - and I'd frankly rather not go into talking about why some parents don't think kids should read books with violence, because I view said parents rather dimly.

And as for school being fun, that is the best way to make sure someone remembers something! I can still tell you about books I read in elementary school because they entertained me (heck, I think I can even quote a few I only read the once when I was ten). Worksheets and such are fine and dandy for homework or quick in-class assignments, and it's rather hard to make subjects like math fun once you reach a certain point, but if a class is boring, the students won't get as much out of it as they would a fun class.

And...huh. You've reminded me of a certain grudge I have against Health classes, namely, that they don't teach students anything new and should be cut from curriculums altogether. (I learned more from my older friends than I ever did from my Health class, and I point-blank refused to do some of the self-confidence assignments my Health class assigned because they only made me feel worse about myself.) Seriously, my Health classes did nothing to prepare me for the real world. Everything I know about drugs, mental illnesses, and sex, I learned online or from older friends.

I have the feeling I got off-track somewhere in there, but I dunno. Blegh, Ima stop there.

Well, I'm definitely with you on the censorship thing. My curriculum (homeschool, little bit of private schooling) has been pretty uncensored, and I've read some textbooks that I don't think would get past public school censors, and I'm not TOO weird. Actually,that might explain a lot.

Okay, it's middle school. I thought it said High school. But 7th, 8th grade? That still pretty much counts, right?

I can't stand coffee or tea. I'll take hot chocolate or apple cider instead.

The reason I don't like coffee may be traced back to a (not actually) traumatic incident in the distant past. When I was very young, I saw a purple cup up on the counter, half-filled with a darkish liquid. I assumed it was grape juice, and took a big gulp; but it was not grape juice. Not only was it coffee, it was COLD coffee! Ewwwww!

My feelings about tea can best be summed up in this My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fanfic: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/29271/princess-celestia-hates-tea

I'm big on iced coffee drinks (Starbucks' caramel macchiato is a favorite) but I can't stand straight coffee. I drink a lot of sparkling water, as we never seem to have plain water in the house, and tea. I love tea.

Longer answer: I drink tea (preferably Earl Grey), not coffee, but the guy I'm working with in the army says that it's only a matter of time till I start drinking coffee - 14-hour shifts, ho!

But I don't like coffee.

Tea is fine, and soda I drink too, but if I don't have my morning cup of coffee, I cannot function throughout the day. However, when I say this, keep in mind that black coffee is not coffee. That is tea made from coffee beans, and is nasty, unlike most tea. Coffee has cream, sugar, and perhaps some hazelnut flavor to mix it up a little.

We never keep it in the house, though. The closest we have is chocolate with espresso beans in it.
Which I have already finished.
Two days after getting it.
Goodbye cruel world.

To an extent, anyway. My favorite flavors are hazelnut, French vanilla, and Starbucks's Sumatra blend.

I do drink some whenever dad offers me a cup.
I don't like the smell though...

Oh yes indeed! Although I wouldn't dare drink no-sugar, all black coffee. Too stimulating to the nerves and bowels.

So fun to hear everyone's opinion!
Personally, I can't stand the stuff. I drink a lot of tea and water.
I actually hate soda, too. Go figure. Although I like Shirley Temples to a certain extent.

Drink it.

Lots of it.

Mostly the green varieties.

I don't like the taste of black coffee, but I love the smell of it. However if you're talking a coffee with enough cream and sugar in it that it hardly deserves to be called coffee anymore, then yes, I love it! XD

Honestly though I'm a tea girl myself if the choice is given.

Thing is, if I don't down at least a bottle of coffee every morning I think I'd collapse in class.

Guess that's what hostel life does for you.

I will drink coffee if it is offered, but I will not seek it out. My preferences are tea or soda, and I'm trying to move more towards tea.

So I haven't tried it. Caffeine makes me sick, anyway. (It's also one of the words I frequently misspell. Expect "caffiene" to show up in my spin-off someday as penance.)

Yes. Caffeine, as I stated in my title, is good.

Another thing you have to watch out for is when canon incorporates the statements of a character who is an unreliable narrator or who lies. In some cases, fanon claims that the original narrator is unreliable (often with a good excuse, such as changing names and situations to protect the innocent,) in order to clear up inconsistencies in canon. This seems to happen a lot with Sherlockians, in order to clear up such questions as which cases happened first, how many times was Watson married, and why anyone thought that snakes could digest milk. (I'm not even going to get into The Creeping Man. I think for most Sherlockians who were unfortunate enough to read that after starting biology it was a big WTF moment, not that we can blame ACD for not knowing better any more than we can blame Jules Verne for not knowing that Nemo and company would be instantly crushed if they ventured outside of the Nautilus in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.)

The only series I have any experience of with officially sanctioned fanfiction is the Star Wars Expanded Universe, which seems to me to be a vast collection of Alternate Universes held together by the application of retcons, duct tape, and Timothy Zahn. Unless you were writing fanfiction of a specific EU book or with a specific EU character, I doubt you'd have to bring in any EU "canon" elements.

The Last Airbender - I can only presume that you refer to the TV series that proceeded The Legend of Korra, so yes, it has to be canon, doesn't it? ;)

I think I would have noticed if there was a movie for Avatar: The Last Airbender. It's too bad there hasn't been! I'm sure it would be a great film, in the right hands.

I'm sort of a mild, toe-in-the-water, Doctor Who fan, so don't place too much importance on my answer.
As Neshomeh mentioned, quite a few canons do have hierarchies, so although I don't know of an established one for Doctor Who, I'd say that the shows would come first for canonical resources, and then the novels. With DW, though, it's hard to be completely certain.
On a completely irrelevant sidetrack: I liked some of the Last Airbender. The scenery was quite wonderful in parts, but the acting was highly amateur, and most of the time Aang was completely out of context for emotional reactions. Or it seemed fake. And they pronounced his name wrong.
Anyway, hope this helped!

I know some canons that will accept anything that doesn't directly contradict established material, and throws the entire installment it out the window when established events are broached, and others that officially license Expanded Universe works and treat them as just as canonical as the main source. Then there are others that accept any material given to them, but throw certain volumes out selectively for being stupid, driving people out of character, etcetera. Then there are universes like Star Trek, in which the episodes are the only canon, and all of the books and comics are shunted off into alternate universes that have become so tightly knit with each other's backstories and histories that they might serve as an independent canon if necessary.

Just because someone has a license to write in the universe, that doesn't mean that the creators want the material, or that they will accept it. Even if official policy makes a certain material canonical, an unaware or spiteful writer might deliberately write over it, figuratively speaking, if it doesn't mesh with his views of how the story should go, even if some of the written-over material was previously part of the "alpha" canon, which creates what is commonly called Continuity Snarl.

In answer to your two direct questions, yes, the tie-in books of most franchises are officially sanctioned fanfiction. Even the Star Wars Expanded Universe, which makes up almost all of the Star Wars material, is technically fanfiction, and the people at Lucasfilm can and will steamroll over it if they think they have a good idea for a new video game or some such.
An EU can be treated as canon, but only the central portions of the franchise are "real" in most cases, and sometimes, not even then. In continuities prone to mass retconning, like DC Comics, this latter point can be a big problem.

Doctor Who EU in particular was, at least up to the end of the Russel T. Davies era, treated as canonical if it didn't try to mess with the established material of episodes to make a story with "higher stakes" or some such. See War of the Daleks for a particularly blatant example of attempted retconning that was treated as, as I've heard said "a big no-no".
I don't know how the Steven Moffat era treats it. I've seen one episode where the Doctor mentions a few species only ever seen in the EU, and I've seen plenty more where several previously established points in Classic Who and the EU were abandoned for cheap kicks.

For your last question, the M. Night Shyamalan The Last Airbender movie is not considered canon to the cartoon. Both the fans and creators have disavowed it, and at any rate, since it takes place within the same timeframe as canonical events but treats them far differently, to say nothing about the OOC that we see rampant in the storyline, it would be an Alternate Universe story at best.

(By the way, what were the inconsistencies specific to Asylum of the Daleks? I watch Doctor Who on Netflix, so I've not seen most of Series Seven yet.)

Some of them have sort of a canon hierarchy—for instance, I know Star Wars has a ranking system for canon materials, with the six films and Word of God at the top. Lower-ranked materials tend to be considered canon only if they don't contradict the materials ranked above them. Same goes for the Warcraft universe: World of Warcraft is at the top, followed by previous games, followed by books and other stuff. Using elements from lower-ranked materials in a fic supposedly set in the "alpha" canon can be problematic, but if it's justified and works well in the story, there's not much to complain about. Doctor Who probably works like this, but someone more familiar with the fandom can tell you better than I can.

Others, like Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings, have separate movieverse and bookverse (and gameverse and whatever-elseverse) canons. They're protected equally by the PPC, but are distinct from each other, and trying to use movieverse elements in an explicitly bookverse fic (or vice versa) can be problematic and sometimes charge-worthy. I think the A:TLA movieverse vs. showverse fits into this category.

I hope that helps!

~Neshomeh

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7156582/1/That-Which-Holds-The-Image

Interesting.

Definitely some OOC in there, but I was laughing the entire time, which can't possibly be a bad thing. Hard to classify these kinds of fics, really.

Okay, this is simply my opinion, and I'm not trying to offend anyone, but, yes, I do think guns should be kept at a school. And that regular citizens should have them. Believe me, if someone walked up to the shooter, in, say the Connecticut school shooting and put a gun to his head, I don't think he would have kept going. In regard to the question raised about a hidden gun frightening children in a classroom: I don't think its presence should be advertised in the first place, and in the second, being shot would frighten them a lot more. Sorry if this offends anyone.

I am going to request that, with no prejudice to anyone involved, we end this thread now. I don't like the way it is shaping my opinions of my fellow Boarders.

My specific proposal is this:

-No-one new will post on the thread.
-Anyone who has already received a reply to a post of theirs may respond to that reply with a single post.
-Any further discussion anyone wishes to hold on this subject with anyone on this thread should be taken up in another venue.
-It is acceptable to post a one-line reply requesting someone's email address.

Regardless of whether people agree to this, I will not be posting any further in this thread. Also regardless, I do not and will not harbour any ill will towards Pauline07 for starting the thread.

If people do agree, I will do my best not to allow anything said as part of the prior thread or the closing statements to affect how I see anyone. I will also not bring this thread up in any later discussions for any reason.

If people don't agree, then those last two points do not stand, since I will assume that people are willing to be seen differently based on what is said here. This is not meant as a threat, just as information on how my mind works.

My email address is linked above. Thank you for your consideration.

hS

Once again, I seem to be in opposition to the majority opinion. Over all I don't think this would be such a bad thing, though there are several addendums I would make to that. Such as I'm not sure requiring an armed guard is necessary. But I don't see the problem with letting teachers or the principal have a gun on school property, provided of course said individual went through the proper training including all possible ways to take down someone without firing a lethal shot, legal process and anyone considering the privilege under go a second and much more thorough background/psych check. I mean I know they are supposed to have that done before being a teacher anyway, but let's face it, some of the teachers you hear about and what they get caught doing, yeah... I wouldn't want them to have a gun either.

As to the fear that a student would get a hold of the firearm, while it nullifies a point I'm going to make in a minute, they can't get a hold of said firearm if it's not made known that so and so has a gun. Just keep it locked in a desk drawer, or file cabinet or safe and only take it out if there is an actual threat, and the kids wouldn't know it was there to try to get it. On the flip side, however, can you honestly say that there would not be one less school shooting if the students perpetrating them knew they could/would face return defensive fire? I know it probably wouldn't stop them all, but just knowing that you weren't facing a completely defenseless population, would stop some, maybe even a lot of people I would think. I don't know, maybe since I can't even fathom what would cause someone to do such a thing to other people, and yes there are those that deserve to be smacked or punished for their treatment of others. But gunning down whatever random bystanders you can get at is beyond my comprehension, so maybe I'm giving their determination too little credit. But I really do think if someone is planning to shoot up a place, they would think twice or more about it if they knew they would face return fire, and the consequences of getting caught before they had the chance to take their own lives.

I agree just turning teachers/principals loose with the right to carry in school is probably not the way to go about it, but I don't see a problem with it once they have gone through the proper legal tape and had proper training, and not just safety and point and shoot, but as I mentioned, ways to incapacitate a threat with out the use of a lethal shot, and of course an additional, more thorough and up to date background check/psych evaluation. But I do agree with Rep. Jim Lucas (R) about needing to over come the negative stigma attached to guns. A lot more people than you think have guns, and have them legally, and it's no problem because they aren't out waving them around. I've known people that don't realize this and they went, pardon my language, completely ape**** when they've found out that friends of theirs are gun owners, to the point of all but accusing them of going to come running two states over and shooting up their house, just because they owned guns. So I believe there is reason to work on over coming negative stigmas, however the proper steps need to be taken as well to insure safety while doing it. I grew up in a gunless house, did I feel less safe for it? Not really, it wasn't something I ever thought about. Now I live in a house with several guns. Do I feel less safe than when there weren't any around? No, unless you count the few hours a careless person was messing around with them, but he's not allowed to touch them anymore and can't get into the gun safe. Do I feel safer knowing they are in the house and there are people who know how to use them? Maybe a little, if I ever think about it. But again, I really don't think about them being or not being there so it doesn't affect how I feel about my safety. Are there times I would have felt safer with a gun around and had been thinking about it? Absolutely! I have spent more than one night sitting with my only weapon, in this case a katana, right at, or in hand due to break-ins or drunk neighbors. And I would have felt a lot better had there been a trained gun owner around.

And to anyone that takes note of it, the only reason I left janitors out of people in school that should be allowed to under the above circumstances, to carry a gun was that janitors may not always be around during school hours, or they may not be employees of the school, ie outside contracted janitorial service. So it would be harder for them to be properly vetted, or since they might not be around during school hours, it would not be as helpful for them to be the lone school defender.

(PS I know this is a clean board and I hope I didn't cross a line by saying something even if I starred it out mostly. If I did, let me know and it won't happen again.)

How about making firearms LESS accessible for everyone? But no, bloody Second Amendment or whatever... 'Murica. *sighs*

The Indiana amendment's sponsor, Rep. Jim Lucas (R), said he believes mass shootings like the one in Newtown could be prevented by more firearms. "The way they are right now, school is a gun-free zone. Tragically we see the tragic consequences of gun-free zones, defenseless zones like the Colorado theater, Columbine, and Virginia Tech," Lucas told The Huffington Post Wednesday. "We have to work to overcome the stigma that firearms are a bad thing."

Um. No.

I would write more, but I'm too angry.

hS

I'm going to agree with Vixen on slowing down your posts, but I do think it's all right that you post such things.

And as for that bill...it doesn't seem particularly well-thought.

Being a Connecticut native who's seen my friends, family, and my entire community at my last college torn apart on this debate, I don't think I have the stomach to enter it lightly. I will say that the last article I wrote for that college before leaving was on the topic of guns - control thereof, and arming security therewith. Opinions from student and faculty alike were pretty solidly against arming guards. Most people felt that if someone was determined to bring a gun to school, an armed guard wouldn't stop them, and might increase the casualty rate - especially if, in a worst-case scenario, the students get ahold of the firearm. I was inclined to agree. If it comes to a shoot-out, things have already gotten pretty bad. About a week after I moved away, though, there was a gun scare at the school, and my friends were posting updates from where they were hiding, underneath their desks in dark classrooms. I don't know whether it changed anyone's mind.

On a completely different subject, Pauline, you might want to slow down with the posting. Not so much slowing the "serious" topics specifically, but if you've got something that might fit into another thread, it helps to put it there, rather than start a new thread altogether. You've probably noticed that each new thread pushes the old ones down - eventually, they all fall off the side of the 'Board, and several pages down, disappear entirely. So it's preferable to avoid double-posting when possible. Thanks!

AND A PARTRIDGE IN A-- *is forcibly silenced* ...Hello, I'm Agent Dawn, and I'll be taking over this post now, since DawnFire's gone insane. Hopefully it's temporary. Anyway, in that bit with the Avengers, there are six mini-Nick Furys created. DawnFire doesn't actually remember enough about Phineas and Ferb to take on this fic (all to the good, in my mind, I'm insane enough without having to deal with stuff like this), and is rather squicked by the fic anyway, but she'd be quite happy if someone else took on this fic and delivered the minis safely to the Avengers OFU. Thanks for your time, have a nice day! *pokes DawnFire* Hey, I think she might be waking up! Awesome, that means I can stop being serious. Toodles! ~Dawn~ (and DawnFire. Ugh. I don't think I want to look past the first chapter, thanks all the same...bye, Dawn. Thanks for taking over there.)

There is no logic in this,
There is no logic in this.
This is a really bad fanfic,
There is no logic in this.
First they ship Phineas/Ferb,
Then it makes Avenger kids!
This is a realy bad fanfic,
There is no logic in this!
Brother's ain't lovers!

Meh, not my best parody, but it will have to do.

Urgh. Agh. Gah.

This is not right. It is just not right. I don't feel like listing all the reasons WHY it isn't right, but they're there.

I didn't even know there was Phineas/Ferb fanfiction, let alone slash... *shudders*

Phineas and his brother-boyfriend wants to meet a girl, who had acquinted with the members of the Avengers. On the surface.

Victory Fanfare!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GepZ5hM3nTw

The first one. In addition, I give you the London Philharmonic Orchestra's rendition of One Winged Angel for your hearing pleasure.

Throwing the question back at anyone: Still alive or Cara Mia?

Both.

Where? Ooh, there they are! *Opens box. Slips on ellipsses.

But I'm not really making Discworld connections...more like Portal and Buffy connections...

And now I'm potentially overusing ellipses too :)

Speaking of ellipses, on her second CD Charlene Kaye has an instrumental called "Ellipsis". It's not half bad :)

~...no, this one's justified! I just tried to sign off as 'DF', and it came out as 'DERF'...I don't get it.

~DawnFire

Clearly you're overusing ellipses...unless...

hS

It's sure a good thing I didn't bump into any of those...Aaargh!!!
Bausiren will not be able to continue this message, due to the fact that she is currently incapacitated. Please scroll down the page and don't read this anymore because it's coming baaack-

Wonderful XD Great to see more of Generic Surface, and I see you've been paying attention to the blackout thread...

(More! More! Will cats jump from the ceiling and scare the creeper away?)

~DF

Please show us more of this.

Good thing the Creepers aren't out indeed...

I'm now going to have to page for a beta reader to make sure I'm not spewing absolute nonsense trying to get the Doctor and my Agents out of their narrow scrapes.

This leads to the most meta DW episode ever.

Portal that sucker back where it came from, this instant.

But since that wouldn't be any fun, I'd say take full advantage of how wonky HQ is and mess with it first. So, okay, it grabs you and you get zapped back in time. Oh noes! Maybe you wind up in another part of HQ that exists in that time... and just wander casually back because it's all hooked up by portal anyway. "Oh hai Weeping Angel. Miss me?"

I also wonder what would happen if you lured one into a Reality Room. Perhaps that stone statue is just a stone statue, which can be destroyed. Or turned into a lawn ornament. As you like it.

Also, if you need a group of people to keep their eyes open, you could do worse than knocking on Ilraen's door. He's got four eyes, after all, two of which can watch behind him. ^_^

Or hey, what about the Flowers? They don't even have eyes to blink.

... In other words, I don't think a single Weeping Angel would stand much of a chance at all. But it would be hilarious.

~Neshomeh

If someone knew what it was it'd be gone pretty quickly, to be honest...

Probably it would eventually get gone, but a lot of agents would be DEEEAAD.Or gone. Pfff, whatever.
On a random note: On the phone the other day with a friend. She mentions Weeping Angels. The phone dies. Tell me this is not weird.

That's, like, three-quarters of the DMFF's duties. They're the ones in charge of hunting down and sending out or killing otherworldly life forms or structures that appeared in HQ due to the massive amount of plot holes that keep the place suspended in a null zone.
World One has the most, because HQ is suspended... I'd say above it, but that doesn't really make sense because that would imply a three-dimensional direction when we really need to look in causal directions instead.

Anyway. The plot holes constantly drop things in, and the DMFF has to go around and get rid of them. Sapient and non-omnicidal beings are usually be sent to Personnel and either recruited or neuralyzed and brought home, but if there's some sort of dangerous creature or a potential biohazard, they'll have to send a team of Agents to dispatch it. If they don't, a Land Before Time sharptooth or a clutch of Cthulhuverse Mi'go can come in through a rip in space-time and start wrecking the place.

Of course, External Security would give them all of the rot jobs, because the DES is there to protect HQ from being permanently damaged, invaded, or compromised, and thus would feel they had better things to do than be animal control.

... Okay, about half of that was approximated, but now I really want to write a story about these guys.


Oh, and a final note. If there isn't a plan being made for Weeping Angel disposal by this point in time, one should be made as soon as possible, because SeaTurtle and Pretzel's roleplay let a few of them in during the power outage, and all their agents did was abscond as fast as their legs and the out-of-battle use of a Pokémon move could take them. Not a bad course of action, but that means that they're still in the halls.

Nobody blink.

One is that the agents would band together and find a way to kill it. Blasting it with a mineing lazer perhaps? Diamond pickaxe to the face?

Another is that, because of the impossibility and timey-whimyness (totally a word) of HQ, the angel would gorge itself on time energy from the vast amout of time bending and time travel ocurring in HQ every day. It would be like if the angel got into the TARDIS, and would be a very bad thing.

The final senario I can think of is that the angel gets locked inside the pool room and becomes a statue because of the lack of energy. Of corse, this is impossable, as there is TOTALLY NOT A POOL.

Presumably, rather unpleasant things.

Hi everyone! My name is Kaimai, and I am looking forward o being a PPCer! I have read most of the Series and missions. So I decided to join up. I write poetry and my main fandoms are: Super Sentai, Shake It Up!, Austin & Ally, Power Rangers, and Eden Eternal. My Minr ones are Rizzoli& Isles and Castle.

Hi, KittTheCat! We're glad to have you on the Board!
It's always nice to see another My Little Pony fan. *conspiratorial whisper* One of these days, we're going to take over the PPC. I'm waiting for a sign from WorldJumper- should be any day now.
*cough* Anyway, please have this one (1) Fluffy Wambler! He's originally from the Dwarf Fortress continuum, but ridiculously adorable anywhere.
See you around the Board!

Welcome welcome :D It looks like I only share the Lord of the Rings fandom with you, but hey if we all liked exactly the same things it'd be boring!

To welcome you to the board I offer you a colt bred from a Rohan sire and a bag from Honeydukes, enchanted to be filled with an assortment of sweets of your choice!

Welcome to PPC newbie! As a gift, I offer you a stick of virtual Kitkat, to be munched for short breaks. Don't feed it to cats and dogs though, it was thought to be poison to them.

MLP;FIM? Mind if you give the full name?

Wow. That sounded odd. My first time saying that in my native language... Oof. Sorry, got a little distracted. Anyways, have some rock-cupcakes! You could throw them at annoying people sometime. Ooh, and some chocolates, here! *gives you the basket of cupcakes and chocolates*

Wow, another newbie! Gift-giving time!
I have quite a few fandoms, myself, but unfortunately, MLP is not one of them. Fortunately, due to an encounter with another MLP fan (this one a brony), this Pokemon fan has the perfect gift for you:

Have a plushie of Rapidash, which I learned bears a striking resemblance to Twilight Sparkle in one scene of the episode "Feeling Pinkie Keen". I hope you like it!

Yay, another Warriors fan! Glad to have you on the Board!

Let's see, present... ah! Have a bottle of perfume! This is a special concoction of mine dubbed Eau de Blood of Sue. It smells of Sue blood, hence the name.

Also, have some Bleepolate truffles! Chocolate and Bleeprin in truffle form can't be all bad, can it?

Have some Borax and Bleepka (do not consume the Borax)and a trunk full of funny-shaped smeary erasers, and a couple of friendship bracelet charms, and a pack of marshmallows. Good to have you A-board, mind the steps!

Greetings, new friend! Have a potted Poison Joke plant!

Welcome to the Board! have some of my world-famous hydrophobic water to commemorate the event. Once you drink it, you can never go back to that ordinary boring tap water stuff.

Ello there Kitt! Man, It's been a while since I've said hello to a newbie. Too long. Because of this lack of greatings on my part, I shall compensate with two gifts! Have a bleep-blap bar, the bleepolate version of Kit-Kat bars! I don't know why, but I have a feeling you'll enjoy them.

Now, for gift two... *GUAAAAH!* You like ponies too? Yay, another brony in the ppc!
(as if we don't already have a whole herd in here...)
Here, your second gift is a crystal statue of your favorate character from FiM, with an aspect of their personality enchanted onto it. Just be careful, demon shadow ponies may try to make it their slave.

Welcome to the PPC!

High-five, fellow newly-introduced lurker!

Oh, present... Let me see what I have with me at the moment... Ah. Here, you can choose - a packet of n-sided dice where n is a rational number between 1 and 100, or a syringe containing a mixture of morphine, bleeprin and adrenaline for those nights where you really need it.

Good to have you on board~

Hi! I'm Pauline....I'm a rather passionate Harry Potter lover (which is, unfortunately, the only fandom we share).
.....I've been giving this out lately, but recently I've been making this bleepolate ice cream with extra chocolate- you like chocolate?- perfect for all of your badfic brain scrubbing needs (homemade, by the way). Here's a tub, as a welcome gift! Goodness knows you'll use up enough bleeprin, here.....:)

Have a God Tier hoodie of your preferred Title and Aspect! Look stylish while tricking your friends into believing you have supernatural powers! I'll also toss in a free untuned Strife Specibus as a bonus. Choose whichever proficiency you like!

Have a cookie, or a baker's dozen!

I note you like Homestuck. Favorite troll? Reaction to the latest update?

Have some Bleep'n'ms and an Unspecified Plushie! (the former is good against Badfic and the latter transforms into your favorite character)
Welcome a-Board!

Oh, well, you might not be small, but I'll call you small because I can.
/bricked

Have some lemming repellent!

Welcome! Please leave your sanity at the door as it is unneeded here.
Anyway, you should read The Constitution. Browsing the Wiki is also recommended, as is reading The Original Series. Other than that, you're welcome to drop by the IRC channel to say hi, and don't forget to have fun!
Oh, and you can have this cup of tea, I have tons more. Just don't let the leaves eat you.

Previously in Fandom Protection Fleet: Far Far Away...

Dafid Il-yaen, Jedi Knight and Operative of the FPF, finally reached the end of his ongoing quest. The Force-using cultures of the galaxy have yielded up their shards of the Tor-Kannen Crystal, and on the windswept plains of Dantooine, Dafid brought them together to repair the fabic of canon.

But what's this! Millennia ago, the Sith Lord Mari-Suu poured her essence into the Tor-Kannen Crystal, corrupting it from its purpose and twisting it to evil. Even as Dafid brings the last pieces into contact, a malevolent force sinks into his mind, turning him to the Dark Side.

Only his constant companion, Arikae Sems, is there to witness his fall. Only she can pull him back. But she has no equipment - no weapons - no plan.

Only her love.

Well, they're not done yet, but...

Kyle was the crazy-prepared ordinary guy, who obsessed over his equipment. Pretty standard, but a bit formal in speech.

Now, let's make him into a cheesy action-novel character. He'll still be crazy-prepared, so he gets a callsign of Batman. Formal speech turns into using military terminology constantly. He'd be the team explosives expert, or the tech specialist/hacker.

My other Agent isn't ready yet.

Well, I suppose I could drag out the space marines. Vid and Nemedra might fit in pretty damn well in Firefly, or maybe somewhere quiet in the Star Wars EU. I'd probably know more about how they'd be changed if they weren't from a roleplaying game or if I'd actually written anything about them besides two bad attempts at a permissions piece.

I don't actually know another fandom besides Dinotopia that would accommodate a velociraptor... maybe "The Lost World?"

Agent Tanya Verde is a self-insert, so I have the whole multiverse to pick from. Let's go with Trekverse. I like playing in Trekverse.

Her home fic begins with her and her BFF, Mary Sue, taking their Starfleet Academy entrance exams. Sue gets in easily, while Tanya doesn't make it at all. The PPC agents comment to each other that it took Picard two tries to get in. Sue expresses her sympathies, then promptly shoves Tanya into a plothole as she time skips to graduating the academy (top of the class, of course) and getting immediately assigned to the flagship of the fleet, the Enterprise-D. (It's only now we figure out that the fic is TNG-verse - the summary said so, but nothing in the fic up until this point has indicated anything.) She is obviously the best, and gets to work with all the senior officers on a regular basis, especially Lt. Commander Data. Only…could she possibly be developing a crush on the android? Oh, why did she fall for a man with no emotions, her senior officer to boot! He could never love her! They manage to become friends, but that's just not enough! Meanwhile, the Enterprise has just been assigned to carry a group of scientists to a planet for some purpose (the particular scientific discipline or purpose is irrelevant), and Tanya is one of them. They reconnect, and Sue thinks that's great until Data starts working with the scientists (discipline still unspecified) - and Tanya confides that she's starting to have a crush on him too! To make matters worse, Data's spending less time with Sue and more time with the scientists. Sue breaks down and cries, because she'll never get him, even though she's so gorgeous and smart and perfect! (the wangst goes on much longer). Finally, she resolves to admit her feelings to Data. She bursts into the science lab and proclaims her love for Data in front of Tanya and a group of Generic Scientists. Data spontaneously develops emotions, and starts crying, saying that he loves her. She asks him why he was spending so much time with the (still unspecified) scientists, and he says it was purely work, and that he missed her. Tanya looks griefstricken, and Data and Sue move as if to close the distance between them…except that the PPC steps in and reads off the charge list, culminating in the charge currently paralyzing Data - making an android emotional. Sue is killed, canon reverts to normal but for Tanya still standing in the middle of a science lab. The agents ask her if she wants to join the PPC, she asks what they do, and when they respond "kill people like her" and gesture to Sue's body, Tanya responds "Oh hell yes!", and joins.

I don't know where her sister fits into this, though. So if she was recruited this way agent Joani wouldn't exist, unless perhaps Joani appeared in a Voyager era fic by the same author as the BFF of that Sue. They were recruited seperately, and due to timeline confusion on the part of the Suethor are three years apart in age.

That was fun.

Well, let's see, the RC 8888 duo in the Nanoha-verse.

Narav: Probably comes from a family very much focused on going into the TSAB. However, he's got a good eye for magical physics, so he heads into spell and Device development. Eventually he gets assigned to tech-support for a front-lines unit of some kind, an Enforcers unit on a violent world perhaps. So even though he's technically not front-line personnel he still has to deal with the criminals roving around, so he gets pretty good at combat, and learns how to use basic Belkan style magic. Eventually, he gets sent to another unit when the area is mostly pacified, and in-between assignments he meets a PPC recruiter.

Lana: Grew up in a small family on an Unadministered World where the custom is for mages to serve the local warlord. Lana had a talent for support magic - specifically binds, teleports, and illusions, so she got trained to be a spy and bodyguard for the Device Meister manufacturing some of the weapons. Obviously, she didn't like it, and when an experimental Dimensional Transport machine broke she got thrown into the PPC Headquarters.

Let's say I took Caleb the Twilight vampire...

...And made him a Rainbow Drinker instead. So Caleb Cooper the vampire would be... Cayleb Cooper the Alternian troll, I guess. I'm pretty sure that's possible, if male jadebloods are a thing. I'm not completely sure. Anyway, he'd glow in the dark, which is infinitely preferable to sparkling in the sun, and he'd spend his days tending to the Mother Grub. Pretty boring existence, all in all, but it may very well be the safest on Alternia, all things considered. Of course, if I don't take his vampirism into account, he would probably be a blueblood instead, and I'm pretty sure he's capable enough to survive in a violent environment like Alternia.
I think if Jack were transplanted with him he'd end up being his spazzy green-or-brownblood moirail.

But let me do something different with Jack. Let's put him in... Adventure Time. Without Caleb to keep him from attacking people, he'd probably end up being a quirky recurring minor villain that Finn and Jake have to beat back every now and then. I don't think he's evil enough for Finn to actually kill.

Now for Kestrel. I think I'll have to stick her on Alternia, too. And... Kestra would probably be higher on the spectrum, maybe somewhere around cerulean, I don't really see her as a seadweller. She'd be right at home on Alternia, frankly. She's always right at home in violent environments. Now, the real challenge would be sticking her in Equestria. She'd probably be a pegasus pony, either a trick flier or a member of the Royal Guard. If she were the former, she'd be too reckless to cut it as a Wonderbolt, and if the latter is the case, she'd probably get written up a lot for insubordination. Either way, she would never quite fit in.

Let's put Adder in Doctor Who. She'd probably be stubborn and competent enough to make it as a passing, temporary companion, one of those once-an-episode minor characters that gets involved in the Doctor's shenanigans. She's definitely an Action Survivor, so she'd actually have a decent chance of making it out alive.

I'll end this by sticking Deuce in Fairy Tail. Fire wizard, all the way. Depending on how similar his backstory would be to his "canon" one, he'd probably start off as a villain, actually, maybe a member of a dark guild. Of course, Deuce has this thing where he subconsciously keeps a death-grip on his goodness, and since defeat often leads to friendship in Fairy Tail, his villain status wouldn't last very long.

I dunno, it kind of feels weird separating Adder and Deuce.

...in the Nanoha-verse.

All right, let's see here. Male, currently 19, has magical potential. Likes order and being a part of a larger group, so he enlists in the Time-Space Administration Bureau as soon as he is eligible to do so. University-educated, creative thinker. He's always been thinner and weaker than most, so he's not combat material. He's not a very impressive mage either: overall rank of "D" with a specialization in support spells. Ground Forces don't want him, not powerful enough to join the Dimensional Navy, so he's assigned to the Rescue Corps.

Dutiful worker, obsessive-compulsive need for orders. Above average leadership skills, but not the most inspirational boss ever: natural cowardice meshes poorly with the risks that need to be taken for SAR ops. Re-relocated to the Wildlife Preservation Corps after a while.

Stuck in the middle of nowhere as a magic gamekeeper agrees with his more passive and quieter side, but he still dreams of becoming a soldier or maybe even a full-blown Enforcer.

When he encounters an off-duty PPC agent visiting Mid-Childa, he gladly signs up to fix the multiverse in search of glory and recognition.

In conclusion, we'd have a more restless, inquisitive man than the one currently sipping his tea in RC 22 right now. He'd be a lot more proactive, questioning orders, and finding new ways to do things. AU!Gasaprd would also be slightly, wanting certain things to be done by his partners/squadmates or by use of magic.

What would my agents be like if they were from another continuum? Well, poor Marvin would have never heard of MLP:FiM, thus completely changing his motivation for being in the devision he is in. Great, now I am imagining Marvin as a wizard from the Discworld. I wonder...

While all his peers were busy reading star formations, summoning Death, and shoving their heads in mercury clouds, Marvin dared to wonder about a diferent kind of magic: the magic of friendship. Unfortunately, the Archmage was not Celestia, but a man who thought Marvin's fascination with human emotion was bolth absurd and complete hogwash. Marvin was alone in his observations of mortal resilience and strength in tight numbers, and while he was able to stalk watch others forge friendships through fire (and loose other freinds in the same blaze) he could not bring himself to make any friends himself. That is, untill his experiment with quicksilver, sunflower seeds, and a pony heart somehow managed to rip a hole in the fabric of reality.

While on almost any other world this would be cause for considerable alarm, dimensional tears on the Disc were a fairly common occurrence, especially in the Unseen University. This hole was different from the usual kind, which lead to a vast, barren land full of freezing cold sand and unimaginable horrors that were all too easy to imagine. No, this one seemed to lead into a genericaly grey hallway, with light fixtures hanging on the ceiling. Marvin would have taken more time to ponder the architecture, if he did not find himself sucked into the portal, and on the other side. Now all he could think about is, "Oh bugger. Now what?"

Meanwhile, in the laboratory Marvin was very rudely taken from, a tall dark figure stood, leaning against his scythe and watching the hole the wizard was pulled into shrink and disapear with a small 'Pop.' The figure sighed and shook his head, as he pulled out a small hourglass, which had suddenly desided to stop. I HATE PLOTHOLES.

...Thanks Lily, now I have Marvin the Wizard stuck in my head. Fantastic.

I haven't gotten permission yet, so technically I don't have any agents yet.....hmm, interesting thought, though.

Do you want us to just... pick one? Or is there one continuum specifically that you want us to pick and try to work with?

Since you said Doctor Who, I imagined both of my agents-to-be as Time Lords. I immediately envisioned a scene where a Dalek got into their TARDIS while they were charging it. One agent had been busy messing with the central computer, and turned around just in time to see his partner run around behind the intruder and jump on its rear side.

The following dialogue ensued.

C: "Get down off of there!"
L: "No way! This is kick-ass!"
C: "It's going to... to hurt you!"
L: "It can't! Its gun and little plunger thing are on the other side!"
D: "EX-TER-MIN-ATE!!!" (Dalek spins around, blasting from its gunstick wildly)
L: "Stop spinning around! Go forward! Out the door! I'm the Dalek Rider, I say where we go!"
C: "Did you just quote the Eragon movie? Of all the things to say in a crisis..."
L: "Nick, I say some things because I'm joking about them. I say other things because I didn't have the time to think of anything better. This... (Dalek smacks into the wall in an effort to dislodge its passenger) Oof. This is both cases."
(Dalek spins faster)
D: "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!" (fires wildly at TARDIS ceiling)
L: "So this is what it feels like to be nauseous. Can't say I recommend it."
C: Oh, for cog's sake!
(Copernicus knocks the Dalek over)
"Ex-Ter-Min...ate." (Dalek shifts back and forth, trying and failing to right itself)
C: "Look at him. He's like a turtle that's been tipped onto its back. I almost feel sorry for him. I probably would, if he hadn't broken in, smacked into the walls, and scratched the new paint.
L: (stands up, brushing dirt off his coat) "Plus, I think it was trying to kill us."
C: "Really? I'm going to need to buy a new lock for the ship."
L: "Let's sonic the top open before it gets itself back up. I want to see what button the squid-blob pilot pushes to make the gun work."

These two are going to be fun to write.
Also, that is possibly the multiverse's most easily toppled Dalek, but that's neither here nor there.

Technically I don't have agents, since I don't have Permission. I've got them in my head, at least...?

TITLE AUTHOR ISBN-10 ISBN-13
1999 Handbook of United States Coins: Official Blue Book of United States Coins (Serial) R. S. Yeoman 030748002X 9780307480026

Among the Impostors (Shadow Children Bk 2) Margaret Peterson Haddix 0689855036 9780689855030

The Bacta War (Star Wars: X-Wing Series Book 4) Michael A. Stackpole 0553568043 9780553568042

Black Water (Pendragon Bk 5) D. J. MacHale 0689869118 9780689869112

Chasm City (Revelation Space Bk 4) Alastair Reynolds 0441010644 9780441010646

Chicken Soup for the Kid's Soul: 101 Stories of Courage Hope and Laughter Jack Canfield - Mark Victor Hansen - Patty Hansen - Irene Dunlap 1558746099 9781558746091

The Fall (Seventh Tower Bk 1) Garth Nix 0439176824 9780439176828

The Lost City of Faar (Pendragon Bk 2) D. J. MacHale 0743437322 9780743437325

The Lost World Michael Crichton 034540288X 9780345402882

Only With Passion: Figure Skating's Most Winning Champion on Competition and Life Katarina Witt 1586484273 9781586484279

Pandora's Legion (Harold Coyle's Strategic Solutions Inc Bk 1) Barrett Tillman - Harold Coyle 0765352354 9780765352354

The Panic Broadcast: The Whole Story of Orson Welles' Legendary Radio Show Invasion from Mars Howard Koch 0380005018 9780380005017

The Reality Bug (Pendragon Bk 4) D. J. MacHale 0743437349 9780743437349

Redwall (Redwall Bk 1) Brian Jacques 0441005489 9780441005482

The Rivers of Zadaa (Pendragon Bk 6) D.J. MacHale - Victor Lee 1416907106 9781416907107

Stellar #4 Judy-Lynn del Rey (Editor) 0345273028 9780345273024

Tales from Jabba's Palace (Star Wars) Kevin Anderson 0553568159 9780553568158

Tales of the Bounty Hunters (Star Wars) Kevin Anderson 0553568167 9780553568165

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time David Oliver Relin - Greg Mortenson 0143038257 9780143038252

What Happened at Midnight (Hardy Boys # 10) Franklin W. Dixon 0448089106 9780448089102
When Memory Speaks Jill Ker Conway 0679766456 9780679766452

That's no way to treat a returning Boarder! Hello, Guvnor! Take anything from the tray of freshly baked welcome-back pastries! You're the writer of the very first spin-off I read; I figured if nobody else would show you some Board hospitality, I'm in a good position to do so myself!

Oh, and related to the link, well, I couldn't get it to work. It didn't direct me to your account, and instead took me to some central hub section. I tried searching for your user name there, but it didn't bring me anywhere. Do I need to make an account to even see the list?

I'm actually not familiar with the paperbackswap service at all. Are the books free? Is there some sort of due I need to pay to be able to use the site if they are? I'd be interested in taking some books off your hands and into mine, but I'm not sure what I need to do for it.

I'm still fine to do the PPC and young writers, as well as answering the questions, as long as you don't want it before the end of April :) On the other hand, I see you've mentioned the 10th of May, so that's fine (I hope). Depends how many holidays I get flooded with in between.

~DF

...and I have a transcript of what I plan on reading. I'd like you to look it over before I read it, if you don't mind.

Is there a deadline? Because I'll probably never write it if I don't have a deadline. I am a horrible procrastinator, so if left to my own devices it'll never get written.

I was thinking a brief overview of OFUs and OFU writing, then a comparison with PPC writing. Good?

I'll answer the "everyone questions" here, if you don't mind. Feel free to edit for length.

1. How I found the PPC...that is a long story. It starts in late 2011 - no, earlier. Much earlier, when I first started to read fanfiction. I was browsing fanfiction on Deviant Art (a rather stupid idea, in hindsight), and came across a fic involving my favorite Star Trek character and also Lust Object, Lt. Commander Data. Unfortunately, said fic was plotless smut between Data and a female character I'd never seen before, who had no character development whatsoever. Then and there I vowed to hate those sorts of characters for eternity. Later, I found a fanfiction called The Official Fanfiction University of the Federation - a one chapter beginning to a Star Trek: TNG OFU. It seemed to me to be a godsend, and I left a glowing review and waited for an update. It never came.
~skip a couple years~
My sister and I got Kindle Touchs, which have rudimentary Internet. Fanfiction is very comfortable to read on them, and she asked me for fic recs and I went to find the Official Fanfiction University of the Federation. In rereading it, I noticed a recommendation for OFUM in the author's note, and went to read it. I thought it was awesome, and went to find the second part. There was a crossover chapter with HFA in the second part, so I read HFA, which had references to the PPC. I found the Original Series on Miss Cam's website, and somehow found the wiki. From there, I found my way to the Board, and here I am.

2. I decided to stay because I'd been lurking around the wiki, and I'd gotten the impression that you guys were pretty awesome. I became aware of the PPC sense of humor, developed agents, found badfic to spork, etc., before posting on the Board. So posting on the Board was really just a way of alerting you to my membership.

3. Lots more newbies have joined, and a lot of them are Star Trek fans. And lookit! World-Jumper and DawnFire already have Permission! The newbies grow up so fast...

4. Jay and Acacia...hm. Just that I'm grateful to them for starting this awesome community.

The OFUM one? It looks like it's still open?

I'd like to claim it. I can write it if you want me too, and can video myself talking. Whatever you need, and such.

Also, kind of cool to see the postcard exchange on here. I got at least two people in trouble with their parents for that one. Still, it was fun. I think I tried to do three too soon after two, but I'm thinking I might try it again soon.

I should be able to answer the 'everyone' questions at least. I'll record it as audio, assuming that I work out how to - do you have a preferred file format (or any to avoid)?

I'm still up for this, definitely. My only query is "Is there any particular excerpt from Rambling Band that's been selected to read, or should I just choose a section?"

Because I'm the type who'd end up reading the whole thing, left to my own devices. :P

I'm also willing to fill in for any of the others that need it, at our director's discretion. Preferences are OFUM, Reorg or TVTropes.

*scoops up mini-boarder Myrddyn, then begins to grumble because she starts to question where the "y" actually does go in her name for a minute*

Well I suppose since I've volunteered to be a reader, I can read my own piece about OFUM. XD I'd be happy to take on DawnFire's - How the PPC impacts young writers, if it's not volunteered for already, and things needing voice that wind up unclaimed later are fine to send my way too. :)

*wanders off to email Huinesoron since she claimed to be up to voice acting* Totally launching my career with this!

If you're not looking for anything too dramatically detailed, I could probably make a drawing or two in the next month or so.

If you were even looking for drawings. And if no one else is available to draw, since the majority of people here are probably better artists than me.