Jun 2013 Archive, part c

A. I don't have permission to do much of anything yet.
B. I haven't watched/read any anime/manga other than Pokemon.

I'm sure whatever you end up writing will turn out great, though!

But you should be active at the Board for a few months before you do your mission. We'd like to know more about you. Gain the trust of the Flowers first.

Though I know nothing about the fandom, the mission itself was pretty funny, if slightly choppily (is that even a word?) paced...

Good job, Lie and Voyd!

Well, I thought I would have two new missions to read today, and it turned out to be one mission and the revelation that I am from the future. While I deal with that particular existential crisis, let me give you some concrit here.

The mission was very short. Not the story, though, the mission itself just took up a very small portion of the story. When I copy-pasted it into Word to get a better look, I found that out of the story's eleven pages the last time the Agents ended up actually going against badfic components was page six, and when you cut out the agents introducing themselves, it's really only three pages. That's an odd proportion, especially since the biggest canon breach was yet to come, which makes the whole After that, about all of it was "they talk to Makuta" or "they realize Makuta isn't affected by their neuralyzer"... and then they just leave him there.

The most powerful frequently Sue-targeted being in the continuum, and they leave him with full knowledge not necessarily of the PPC, but at least of Sues and the fact that inter-dimensional travelers enter Mangaia on a regular basis.
Take him to FicPsych and get that information out of him! The only reason that certain canons are allowed to know about the PPC is either a) they're omniscient so they'll find out anyway, i.e. Doc Scratch or Aslan b) they can recover from anything that affects them mentally so you might as well not even try, i.e. Jack Harkness and most drell (there was once a whole interlude dedicated to trying to remove knowledge of the PPC from Thane Krios, a canon character drell, because of how hard it is to affect their minds), and c) whatever is going on with Murdock and Gaspode, but I'm pretty sure that was made from one part their own mental instability and two parts Rule of Funny.
Frequently Sue-targeted individuals are not allowed to know about the PPC. The Sue controlling them can learn about the Agents through them, or if they are possessed or something, the wraith will know about it, which can potentially compromise people going on missions.

When Teridax is about to leave, he refers to them as "little humans". There are no humans in Bionicle, and nobody has ever appeared to Teridax out of their disguises. He might have been able to pluck the word from someone's surface thoughts, but he wouldn't know what it means.

Also, you never killed the Makuta replacement. The Rahkshi copies were killed by an angry Teridax, but the Makuta replacement was never dealt with, and given that he was connected enough to canon to quote Teridax's lines, he would have been able to retain enough Makuta cunning to shapeshift himself into something inconspicuous to hide. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. It's a loose end, and when dealing with Makuta, there should be no loose ends, because a being with their level of raw power could grab it and pull until everything unravels.

With all that said, the dialogue was fun, especially Maggie's, and having the formation of the cavern separate the agents from their technology is a good idea that's simple enough in concept I'm surprised I've not seen it before now. Valon comes across very well as the over-excited newbie, and I can see a lot of potential for him, especially when compared to the absolute psychopath he was in his beta stages.

I didn't see anything 'bad' with it - however, it relies so heavily on knowing the canon that I can't really find anything to say about it.

But it's always nice to know someone reads your work, neh?

hS

I am...I'm not sure what I am. Terrimpressed.

Ah Star Wars, lets see what I can give you. How about a replica of Qui-Gon's robe. It's a bit like a backwards snuggie in my opinon, nice and warm.
I don't have cake sadly, but I'm sure someone will give you some!

We don't bite! Really. I'm an HP nerd, so we don't really share a fandom. (Secretly, I fell asleep during Star Wars. In my defense, I was up for school that day, it was really late and I had a show choir competition that required me to get up at four the next morning. I also fell asleep during Jaws, but I really don't have an excuse for that).

Here! How about some double bleepolate cake! It's delicious and homemade,

Since it seems no one asked yet, did you read the Original Series and the PPC Consititution?

Hm...a Star Wars fan, eh? I have just the gift for you!
*rummages through bag of holding*
Here, have a Dark Black Darth Vader helmet. Guaranteed to make you look more menacing than the Dark Lord himself--as long as you wear the rest of the costume, of course. Otherwise, you might end up making everyone laugh at the horribly clashing colors.

Hello, hello, greetings!

Here, have an Infinite Notebook, lined, with urple covers and wilver binding. Don't blind yourself!

-Aila

Welcome to the PPC!
I'm Len. :D
Sadly, we don't share any fandoms- unless you count Lord of the Rings, which it was unclear from your post whether you do or not- but I'm not quite so uncultured that I wouldn't know to give you this Jell-O sculpture of Darth Vader's lightsaber. And, of course, a thick slice of guava u

Welcome to our humble board. I would give you cake, as you have been promised, but as you know, the cake is a li-*bang*

Here, have a Fire Flower. Just, try not to burn down your neighborhood.

Welcome to the Board! Have some of my world-famous hydrophobic water to commemorate the event. Keep away from old adults young children.

Well, hello there. Welcome to the PPC!
I think I have missed a few newbie introductions because of my life being full of stuff and having no time to post. So, I'll make a big batch of newbie cake for everyone! Please share it, though. Sometimes the greedy ones eat it up too fast...

Hi, have some fudge!

Greetings, new friend!

Have an ysalamir!

However, I will present to you a virtual brioche. Eaten mostly by hungry French peasents as they tried to be brothers, equals, and free people of France.

It's OK if you're not aligned with HP or LotR. Just stay on watch of Star Wars badfics, and report them if you see one. Take your time here before doing missions though, try to know a lot more about the community.

Those statistics are quite interesting - I'd certainly noticed a trend for people to post an introductory thread, only to post little (or nothing) after and just fade away, but I hadn't realised the retention rate was that low.

On to your specific questions:

1) Before joining, I thought I'd found somewhere that would help me with my own writing, a group of people that were interested in writing themselves, and were also interested in improving. It seemed to be somewhere where I could get advice, maybe offer it too, and chat with people about stories and canons in general – I'm pleased to say that it matched well with those expectations.

2) I have drifted away a bit - I was totally gone for a little while towards the end of last year, and I've been lurking a lot more than I've been posting these last few weeks. Both of those relate to stuff in real life.

Last year I was made redundant, and there was a point where looking for a new job had dragged on for so long that I pretty much stopped socialising altogether. Sadly, the PPC was the first place I left, and the last one I returned to - not a reflection on how much I like the PPC, but a comment on how much easier I found it to walk away from a purely online community, versus actually seeing people in real life.

Recently I've managed to find a new job (which has had the unfortunate side effect of cutting down on my free time), and I started lurking while I adjusted to how tired actually having to wake up in the mornings again was leaving me. I’ve just about got back into the habit now, so I should be around a bit more.

What brought me back is that this is a really cool place, and I never really intended on leaving - it was just something that I'd noticed had happened after the fact. I'm also involved in a couple of long running betaing projects, so if I do drift away again in the future, I may well get called back. Which would be a good thing if it happens, although I'm hoping that it won't be necessary.

3) I guess that it just doesn't match their expectations once they've joined up, or it could be that some real life distraction comes along shortly after they've joined, and they just weren't invested enough at that point to stick around. Real life has proved a powerful enough distraction to drag me away, but I’d like to think that I’d always eventually find my way back here if that happens again.

If I remember rightly from a previous 'stats of the Board' post, didn't you conclude that there were a bunch of IP addresses that regularly view, but don't post? Maybe some of the MIA newbies are just content to read the stories and what we are up to without actually joining in?

Thank you for posting this. I have been moping about, mostly lonely for months now, and this was exactly the kick in the pants that I needed to make me realize how silly it was to not be making a better effort to "undrift" considering how much I still love this community.

So yay for nudging me towards that introspection I needed.

1) Honestly, I was mostly here for the community. I liked the idea of sporking badfic, but at the time, I had recently discovered that a site I frequented through most of high school was inaccessible on the network in my dorm, and having just moved, I didn't really have anybody to talk to. So I showed up hear, not really sure what to expect!

2) Certain events roughly a year ago. I never really planned to come back to the Board, I just started showing up on the chat when I realised that I had been completely without human interaction for about two months. The PPC is pretty much the only place I hang out, partially due to where I live (2 hours by bike to the nearest town!), partially because it's where all my friends are. (Also, where I met my boyfriend.)

3) I think it's a combination of factors that pretty much everybody else said better than I possibly could >.
I would like to add that this has been a trend that I've been seeing since I joined three years ago, and that it's honestly never really concerned me all that much. The newbies that stay do seem to be here for the long run.

1) Honestly, I don't remember. I think I kind of came for the Sue slaying, but stayed for all the fun and the people.

2) I've always been kinda there.

3) Honestly, again, because they came for the Sue slaying, but weren't really interested in the rest.

I like book ends.

1) I figured I'd be getting into something similar to the SCP Foundation, when it comes to writing quality. More lenient than I expected.

2) I left because I thought I wasn't any good, and came back just kinda on a whim.

3) A lack of confidence, perhaps?

1. I...honestly didn't quite know what to expect. I had had no clue that the PPC community was still going quite so strong--in fact, I'd thought it had died out, more or less, quite a few years ago. I wanted to obtain permission to mention the PPC in a Mary-Sue parody I was writing (I'm still writing it--it's actually the one I used a chapter of for my writing sample) and I also wanted to say hello to the community that created all the writings and so on that I'd grown up with and that had helped shape my writing. I'm not really sure I thought I was getting into anything, beyond a whole lot of excitement over meeting people who were, essentially, a form of celebrities to me. I don't think I expected to get this far in, though; I certainly wasn't planning on writing missions and so on quite so soon. So I'd say...it's been far more than I ever even thought to expect.
   
   2. I...don't *think* I've drifted away...not for more than maybe a week at the most, and that's mainly due to being busy. Of course, I'm about to 'drift away' for three weeks due to joining a program with no wifi except on weekends, but that's a separate point. I'm hoping I won't end up drifting once I start uni in the fall, but it's a possibility: I'll have a lot of work, and a lot to adjust to. However, I will most likely be able to keep up (I hope). So while I may not be on quite as much, I probably won't fade out altogether.
   
   Basically, I don't think I've ever drifted yet, at least not as a member of the Board. If I ever do, it'll most likely be due to being very busy with RL and schoolwork (specifically around exam times, I'm guessing).
   
   3. From what I've seen...occasionally people get offended, occasionally people feel like no one shares their interests, occasionally people get busy, and occasionally people just aren't very good at sticking around as members of online communities. It happens. Alternatively, sometimes people just don't have internet access for a while, and from there they either come back or just drift away. Occasionally, people just outgrow the community; for instance, I used to be a member of a Warriors RP and discussion community on Amazon (and an HP one, actually, though that was separate). I eventually just stopped being quite so into the series, and some of my friends there left, and it just...didn't work so well. I think when that happened, my interest in the HP community also waned, and I sort of drifted off into the sunset. I sometimes check back with the HP community, though.
   
   And now that I've bombarded you with blocks of text, I'll post this and see what else I've missed.
   
   ~DF

1) Honestly? I discovered this thing two years ago, but I was somewhat scared of joining any sort of internet group, even one that worked with fanfiction like this. I wasn't even sure if it was real, except for the wikia page. After a while, I started to think I was ready to join and finally decided to come aboard. And to be honest, I trolled around for a couple of days before introducing myself, but I really had no idea what I was getting into before I joined. All I knew was it sounded cool and everyone really took me in when I went onto the chat before officially joining (I specifically remember my cat had turned off my sound card and asking Tray what the heck was going on in some horror flick he was showing everyone using a sharing site). I thought then that I'd be doing the mission writing immediately (like I said, I really didn't think joining through), but here I am four months later and still staying away from the mission writing. I think I still want to wait a bit before asking. I'm not sure I've been on here long enough, or have time to write missions (which reminds me...whenever the next badfic report comes up, I need to attach my old Pit account on there. It's a mission frenzy). Other than that, though, it's not all that different. This is one of two sites I've ever been on in which the members are like a slightly nerdy family. And I love that.

2)I did take a two-three week hiatus at the end of May- the beginning of June, but it had nothing to do with the site. I got sick about two weeks before my final exams, and I was working my butt off to ace finals because I lost that week of review. My post count hasn't been as large as usual as of late because I've been resting. But I'm getting back into it now. Like I said before, we're a community here. I could never just forget you guys. :)

3) Part of that might just be the PPC's nature. I'm a member of another RP site that gets a billion members who sign up and have their name in white, which stands for an unsorted newbie (it's Harry Potter). Yet they never post and never get sorted. And if everyone who'd joined was active, the site wouldn't have so few people posting. A lot of the people posting might not have thought it through, like I did. And it's nothing the PPC is doing particularly wrong- everyone here's very awesome and welcoming, the posts are good, we get to know each other. The issue is some people joining may not be as interested in the PPC as we are. Or normal life might be getting in the way as well. It might also have to do with the fact that we have to wait a bit before getting permission. Some people may not be interested in building the community.

1. I don't remember. It was ten(!) years ago. All I know is that I was also on the OFUM mailing list and a member of a small Farscape fan forum that had similar levels of zaniness and close community, so prior experience definitely stood me in good stead to get along here.
   
   2. There was a period early on where I drifted away, I think before the time I'm counting from now. Partly it was to do with real life—I would've been in my last year or so of high school, some weird stuff was happening in my family—and I hadn't gotten firmly entrenched here yet, so I think I just sort of forgot the PPC existed for a while. Eventually I found my way back, though, and noticed that there was a Farscape fic up for sporking on the Oddlots main page. I was under the impression I needed a co-writer to work with (that was the norm in those days), so I got active in the course of trying to find someone who knew the fandom well enough to write with me. I ended up finding Artemis, but it didn't work out—neither of us were very experienced PPCers, and in hindsight, the badfic was too long and the problems too understated to be missionable. I stuck around, though, and the rest is history.
   
   Oh, there was that hiatus last summer, but I'm not going to discuss that publicly.
   
   3. Various factors. Some people wander off and forget we exist and/or are consumed with other things, others are daunted by the Permission process or the Board or the learning curve, others just plain don't understand and don't fit in. And in my opinion, that's all perfectly fine. The people I want to stick around are the ones who are enthusiastic about the idea, willing—nay, eager!—to do the homework, able to grasp the concepts involved, and able to get along and make friends. That's never going to be everybody, and perhaps it's always going to be a smallish number. C'est la vie.
   
   ~Neshomeh

Quite the variety of opinions here. As one of the few who made it past two months (though I have been reading PPC stories even before my first post here), allow me to give my two cents. Now if my memory would just cooperate...

1/ Before you joined the PPC community, what did you think you were getting into? How did it match up to your expectations?

Having read the PPC Constitution before I joined, I knew that the Board would be a place of discussion, not about badfics, but about...anything. And having started a few discussion threads (insert shameless plugs here), I was not disappointed. And IIRC, I wanted to have at least a better view of when the next PPC missions would come out!

Long story short, the Board has met (and at times exceeded) my expectations--though I am intrigued how people could find lifelong friends (mush less mates) online.

2/ If at any point you have drifted away, why? And what brought you back?

Well, I haven't drifted away, since I'm always coming here approximately every day.

3/ Why do you think so many people don't stick around?

It could be that they had different expectations. For example, if all I cared about was figuring out when the next PPC mission was going to be published, I might not be sticking around, impatient as I am for a good read.

I know I haven't been active recently because I've been busy with school and Star Trek and travelling to China,so yeah. I find that when I get into a new fandom, I don't post as much on the Board. Not particularly sure why though.

1/ Before you joined the PPC community, what did you think you were getting into? How did it match up to your expectations?

I thought I was getting into a community dedicated to sporking badfic. I got so much more than that; I became a better writer because of the PPC.

2/ If at any point you have drifted away, why? And what brought you back?

Like I said, whenever I get into a new fandom I find myself drifting from the Board, probably because I'm indulging my inner fangirl in private. I always come back in between fandoms, or when I've decided to write PPC missions for the new fandom. Also, sometimes travel factors into it.

3/ Why do you think so many people don't stick around?

They get scared off after being told about the ways of the Board? Sometimes some of the newbies get repeat reminders about Permission and posting multiple threads, amend they get kinda cowed into submission. I dunno.

(This seems like the title of half of my messages here. Hm.)
Anyway, to answer your questions:
1) Before I joined this madhouse, I thought I was entering a madhouse of the fun type. I mean, I found the PPC's page over there at TvTropes, liked what I saw, and went over. And, barring a few scuffles with some people, I don't see a reason to regret joining.
2) Well, when I was drafted, and then when I was in my military course, I didn't quite have access to a computer, so obviously I wasn't around. It wasn't voluntary, so I came back at the first oppurtunity.
3) Well... I think that most people that end up here want to start writing PPC stuff, and they want to start writing it now. So probably the 'hang-around-so-we-can-see-who-you-are' period kinda scares them away.

I just haven't been posting on the board. I go into the IRC almost every day though.

1. I thought I was getting into a fun little community. I wanted to review things and be funny, but as I stayed here I began to realize that that isn't really what the PPC is about.

The PPC is about being a community of writers, laughing at the bad and praising the good. It's about pointing out the flaws of something in a humorous way, but not being mean while doing it. It's about celebrating the amazing things that can come out of fandoms, and sharing them with others.

So, no. The PPC didn't match my expectations. It was much better.

2. I've never drifted away.

3. I can't say for sure, but I think it's because what people are expecting is a writing community, not a community of writers. Newbies who show up really want to get their stories out. I did too. But then they run into getting permission, and well... a month is a long time to wait for some people.

Yup, I'm still alive too!

Which means I guess I'm qualified to answer your questions :)

1/ Before you joined the PPC community, what did you think you were getting into? How did it match up to your expectations?

I'm with a couple other people in that I really didn't have any expectations. I joined because I wanted to have more of the PPC world, get to know the people that were currently writing spin-offs and to be able to write missions myself perhaps, though I don't know how much of a writer I really am, but it was one of those impulse things where, if I ever wanted to be able to, I had to join, so I did. :)

2/ If at any point you have drifted away, why? And what brought you back?

I haven't really drifted away, per se. Though it seems like it, since I don't ever really post. But I do check in with the board to see what's going on a couple times a day or so.

As to why I've pretty much gone into lurking mode, well several other's have said it quite nicely.

VixenMage beat me to it, and no, I'm not looking to bring up the debate again either, but yes, part of it the board style. And I know most people are happy with it and that's fine, and I can't say I'd post tons more if it were to switch to a more modern style. I am a member of regular boards, and I lurk there a lot too. I'm just a naturally quiet and shy person, even around my friends in real life I don't speak up much and am content to just listen to the conversation most of time. However, I do find the board's older style to be a bit off-putting in that it's harder to follow conversation lines if you come in after a huge discussion has exploded, and trying to sort things out while scrolling up and down a huge thread, and going back to catch any new posts that happened while I was scrolling around leads me to be less like to to post at the end of things because of the slightly obnoxious effort involved.

Which leads to what Miah talked about, shared fandoms, and I'll second that, there are a few that share more than my love for Lord of the Rings, but I'm not big in most fandoms that come across the board. And those that do share some of my other fandoms drift off, or are big into the other major fandoms represented here so they discuss those, and not understanding most of the references, and having spent a major amount of time sorting out the tangled thread, I have a hard time joining in those discussions.

Also, and though I'm really not trying to harp on the board, being shy, I get worried about posting something that isn't super important, or likely to inspire an actual discussion since every new topic, big or small, important or not, paid attention to or not, kicks another topic off the front page. And yes we have frivolous topics, and have fun, and that's great, and I'm not really sure how to explain what I'm trying to say, but every time I run across something that I might post to another board for the fun of it, I think more than twice about posting here as I don't want to drop topics off the front page.

I'm also with hermione of vulcan, I used to at least always try to post on newbie threads, but so many of them not only don't ever seem to post again, but don't even respond to their welcome thread comments that it gets disheartening. So I've pretty much stopped that as well, though as she said it is an important part/tradition of the board, and being welcoming is a great thing, one of the things I like about this place. But as she put it, when you throw a party for someone and they wander off after 5 minutes... I have a hard time getting excited to throw the next party when you know from the pattern of the last 3 that they'll most likely not stick around for even their welcome either.

3/ Why do you think so many people don't stick around?

I'm sure there are a wide variety of reasons, as Karen and Ekyl said, shyness, which applies to me, or being at a loss of what do here while waiting, especially with the issue of each new topic kicking an old one off the page, coupled with said shyness, and real life. I know as a newbie I was wary of posting new topics because of that. And I have posted a few topics since as I got more of a feel for the place, but in the beginning it was a thing... and obviously not all newbies have that issue, which is not to try and admonish anyone, it's great, we get some fun discussions, and some serious ones, but they are at least active. I'm just saying I can't be the only one that was a bit less active because of that fact. And maybe it is a reason why some don't end up sticking around past their first couple posts.

Or as Cassie said, maybe they expect continual madcap adventures and stories and we just don't work like that? Or they are looking for the harder core bashing like doctorlit pointed out.

And there is probably a fair amount of people who aren't willing to wait out the permission process, as Ekyl said.

1. I got pretty much what I was expecting, except that I became closer to the other users here more than I had known was possible online. I think I'm maybe a little unique in that I enjoy PPC writing less for the humor and more for the feeling of exploring the Word Worlds.
   
   2. I've never left, and I really can't imagine myself leaving. I'm just too mentally involved with the setting.
   
   3. I think many newbies get the wrong idea about what goes on in here. A lot who come from TV Tropes seem to expect a more aggressive bashing of badfic and authors than what we actually tolerate.
   
   Honestly, I rather like that not many people join constantly. I like the PPC being a small community of friendly folks. It's manageable and interconnected.

1 - I started reading various missions from TVTropes links, then found the wiki and read more missions, interludes and backstory, etc before joining.

I didn't really even think about joining/getting involved myself until I'd exhausted almost all the content in familiar continua and thought 'well what am I supposed to do now, I want more stories dammit!' and then realised that maybe I should write my own!

I didn't really have any expectations for the community, although I did lurk on the Board for a while to get an idea for how things work.

2 - I have drifted away and back due to my tendency to be interested in so many things at once and yet only have a finite amount of time to dedicate to them all (when I finish those flux capacitors, that problem will go away. Muahahaha... *ahem*).

However, I have never lost interest, and even when I'm not posting or writing, I'll be lurking around. What keeps my interest is the massive shared world with infinite possibilities, the constant stream of new stories to read, and the many plotbunnies I keep thinking up for my own agents!

3 - I imagine it's partly the nature of Internet communities (VM convered this point below far better than I could), and partly the complexity of our shared continuity.

I am distinctly not saying that this complexity is bad (it's one of the reasons I love the PPC!), but it could well put people off who don't want to spend the time investigating and discovering it all. They may then drift away because they feel they would have to fill their headspace with it in order to get involved, rather than picking it up as they go along.

Yes, I have my cons about the board, but they're far outweighed by the pros and my general good nature, so I just tend to overlook them.

I was actually expecting this place to be way more hardcore when I first joined almost a year ago, and ended up being pleasantly surprised that it was more lax instead.

When I failed to get permission, I only turned down a second try because I realized that I wasn't actually all that interested in writing missions - I was fairly new then, I just thought it was a status symbol more than anything, so I didn't put my level best in to begin with, and I was bogged down in real life with other matters so it wasn't really something I could focus on.

Nowadays, with everything settling back down, the only reason I'm not on more is because I don't feel that it's an obligation of mine to be ever-present on the board, and thus tend to forget that I have membership here at all.

That, and I've found myself getting into Library of the Damned and writing more MSTs, which are really distracting in and of themselves. Not to mention my ongoing large writing projects, and just basically living my life.

Which, speaking of, got a bit more hectic due to an unexpected death in the family.

But yes - like my DA journal says, I'm not dead, I'm just a bit more quiet than usual.

1/ Before you joined the PPC community, what did you think you were getting into? How did it match up to your expectations?

I really had no expectations when I joined. I had been reading fanfic for a couple of years, and I had gotten extremely annoyed (and sometimes disgusted--ask me what my first slash story I ran across was. I dare you.) with various fics, I had never thought there was anything to be done about it. One day I ran across one of IndeMaat's missions on the pit, and sort of followed her here like a lost puppy.

2/ If at any point you have drifted away, why? And what brought you back?

Hurt feelings and Drama played a big part in drifting. Feeling extremely disconnected has played a big part in having difficulty in coming back fully. I like Tolkien, but I am no where near as dedicated as the original group. I am not into anime or any of the video games that have been popular topics with excited newbies lately. For a while there were at least a few others that I had some shared fandoms with, but they drifted off, and it has just been difficult for to jump back in when I feel like I am only following a small percentage of what is being said, and no one is able to follow what I want to say.

What keeps me coming back?

The PPC. This is the most awesome shared world I have ever seen. The backstory, the interactions between people's agents and missions, the little projects that people start to bring the group closer, the wiki, the work people do to put order to the chaos that is the PPC, the Ironic Overpower. I've been around 3 1/2 years, even though part of that has been marginally involved, and it has just sort of become part of my narrative to think of things in terms that the PPC uses. How could I permanently leave when it has wormed it's way that far into my life?

3/ Why do you think so many people don't stick around?

Wrong expectations when they arrived--especially from a couple of sources of arrival, qualms/fears that we are bullying authors, real life (the PPC is getting older, more careers, marriages, and children than there used to be*), loss of Internet access (this got me for 3-4 months last year), incredibly steep learning curve to get fully engaged in the culture of the shared world.


*My oldest is a teenager now. Can you believe it? I have a kid older than some of our members, and my baby is going to Kindergarten this year. I feel so old.

If I had to guess, I'd say it's something between just The Nature of The Beast - people often start things, join clubs, enter forums, and wind up not sticking around because they forget to come back, or life gets busy, or something else comes up, and I think that happens to a lot of things and a lot of people. But also, we... do have an unorthodox sort of forum here, and I do think people get thrown off by that. (This is not an invitation to start debating about The 'Board vs. a hypothetical T-Board again, or what have you.) But this 'Board is very unique, in this day and age, and I've noticed a lot of newbies comment on their confusion at it. I wouldn't be surprised if that's part of the issue some people have.

Other than that, I guess, what other people have said - we wind up not being what they expect, for whatever reason. Either we're too serious, or we take writing too seriously, or we're too off-the-walls, or they expected to get Permission and be having madcap adventures or Serious Grimdark adventures, and that didn't work out.

I don't think you're scary, hS. You do... loom, a bit. You did when I was a newbie, anyway - now, either I've grown a tolerance for looming, or I've grown, without realizing it. I've been accused of speaking, IRL, as if I always know the answer, or am convinced of my accuracy on a subject, and told it comes off as authoritative/arrogant. I think online, when one speaks with both intelligence and a measure of confidence, people sometimes get the idea that this person should not be argued with, and you get the impression of looming, instead of arrogance.

(I really, really hope that came off as friendly offering of explanation, rather than snapping-turtle critique, because it really is just friendly observation and I do not think of you as arrogant at all.)

Anyway. Questions.

1)
Well, it was recommended to me by someone who had taught me the basics of Elizabethan grammar, and was a brilliant writer and mod who was slightly notorious for her high grammatical standards. I'd read the Original Series, exchanged a single e-mail with Jay about permission, and enjoyed OFUM. So I suppose that was the community I was looking for - good writers, with high standards for their writing and canon, and a healthy dose of humor and friendliness. And, more or less, that's what you were. And are still, I think, for the most part.

2)
Once or twice, I'm sure. For most of the past eight years, though, I've checked the 'Board either daily or close to it, reading topics that catch my eye and skimming everything else. There were a few nasty drama flare-ups, multiple years ago, when I made the decision to leave, at least for a few months. Every single time, I found myself checking the 'Board daily -anyway-, because I'd formed the strong habit, and the URL was ingrained in my muscle memory. (I never wanted to leave permanently because Dann was here, and I couldn't get up the nerve to talk to him outside of a PPC context.)

So I guess that would be it. Drama has made me think about drifting away, or setting distances, but so many of my friends are here - this is like a home, I never could.

3)
I guess I answered that one up front? I don't know why, not really. I see people drift in and out of forums all the time, and the IRC, where I'm more vocal, seems to have a core of regulars that's grown quite a bit, and it's slow-growth these days, but we get new people still, who come in every few days and stick around.

This is why I don't often welcome newbies. Yes, I know everyone's different. Yes, I know that it's a friendly gesture. But it seems to me a lot of people just post their newbie thread and then never come back. It's like welcoming a person to a party and then watching them leave after five minutes.

So, to your questions:

1/ Before you joined the PPC community, what did you think you were getting into? How did it match up to your expectations?

I knew exactly what I was getting into. I read OFUM and HFA and HFA referenced the PPC, so I read the Original Series. Then when I started writing OFAS, I went looking for information on OFUs and stumbled upon the wiki. That was last summer, and I read a lot of missions and wiki articles and sketched out my agents and their backstories (I've reworked them since, but I started the process). I actually debated on whether to to join. I felt it was wrong to make fun of people's fic like that, so I figured I might just write PPC stories for my own enjoyment and not post them online. But I read several of the FAQs and different works around the wiki and decided I wanted to be part of the community. Then I introduced myself in October.

I don't think I had many expectations. If anything, the community was even more welcoming and friendly than I expected.

2/ If at any point you have drifted away, why? And what brought you back?

I haven't been posting as much recently, but that was because I was writing my first mission. (I got permission in January...) But I was lurking, and I started posting again because I saw things to comment on.

3/ Why do you think so many people don't stick around?

It depends on the individual person and their expectations, and then a) how well those expectations fit with the actual PPC and b) how good they are at adjusting when something doesn't fit their expectations. That's all I can say for sure.

A bit of speculation, though:

They don't know what they're getting into. They've somehow found the PPC in a way that doesn't involve actually reading any PPC materials, and they...decide to join a community...for the heck of it? *shrugs* It's not like we require a lot of commitment, it's just that they don't think through their first post and then, maybe, they find that the PPC isn't for them. I don't know, it just baffles me, since I was a wiki-lurker for months before joining and agonized over my first post.

That also goes for the 'Hi I've just joined can I have Permission?' people. They didn't think to go read the materials, for some odd reason. Like I said, maybe it's just incomprehensible to me because I read the materials multiple times before joining.

Those aren't great statistics, but I don't think there's anything we can do. We're welcoming and friendly, and we link people to our policies. It's them, and their expectations, not us.

Of course, I did disappear for two years, so...

Anyway, the questions.

1) It was long enough I don't actually remember what I thought I was getting into, I just thought it'd be fun to write for and the setting seemed pretty neat. It's matched up pretty well, for the most part.

2) I've drifted away a couple times - way, waaaaay back it was because I thought the community was dead, and then I'm not sure why back in 2011-ish. I'd always had a hard time finishing missions and stuff, and wasn't sure how to make them interesting - for a bit I just plain ran out of ideas. I'll not get into the various dramas that were going on back then, because I don't feel right dragging it all back up two years later when I've been trying to improve my behaviour and be less annoying and such, but between all that, my home life worsening and dealing with all sorts of real life stuff, including getting a job with a newspaper, eventually I just sort of forgot about the place. I came back when I stumbled on one of my stories and felt really guilty about abandoning it and the PPC as a whole.

3) I think a lot of it is people who aren't willing to wait out the permission process, don't really know what to do here or get shy and busy with real life. It's really just a guess though, and likewise I'm not sure what to do to get people to stick around. I'll have to think on it a lot more.

I know that I joined the PPC because I thought it'd be a fun place to learn about bad stories, how to write better, and do a few sporkings of my own. When I left, it was because real life got so busy I couldn't check the Board very often, and I just sort of fell away (then came back, and am hanging on with my teeth to avoid falling away again now that I have no regular Internet access).

As for people not sticking around...well, I'd probably attribute it to shyness and Real Life. Also, you people can be pretty scary! Especially you, hS.

And even fewer stick around for the real long haul - we have Ye Olde Permisshun-Givvers, of course, such as yourself, Neshomeh and Elcalion, who have been here since the early years. And I've been here five years now and seen faces come and go. Five! It doesn't feel like it.

1/ Before you joined the PPC community, what did you think you were getting into? How did it match up to your expectations?

I honestly didn't have any prior expectations. I just understood it was a society of people who killed really bad fics and I wanted to join in.

2/ If at any point you have drifted away, why? And what brought you back?

I've never really drifted away - been unable to access for periods because of lack of internet, but never left and then come back. I don't think I could, I like being here too much, even if all I do is lurk most of the time.

3/ Why do you think so many people don't stick around?

Hm. Maybe because they expect continual madcap adventures and stories and we just don't work like that?

Sorry for not posting in ages, but my real life situation is a little hectic right now. Currently I am visiting relatives in Arkansas, and have only now had opportunity to post. I won't get back home infill July 24th, so I'm likely to fade into the distance again untill that time.

In answer to your questions:

1. I expected a fun community of writers with whom I could laugh with and improve my writing. While the writing part has not happened much yet due to procrastination on my part, I have definitely laughed. And cried when I read badfic.

2. Vacation is my problem at the moment, being interested in other things is the other problem. So much media to consume, so little time to create.

3. Other interests. I personally don't know why, but that is what makes sense to me.

Then where did that link on Maggie's Wikia page go? How did I adopt Taho from you?

AM I FROM THE FUTURE AND I NEVER EVEN KNEW IT?

Category 1) Stuff that I'm involved in / know well enough to mission

I'm not really involved in any fandoms at the minute, although special mention goes to, Warhammer 40,000 and H.I.V.E. (The Higher Institute of Villainous Education - basically Hogwarts for future Evil Geniuses, Mad Scientists, etc.), both of which I'm sketching out fanfic plots for.

As for the fandoms that I feel confident enough to mission: Abhorsenverse, Harry Potter, Dresden Files, Battlestar Galactica (re-imagined series only), Firefly, James Bond, Trigun (anime only), Hellsing (anime and manga) and Ghost in the Shell.

Category 1.5) Stuff that I'd like to do missions for, but am not sure if ever will, for whatever reason

Lord of the Rings and The Wheel of Time both belong in this category, for the same reason - while I enjoy them immensely, there's just so much to know about the canon! I'm not confident that I'd actually be able to do it justice, which is a shame, as I would definitely like to do my bit protecting those continua. Lord of the Rings in particular I'd like to do at least one mission for in my spin off, simply because that's where the PPC started, although the only way that'll be happening any time soon is via a co-write.

I also read a lot of hard/military sci-fi, stuff like Honor Harrington, Stark's War, JAG in Space, The Lost Fleet, Star Risk, as well as old school stuff like The Forever War, Cities in Flight and Starship Troopers. For these, finding missionable badfic (or even fanfic in general) seems to range between being merely difficult to outright impossible.

Category 2) The more casual stuff

Redwall, Narnia, The Big Bang Theory, the Clancyverse, Star Wars (mostly just the films, although I did read a lot of the books a long time ago, and am currently playing The Old Republic), a heck of a lot of anime, and really pretty much anything in the genres of Fantasy or Science Fiction, whether they be books, TV or film :)

Special mentions here go to The Edge Chronicles (which I've recently rediscovered), and the Thursday Next books, which I've only just started reading, but am thoroughly enjoying.

1) Sherlock Holmes, BBC Sherlock, New!Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings. Those are the ones I know enough about the Canon to do missions for.

2) Casual: Hetalia, BSG, Homestuck.
Emerging: Star Trek. I'm good with the reboot, but I'm still working my way through TOS, so I don't consider myself any sort of authority on the fandom. I may try a mission, though.

1) My Little Pony (FIM),Pokemon (games), Tron, Avengers, Silverwing, EDM (music fandom)

2) Hetalia, Homestuck, Dr. Who (new)

Hardcore fandoms? Hm... Lord of the Rings, Star Wars (though excluding most of the EU), Tales of the Otori, various incarnations of Yu-Gi-Oh! (except ZeXal), Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha and its sequels, Fate/stay night and Fate/zero, The Culture and probably Sword Art Online.
My fleeting fandoms are ever-changing, slowly drifting around as I watch new animé and play new games. Currently, they're Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Lucky Star, and E.Ψ.Ǝ: Divine Cybermancy.

I'm a hardcore fan of Star Wars, as well as Super Mario Bros. ^^ I've also started to take an interest in Legend of Zelda...anyone else?

1. Hardcore Fandoms
   -Lost The big one for me. I was a major Lost fanboy while it ran and still find the whole story, with all the characters' interactions, amazing. Lost missions are going to play a major role in my spin-off.
   
   -The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Another major of fanboy excitement for me. Won't spork any until I've read the final novel.
   
   -Kingdom Hearts
   
   -maybe Heroes? I know it well enough, but the downturn the writing took led to contradictions and confusions.
   
   -Sherlock Holmes, because after over a century, Doyle's writing is just damn brilliant.
   
   -Any novel I read and enjoy. Even though many aren't well-known enough for fanfiction to be a thing.
   
   2. More casual stuff, eh? Uh . . .
   -some Final Fantasy stuff. The games are too complex for me to typically go for 100% completion, but I pick up the general stuff. VIII, X and the Dissidia series are the ones I know best.
   
   -Narnia and Harry Potter. I don't know them as well as some folks, but they're enjoyable worlds and I like spending time in them.
   
   -Pokemon, but only some of the games. (The anime does not exist, the anime does not exist, the anime does not exist . . .)
   
   - I semi-want to start Doctor Who, but apparently some older episodes have gone missing. Because I'm a glutton, I don't really want to start if I can't watch them all in chronological order.

1) I'm a hardcore fan of Doctor Who, as in I know how many times a timelord regenerates and how they reproduce. I'm also pretty solid for Hetalia, Harry Potter and BBC Sherlock.
2) I'm a casual/emerging fan of Supernatural (meaning I haven't seen season 5, 6 or 7 but I've seen 8 and all the previous ones.

1) Fandoms that I could mission with confidence: Pokemon (animeverse and gamesverse), Star Trek: Voyager, Stargate: Atlantis, Bakugan Battle Brawlers, Final Fantasy VII, VIII, X, XIII, XIII-2, Jak and Daxter, Kingdom Hearts, Animorphs

2) More Casual Fandoms: Phoenix Wright, Teen Titans, Star Wars, Street Fighter, Marvel Comics, DC Comics (for those two, I know the basic stories, but I don't really follow the comics)

Emerging Fandoms: Artemis Fowl, Dungeon Siege III

And I might keep adding to this list once I remember more fandoms; I watch/play/read a LOT.

Well, as I'm the "someone else" I suppose I can't really keep on my list that lack of shared fandoms is a reason I don't post a lot if I refuse to partake in the discussion expressly about fandoms. XD

So without further adieu;

1) Fandoms I would be comfortable missioning in/hard core:
Legend of Zelda (most games)
Hobbit/Lord of the Rings
Jurassic Park
Fullmetal Alchemist (not brotherhood yet)
Sailor Moon
Artemis Fowl
Hunger Games (books only)
Dragons in our Midst/Oracles Of Fire
Hana Kimi
Kodocha
Den of Antiquity and Penn Dutch mystery series by Tamar Myers
Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis
Dark Angel
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles
most Studio Ghibli movies
Calvin and Hobbes
Kuroshisuji
Fushigi Yugi
Raptor Red and I'm sure I've missed several that I could kick myself for not thinking of at this second. ^^;
Also on this list are Harry Potter (especially the early books) and Twilight, not because I'm really a fan of either series, but I would feel comfortable writing a mission in their worlds without needing a whole lot of extra research.

2) Fandoms I could co-write, or mission in with some extra research or outside help from hardcore fans I know:
Doctor Who
The Silmarillion
Nancy Drew
Firefly
Labyrinth
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Pirate's of the Caribbean trilogy
several of the animated Disney movies
SeaQuest DSV
Phineas and Ferb and probably several others I can't think of.

3)Emerging fandoms/fandoms I like reading and reading about, but would not feel comfortable missioning there include:
Several Manga and Anime series, that it's either been too long since I've seen them, or I haven't been able to finish them yet.
Farscape
Star Wars (the EU is intimidating, I could probably do the original series and prequels though)
Fablehaven
Star Trek (Voyager and TNG)
Discworld
Memoirs of a Geisha
Pokemon
Dilbert
Frank Peretti's adult books
Torchwood
Hank the Cowdog
Sanctuary
His Dark Materials trilogy
Spiderwick Chronicles
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Spongebob
Invader Zim
Gravity Falls and I'm sure several more that I can't recall just at this moment. ^^

As far as major fandoms...
Solid: The Hobbit, Divergent/Insurgent, The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Matched Trilogy
Emerging: Lord of the Rings
Casual: The Inheritance Cycle
Former Hardcore: Warrior Cats (*blush*)

As far as hardcore fandoms go: Lucky Star, Spice and Wolf, Angel Beats, Initial D, and Mirror's Edge. Lesser ones would be Mirai Nikki, and... I think that's about it actually. Somewhere in the middle of those is Avatar: The Last Airbender; I used to be really really into it, and I still like it, but I'm really rusty with it.

Serious Fandoms:

Classic-era Doctor Who
Lord of the Rings/Silmarillion (though not so much The Hobbit -- I don't do well with people writing down to me)
Belgariad/Malloreon
Elenium/Tamuli
Dragonriders of Pern (the earlier books, I haven't read any of the ones written or co-written by Todd)
MASH (TV series only)
Hogan's Heroes
Elemental Masters
Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms
Valdemar series
Lensman series -- and if anyone ever sees a badfic in this universe, one of my agents will *freak* if you send me a link :)
Star Trek TOS or early TNG

Casual/Emerging Fandoms:
Discworld
The Pelbar Cycle
I've started to follow the 1960s Green Hornet thanks to YouTube, and enjoy the 1940s movie serials, but can't stand the Seth Rogan movie.
I could probably do a mission in the Parasol Protectorate world, but I haven't found the new series Gail Carriger is putting in that universe yet, so I don't know how that's changing the backstory (if at all).
Marvel Cinematic Universe. My comic-reading is enough out of date that I wouldn't want to try sending agents into either of Marvel's main comic universes.

There's probably more in both, but I need to get ready for my afternoon game.

(In the Star Trek universe, sir is gender-neutral.)

Hardcore Fandoms

-Star Trek: TOS, TNG, Voyager, and reboot. TNG is my favorite.

-Harry Potter: I love it, but the fanbase scares me, so I don't talk about it much.

-What should be called the Riordan-verse, that is, the three book series Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Heroes of Olympus, and The Kane Chronicles. Percy Jackson's my favorite.

-Oz: The original book series, the 1939 movie, and Return to Oz. Wicked? Oh, you mean that weird AU fanfic? No, not a fan.

-My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

-Disney Animated Canon: My favorites are Beauty and the Beast, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Mulan. I'm also pretty familiar with...well, most of the rest. It's easier to say that I don't like Cinderella, Peter Pan, or Pinocchio, and I've never seen Bambi or Fantasia.

Less Hardcore

-Star Trek: DS9: I've only seen the first couple seasons. I adore it so far, though.

-Lord of the Rings: I hesitate to even call this a fandom. Yes, I'm familiar with it, but I don't love it. I enjoy it, sure, but...it's more other people's fandom that I become familiar with because I like those people.

-The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

-The 39 Clues and spinoff Cahills vs. Vespers: These are interesting because new books come out every three months or so (the series has multiple authors), so I get really into it whenever a new book comes out and barely think of it the rest of the time. I do like them, though.

-The Hunger Games: I like them, but the fanbase scares me because I think some of them don't get its heavy social commentary, and that's what I love about the series.

-BBC Sherlock: While I love the show, I can't say I'm quite as into the fandom.

-Doctor Who: I'm in this awkward stage where I know too much to be a newb, but I haven't actually seen enough to be considered a fan.

Jesus, there are so many. I'll probably forget a LOT of them, but I'll give it a go.

SOLID/HARDCORE: Dresden Files, Lord of the Rings, Halo, Mass Effect, Honor Harrington, In Fury Born, All Things Tamora Pierce, Codex Alera, Metroid, Bleach, Metal Gear, Warhammer 40,000, Claymore (manga), Fate/Stay Night, Fate/Zero, Tsukihime, Hellsing, Doctor Who, Ciaphas Cain, Safehold, Negima, Trigun, Abhorsen, Fate/Extra, Black Lagoon, Code Geass, Icemark Chronicles, Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X, and probably others.

CASUAL: Inheritance Cycle, Fullmetal Alchemist, Temeraire, Assassin's Creed, Metro 2033, Star Wars, Star Trek, Higurashi, AND OTHERS.

I don't have any hardcore or solid fandoms, because I've never read that far into a particular subject.

I will say that I know Black Cat and Tales of Vesperia better than the rest of them, but really, the more MSTs I do, the more I just focus on how bad the story is over how bad the story is in the respective fandom.

I guess I could also claim to know a thing or two about Legend of Zelda, despite never having once played a single game in the series or reading any of the comic stuff or anything like that. Like, I know enough that I'm pretty familiar with the characters and settings, and the overall story of a few games, and some of the weapons and armors and accessories and whatnot, but that's literally it.

I used to be pretty into Kingdom Hearts, but that was so many years ago that I don't remember the first thing about it, and its fanbase seems to be comprised of nothing but people with their trousers in a twist - I posted all of three threads on a forum for KH, and basically ended up telling them all to pound sand because they were relentlessly unforgiving about the smallest things. It was ridiculous - I couldn't even talk about the basic game functions without somebody jumping up my back end.

So, yeah, that's that for KH.

Spending time on Library of the Damned is also good for learning about new fandoms casually, because everybody in the Library has a habit of over-explaining the source material down to the littlest details.

But yeah, I'm nothing but casual.

All right, let's do this.

1) Warcraft, Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever (1, 2, Final), the Wheel of Time series

2) Farscape, Babylon 5, Star Trek (TNG and DS9), Avatar: The Last Airbender, Homestuck, Dragonlance, Discworld, Legend of Zelda series, Metroid series, MegaMan series (original, X, Battle Network, Legends), Justice League/JLU, Firefly/Serenity, Battlestar Galactica (2003), Bioshock (1&2), Skies of Arcadia, Doctor Who

I'm sure I missed something in that second group.

-Phobos

So I'll just give you the top ones, hardcore and emerging.

Solid fandoms:
Harry Potter
Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit
The Silmarillion
Dragonriders of Pern
Pokémon
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Kane Chronicles
Heroes of Olympus
Any books by Tamora Pierce
Redwall
Discworld
Good Omens
Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Phantom of the Opera (novel and musical)
CATS (musical and poem book)
Wicked (musical and novel series)
Sweeney Todd (musical)
Les Miserables (musical, movie, and book)
The Chronicles of Narnia
Monty Python's Flying Circus

Emerging fandoms:
Doctor Who
Sherlock
Star Trek
Firefly
Fairy Tail
Battlestar Galactica
Supernatural
A Song of Ice and Fire
My Little Pony

Again, these are just my top fandoms. I've got lots more, so if anyone wants to know about them, go ahead and ask.

1) Harry Potter, Power Rangers (Ninja Storm- RPM, I don't know as much about Haim Saben), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, Bones.

2) Psych, Power Rangers (Mighty Morphin- Wild Force, Samurai- Megaforce), Dead Zone, Pokemon, Ned's Declassified.

I don't want to see any whining or crying or cracking under pressure. Do I make myself CLEAR!
*crack*
CORTMARSHALED!

Anyway, my fandoms. Well, I am a very hardcore brony, that much everyone should know. Other then that:
Portal and Half-Life
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Kane Cronicles
Doctor Who, though I have not watched in months and have seen very little of the old series.
Avengers
Somewhat the Elder Scrolls series, as I have only played Oblivion and Skyrim.
Fable

Man, I know I have more, but these are all the ones I can think of at the moment. I may write a response to this with an updated list later. Or not.

:P

My fandoms, lemme see...

Core fandoms:

- Lord of the Rings. My oldest fandom, via The Hobbit at the age of eight. Books and films are both beloved versions, including The Hobbit trilogy so far.
- Harry Potter. Surprisingly didn't get into it till it had been out a couple of years. Much prefer the books over the films; the first two films were good, but the next three were disappointments of increasing scale, and I haven't even seen the last three.
- David Eddings' Belgariad/Malloreon and Elenium/Tamuli series, and his standalone The Redemption of Althalus. My auntie gave me The Belgariad when I was in my teens, knowing my love of the genre, and I got addicted to the snarky twist on high fantasy.
- Brian Jacques' Redwall series. I've loved them since pre-adolescence, and while they're somewhat formulaic, they appeal to my fondness for clear-cut heroes and villains. (And the descriptions of feasts. Man, did Brian Jacques ever know how to describe a vegetarian feast deliciously.)
- Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. I liked a few of the books back in pre-adolescence, but I really became a fanatic about five years ago. Also the unrelated collaboration he did with Neil Gaiman, Good Omens.
- The Pirates of the Caribbean series. Admittedly I first got into them because of my crush on Orlando Bloom, but I found Captain Jack Sparrow far too awesome to forget.

Newer fandoms (from the beginning of 2013):

- Labyrinth, the Jim Henson film. It's so Eighties! And there are songs that stick in your head! And David Bowie's skintight pants... which shouldn't be shown to anyone under eighteen, probably. They sort of traumatised my little sister. XD
- Joss Whedon's Firefly series, and the Big Damn Movie that followed, Serenity. Lycaenion and Rilwen Shadowflame talked me into finally seeing why they were so obsessed with it. The combination of Western and space genres had been putting me off, but now I find it awesome. Cowboys in space just trying to make a living and winding up doing really cool stuff like battling feral maniacs, shootouts with the criminal underworld, duels with noble idiots... yeah, I'm kinda in love. :P

Confident enough to mission (in fact, most of them already featured in my missions or MSTs):
Detective Conan/Case Closed, Card Captor Sakura, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Ace Combat, Metal Gear Solid, 1982 Knight Rider

Canons I like but would mission only while collaborating with someome who knows them well:
Fairy Tail, NCIS, Doctor Who (new), Hawaii Five-0 (new)

There might be other series that don't come to mind, or that I know well but they're too short and/or unknown and/or awkward to begin with.

...wait, wrong universe.

Right-o, my fandoms are as follows:

Hardcore fanoms

The Legend of Zelda
Metroid
Mass Effect
Team Fortress 2
StarCraft
Half-Life
Portal
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic


Casual fandoms-- I love them so much, but I don't think I can mission them just yet...

The Edge Chronicles
Discworld
Harry Potter
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
Redwall

Top Four (in no particular order): Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Dragonriders of Pern, and Farscape. These are the ones I've been in sustained love with the longest and for which I've been most heavily involved in fandom activities, particularly the last three. I've always been prohibitively afraid I could never do LotR justice with serious fic or art, though I did have a short-lived RP career with a female Ranger character on Neopets, and in the last few years I've finally managed a couple of missions there.

I have a fair-sized list of fandoms I'm confident and enthusiastic enough to mission in (with perhaps some research to refresh my memory). These include Animorphs, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Discworld, Firefly/Serenity, Fullmetal Alchemist, House, M.D., How to Train Your Dragon, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (book and musical), Phantom of the Opera (Leroux, Kay, and Webber), A Song of Ice and Fire (if it weren't quarantined), Spyro the Dragon (early PS1 games only), Star Trek (esp. DS9), and Young Wizards.

More casual fandoms than that... are probably too many to list. My favorite new find is Justice League/Justice League Unlimited, though. It's well-written and intelligent while still working in some goofy superhero stuff, there's an excellent balance of drama to action to humor, and I was very sad to come to the end of it. I enjoyed The Hunger Games trilogy for the most part (the last book left much to be desired, IMO) and look forward to the next two films. I'm also eagerly waiting for the new season of Psych to make it to Netflix, and I've been on a happy trip down Nostalgia Lane with X-Files. I'm also fond of Battlestar Gallactica (2003) and Babylon 5.

... I like lots of stuff. That's why I put my first agent pair in the DIC. {= )

~Neshomeh

Serious?
Star Fox - fanatically so.
Homeworld. Fanon note: The Kadeshi survived. It totally happened.
Star Wars, original and prequel. Also enjoyed Republic Commando, somehow.
Ponies, G4. Seasonal nostalgic. Nightmare Moon worshipper.

Not quite so serious...
Can you believe me if I say I read Inheritance in two languages and did not throw up urple vomit?
I also quite enjoyed the Black Magician Trilogy.
I admit to reading Harry Potter.
I also admit to reading LoTR only just now.
Oh, and I play Freespace.
And Mass Effect. Not counting as hardcore because I didn't go through 3 yet.
Aaaand...uh, memory's shorting out. It's seven in the morning and I've been up since three.

Solid or hardcore fandoms
Lord of the Rings is the one I'm most versed in (right through to having read the vast majority of History of Middle Earth)
Star Wars I know a lot about, but it's much harder to keep track of the gigantic craziness that is the EU
Discworld is also a biggie
A Song of Ice and Fire (although I need to reread the earlier books since it's been a while)
Harry Potter
Historical fiction (particularly Bernard Cornwell's Anglo-Saxon series, and most anything set on a ship in the Napoleonic wars)
Narnia


Emerging fandoms
Supernatural
Star Trek (more the recent movie reboots than the TV series)
Dresden Files
Iron Druid Chronicles
Being Human (both UK and US series)
Firefly
Merlin
Doctor Who/Torchwood
True Blood


I'm sure there's more, but those are the ones that come to mind.

Lord of the Rings, though an undying passion of mine, is not something I would probably feel comfortable doing an Action mission in. I think I'd be fine running a Cafeteria mission, but those tend to take slightly less intricate knowledge and ability to critique canon details.

Solid hardcore fandoms?
-The Dresden Files
-Codex Alera
-The Chronicles of Narnia (lit)
-The Vorkosigan Saga
-Tortall & Emelan
-Harry Potter
-A Song of Ice and Fire

I suppose it's rank heresy, but I'd say I'm a lukewarm fan of Doctor Who at this point. I haven't watched in months, and don't know much besides Nine, Ten, and the first two or three seasons of Eleven. I've also become a lukewarm fan of Supernatural. I watch the show for Crowley Snark, and spend at least part of my time complaining about the white heteronormativity and protagonist-driven morality. But for all that, I think I've passed the Enthusiastic Posting Threshold and am officially in the fandom. Other lukewarm fandoms... h'm. My Little Pony - I watch it every now and then, and it's alright. Once Upon A Time, which I once again mainly watch for the snarking of its ambiguous villain character(s), and spend most of the time complaining about the idiocy of the "good guys."

In short, I'm a die-hard literature fan, and still diving into any fandom the library has to offer, but have also been dipping into various television fandoms with some enjoyment. Got any recommendations? British (or Scottish) snarky characters with moral ambiguity are basically my television fandom sticking points.

1. Sherlock Holmes books and RDJ movies, Stargate SG-1 (seasons 1-8), Stargate Atlantis
   
   2. It has been a long while since I watched these, so I'm not putting them on 1. NCIS (through season 6), Sanctuary, Psych, Warehouse 13
   
   More casual: The Hobbit and LOTR, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Monty Python, Pern, Elder Scrolls, Bones, Merlin
   
   Emerging: Avengers and other Marvel comics. Seriously. To be an expert in this would be a serious accomplishment (Woo Data!). I'm up on the basic story lines of the newest stuff, and have been following several titles in the Marvel Now run (the Captain America comic with John Romita, Jr and Rick Remender is AMAZING). We also have been reading the first Avengers comics from the 60's, but we're only up to issue 40 so far.

Welcome, welcome! From what I'm reading, it seems that you're fitting in just fine with the insanity that is the PPC. Hmmm...a Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy fan, eh? I should have the perfect gift around here somewhere...

*rummages through bag of holding*
Aha! Have a replica Brotherhood! But since it was won off of Gilgamesh, it might not square with the original.

So I have a few questions;
1. Have you read the original series with Jay and Acacia? IF not it's pretty easy to find. (In the case that you can't find it I'll give you a link.)
2. What are your fandoms?
3. How'd you find out abou the PPC?

Here, have this incredibly alluring shiny red button. Under no circumstances should it be pressed. Ever. That said, welcome to the PPC! :D

-- Len

Hi, have some fudge!

Don't worry about not knowing what to type, what matters is that you made the post.

Anyway. I have a tradition of giving newbies dangerous (and Fun) gifts. So, in continuation of that I have here for you:

A set of MJOLNIR Mark VIII Powered Armor, fitted to you (or your Agent, as the case may be).

A stuffed pig with a China Lake grenade launcher in a zipper compartment inside.

A SPNKr Missile Launcher, and a Hammerspace ammo pouch which shouldn't run out for at least a decade.

Have fun, and Welcome Aboard!

Don't worry, that hit me the first time I introduced myself on the board :)

Have some bleepolate ice cream!

Greetings, new friend! Have a slipper lobster!

Ooh, nice name!

Newbie Gift! Have an Infinite Notebook, lined, with urple covers and wilver binding. Don't blind yourself!

What are your fandoms?
Obviously you've been on the Wiki, but have you read the Constitution?
Have you ever met a polka-dotted hedgehog? Mine was orange and purple.

-Aila

If that happened, then there really wouldn't be much of a story for the series, would there? But it's an interesting point.

Interesting theory you have there. If you would allow me a few thoughts?

Who drags themselves five miles or more to a river, while perishing of bloodloss, then wanders around in the woods for at least six hours gathering paint supplies, then mixes the paint, and then decorates themselves in such detail? There is 0% chance of staying lucid that long with such grievous injuries.

Not to mention that it had been days, maybe a week, between the tracker jackers and when Peeta logically would have obtained the wound. [til she finds him]

To me it seems logical he would try to get to water if he were, and he was, in such bad shape. You'll die sooner without water than you will food, and any food you might be looking to catch has to come get a drink sometime too. So it's a good place to be. I'd like to know where you come up with that it was 5+ miles to the stream, was it a guesstimate? Was it shown that it seemed to be that far in the movie, because I've not seen that?. In the book it doesn't say, and from Katniss' point of view after her stings work through her system, it wasn't that far til she found the stream which she would later follow back toward the Career's camp and wind up finding Peeta, so I don't think it was as far as all that, maybe a mile, two - two and a half tops.

What we do know is he was cut immediately, and that it was Cato who did it, and that he meant to kill, because at the victor's wrap up Katniss sees how he fought Cato to ensure her escape from the scene. And Cato was boasting about it at the lake when Katniss goes to blow up the supplies. So he was cut the day of the attack, and here, I agree with you on the oddity of his surviving between the Tracker Jacker attack and the blood loss because it does take Katniss nearly a full week to find him. (She was out 2 nights with the stinger venom, she spent the one night with Rue, she spent a night by the camp after blowing the supplies and then she spent two nights mourning Rue, the night of her death and the next night, which was also when the rule change announcement was made. So she located Peeta on the stream mid-morning or so of the 7th day.) He should have died of dehydration before then. Unless you postulate that he was not in the dire straights she found him in until a few days later. Cato's "sure cut" failed to kill the tribute from District 8 on the first night, and with added difficulty of attacking while under the influence of the Tracker Jacker's venom, he once again seems to have missed anything vital. It states the wound goes down to the bone, but unless you hit an artery, that's survivable. It's the infection and how weak he is that is killing him when Katniss finds him, not the wound itself. So if he held out a few days, and he would have had to simply because as you state he would not have been lucid enough to manage it for at least a day and a half after the Tracker Jackers during which time the Careers wouldn't have been able to track him either, but if he held out for a couple days beyond that before having to bury himself, he would be in okay shape water wise by the stream. Also, Katniss' flight under the effects of the venom seems to indicate that he could have covered the distance to the stream, wounded as he was on some kind of adrenaline high, and he too was running for his life, so it wouldn't have been as hard to make it to cover the distance to the stream as it might have been, had he simply been wounded, without the venom, and without the fleeing for his life.

I don't think it would have taken that long to gather camouflage supplies by the river either, he used the mud and vegetation that was already there to do the trick. No mixing, no real "gathering". Plus if as we've presumed above, if he made it a few days before having to hunker down and accept dying in the mud, he would have had time to gather anything he would have needed to. Still, I doubt he would have needed to spend that much time gathering things even if he had to do so immediately. Once again I'm wondering if it was implied he spent time gathering supplies in the movie? Because I don't see that mentioned in the book, in fact it doesn't seem to mention anything at all about Peeta from the time of the Tracker Jackers, to when Katniss finds him, she tells about herself, and he talks about when he first started having a crush on her, but she never asks what went on between the attack and fight with Cato and her finding him on the stream bank. So we really can't know how long he was up before he had to bury himself and hide.

And while he supposedly allied with the Careers only for the purpose of steering them away from Katniss, and protecting her, he consistently led them straight to her campsites.

Again, are you inferring that he led them to her from the movie? Or just because he happened to be with them and they ran across her a couple times? Both times we see them run across her in the book are perfectly natural, Not because Peeta, or even the Career's, were specifically tracking her, though from the sound of it, they were, and Peeta would have just been along to protect her should the need arise.

The first night they followed the beacon of the campfire the girl tribute from District 8 lit to keep warm. (the one Cato failed to kill with his "sure cut") Neither the Careers nor Peeta even knew Katniss was near by. The second and last time they find her while Peeta is with them was the fourth night out, and was because that day's fire, the one sent by the Gamemakers, had driven them all together, and Katniss, fleeing for her life as she was and with her injuries, wasn't as careful about not leaving a trail as she would have been otherwise. Then she also proceeded to sit out in the open by the pond for quite a while.

The only possible explanation for the river incident is that he painted himself, cut his hand to leave the prints beside the river, and then asked Cato to slash him- or slashed himself. Meaning that he was a Career all along, and had set up a trap to lure Katniss in so his posse could pounce on her while she tended Peeta's wounds.

As touched on above, we know Peeta was cut the day of the Tracker Jacker attack by Cato because he was helping Katniss escape. We also know that if he were a Career, he would have simply killed her himself when he found she had come back to the Tracker Jacker scene to retrieve the bow and arrows from Glimmer's body, instead he told her to run. Then as we hear during the victor's wrap up in the Capital, he actually fought Cato to ensure her escape.

That it was a trap to lure Katniss in would not have been a good strategy for Peeta or the Careers to consider either, since they would have no guarantee she would come find him until after the rule change on the sixth night after the attack. And by that time Peeta was too weak, and his leg far to infected to have put the strategy together and enacted it the night before. Plus we already know when and why the wound was inflicted, and that Peeta was misleading the Careers and actually fighting Cato off to help Katniss.

I agree with you, with the time line given, he probably should have died of dehydration before she found him, or from infection. But I don't think the plot-hole is nearly as big as you followed your "what-ifs" into. :)

I'm not much of a Hunger Games person myself, but I know enough to know what you're talking about.

Also, you were nibbling on some shrip? What's that? Can I have some?

-Aila

Are you talking about the book or the movie? I have a few things to point out, but it all depends on which version we are talking about.

-Phobos

Well, the whole setup of Peeta's camouflage seems a little ridiculous, as Everything Wrong With The Hunger Games in X Minutes put it, district 12, an area so poor they eat squirrels, has a bakery with frosted cakes? And, in hindsight, I guess that wandering around for a few hours looking for the right kind of colours, while stabbed/cut open/both, is just beyond the realm of Willing Suspension of Disbelief.

I thought that I'd at least get one yes by now, given the responses to my last post!

Outhra?
hermioneofvulcan?
Bueller?
Bueller?

...I lack even rudimentary knowledge of the fandom, so I'm not up for the task. :( If you ever need a Beta for a different 'verse, I'd be more than glad to help out.

Good luck!

-- Len

Both of those links lead to the same place, New Lodgings. Meaning you're missing the link for Kinky.

Enclosed in one post!

Sample: New Lodgings

Agent name: Valon Vance
Department: Department of Mary Sues, Freelance division
Weapons of choice: Guns, hammers, improvised weapons
General demeanor: Cheerful, jumpy, mellow
Appearance: Scruffy beard, thin mustache, short and greasy brown hair, tall and thin, blue-green eyes, crowded teeth
Good points: Generally cheerful, wide array of knowledge, humorous, slow to anger
Bad points: Easily startled, talks too much, has little in the way of common sense, lacks spatial awareness, colorblind

Agent Name: Jean Chandler
Department of Mary Sues, Freelance division
Weapon of choice: Saber, small arms
General demeanor: Hotheaded, serious, determined
Appearance: Well-groomed brown hair, green eyes, lean build
Good points: Good with a saber, inquisitive, dedicated
Bad points: Irritable, ignorant of a number of continua

First intended target: Sukai Toppa Gurren Lagann

I hate not being able to edit.

Anyway, intended fic for first solo-writing mission: Sukai Toppa Gurren Lagann

Agent name: Valon Vance
Department: Department of Mary Sues, Freelance division
Weapons of choice: Guns, hammers, improvised weapons
General demeanor: Cheerful, jumpy, mellow
Appearance: Scruffy beard, thin mustache, short and greasy brown hair, tall and thin, blue-green eyes, crowded teeth
Good points: Generally cheerful, wide array of knowledge, humorous, slow to anger
Bad points: Easily startled, talks too much, has little in the way of common sense, lacks spatial awareness, colorblind

You see, unlike round characters, who experience a wide range of emotions, Mary Sues are driven by one or both of the following: lust, i.e. OMG SO HOTT!!1!, or irrational anger, i.e. when they flip out for negligible reasons, potentially leading to vaporizing someone with speshul powers or over-complicated revenge plans that work as intended despite all logic to the contrary.

Removing lust, therefore, would remove one of the core tenets of a Suvian's psychological being. The effects of this are debatable, but I'd imagine chief among them would be a drastic decrease in sanity. Considering that Suvians are none too stable to begin with, and often possess off-the-charts levels of power, an insane one could create massive problems.

They might even quickly default to the one remaining core emotion, anger, and go on a cliché-borne psychopathic rampage. Doing so would make no sense from a psychological standpoint, but bad psychology is what makes a Sue a Sue, and so it would be perfectly plausible for them.

At least, that's my theory. Someone else might have a better one.

I did skim/skip a bit of it, so it's possible I missed something the author rewrote. Minor warning, also, for the bloodied corpse at the beginning that is not described in full detail.

This isn't solely addressed to you, Voyd, but rather to everyone: What is the deal with making characters OOC resistant/immune lately?

I'm confused, and slightly worried, because this isn't a thing that has ever been common or required at all, but now it seems like people are assuming this is something that Must Exist in every continuum—and worse, that it's Serious PPC Business instead of an odd little quirk of fanfic that's occasionally good for laughs. In just the last couple of months or so, I've seen questions like this regarding Bionicle, Star Trek, Doctor Who, and now this. To me, that constitutes a trend. So... where is this coming from all of a sudden, and why? O.o

~Neshomeh

• OOC resistance and immunity are not something that should just be assigned. They are, rather, things that are exhibited in fanfic. For instance, Gimli is often ignored by Sues, which means that he is often fairly in character (OOC resistance). In the case of immunity, that is often reserved for the in-universe Creator. I don't think Silent Hill counts in that sense. It didn't create the universe and, in fact, is likely being warped by any Sue present.
  
  - I am assuming sirens make a lot of noise, so they could work in place of a bell. Also, there is every reason to believe that the world would be helping to cleanse itself. Seems like it could use the sirens to aid you, though I think you are looking for a wraith in that case, not a Sue.
  
  - If a punishment is bad enough that you have to ask if the Flowers would disapprove, then you probably shouldn't be doing it. I cannot stress this enough.
  
  - Pyramid Head, being the most easily recognizable character in the series, is actually sometimes the target of Sues. I don't think that sending them to him is a good plan.
  
  - Why should they be aware of the PPC? That's what Neuralyzers are for, after all. No real reason the town should even be aware, once the canon snaps back to normal.
  
  - What ever is funnier.
  
  
  -Phobos

Welcome, welcome! It's always nice to have another newbie join in on the craziness!

A Star Trek fan, I see? I'm pretty partial to Voyager myself. As for your newbie gift:
*rummages through bag of holding*
Have a wilver-colored replica of your favorite Federation ship!

Welcome to the Board! Have some of my world-famous hydrophobic water to commemorate the event. Don't use on End portals!

Star Trek! My favorite series is TNG, what's yours? I also quite like Voyager and DS9 (so far - I'm partway through the second season).

Also, Sherlock and Percy Jackson are good. Have you read the Heroes of Olympus? If so, which do you like better?

Let's see if I can't combine those three fandoms into a gift of awesome...A deerstalked with a Starfleet insignia on it made of celestial bronze. Quite the fashionable nerd you will be.

Greeting, new friend! Have a KittyKatty bar! (Break me off a piece?)

Greetings, newbie! This is an automated message from your Friendly Neighbourhood Symbiotic Fungus.
It is required that you will read the Constitution of this Board. The Original Series is also a recommended read.
[-This section has been removed due to subject's familiarity with the Wiki-]
Other words: hello there. Have the newbie gift I give everyone, that is a cup of tea. Just don't let the leaves eat you.

HAAAIIIIII!!!!!!

Here, take an Infinite Notebook, lined, complete with urple covers and wilver binding. Just... don't look at it straight on.

-Aila

WHAT A COINCIDENCE

I'm a particular fan of Percy Jackson (introduced through book club and I loved it). But don't worry about boring us at all. We're all kind of nutty :)

Here's some bleepolate ice cream as a welcome-to-the-board present!

Time to fix that. Hiiiiiiiiiiii~ :)
I'm new meself, but I suppose that's no real reason not to get into the spirit of handing out dangerous gifts to the newbs, which is apparently customary here.
So, here ya go- a free MSN-04II Nightingale, just for you! :D *give*

(I'd ideally send over something more related to the fandoms you mentioned, but I'm currently obsessing over giant mecha, and I don't remember if any of the continua you mentioned actually have any. :P *begs forgiveness*)

This entire playlist:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbVqFwThQGQ7hfKNKITVFD-G9UGwSGQtL

Fate/Zero OST maaaaaagic :D

Plugging to my video game library's finest via YouTube:

Mass Effect 2's "Suicide Mission" theme, performed by the London Philharmonic.

Mass Effect 3's "Leaving Earth." Game OST.

The Legend of Zelda's "Gerudo Valley," performed by an orchestra for 25 years of Zelda.

The Legend of Zelda's "Song of Storms." Game OST. MAKE IT RAIN

Portal 2's "The Part Where he Kills You." Game OST.

Team Fortress 2's "Meet the Medic." Game OST.

Half-Life's "Nuclear Mission Jam." Game OST.

Half-Life 2's "CP Violation." Game OST.

StarCraft's "Terran 1." Game OST.

/obnoxious dump

One of the best Ace Combat OSTs ever.

I just so happen to like trance.

Yes, I called it a quest. Anything that people do continuously for extended periods of time can be considered a quest, even if it doesn't necessarily involve a specific goal, per se. Three weeks is enough time for it to be a quest.

In fact, here, take some mithril armor in case you find any Questing Beasts. I'm pretty sure they're native to mythical France and not modern-day Israel, but you never know. The liveliest of quests can be unpredictable.

By the way, what's going to happen with the mission we were working on now? Edgar and Agen____t will need someone to be writing lines for them, and it's been late enough already due to shenanigans that were largely my fault. Then again, there was already a lot of one person's character being written by one of the other two contributors, so I suppose you could just come back every once in a while to make sure that your two are in-character.

Except that I am also doing a three week program and will have limited Internet access. Funny coincidence. You won't happen to be in Boston, will you?

...never mind. Also, I think I warned you not to feed those tribbles. I'll take one of those back, since you are clearly incompetent. :)

Hi! Have a good trip, wherever you're going!

Fare thee well!

-Aila

I DID once rewrite the lyrics of 'Glad You Came' to fit season five of Star Wars: The Clone Wars....

Rewriting the lyrics of "Soulja Boy" to fit Pokémon?

http://doctorlit.deviantart.com/art/Traina-Boy-Crank-Dat-95952352

The following contains excessive swearing fitting the original song's source material. Turn away now if you are offended by the metal.

My Madoka knowledge is a bit rusty, but nothing says I can't rewatch the series... Mail is sur DOT nhm AT gmail DOT com.

The links aren't working for some reason. :/

Why would the Marquis de Sod assume that anyone from outside continua with magical creatures and super-technology is automatically from World One? What about CSI or thriller movies or other such continua that are variants on the World One model, but have characters and events that are unconnected with "real world" events outside of a few tangential links and allegories?

Why is the Marquis de Sod surprised at the idea of Jean having no Lust Objects? He's been Head of Personnel since the early 70s; he'll have seen every facet of the human psyche by this point, and would be aware by the modern day that some people are just asexual. If there's one being who's not going to think of your sexual orientation as more than just a check-box on a few pieces of paperwork, it's the one who reproduces by pollination.

How did Jean get to de Sod's office in the first place? She seems to scoff at the idea of a canon patrol, so she wasn't a fic recruit, she doesn't seem to believe in alternate worlds and dimensional travel at first, so she probably wasn't deposited by plothole, and she's evidently from a continuum without any sorts of means for magical or sufficiently advanced transit that can go haywire, so she wasn't catapulted into HQ's null space by a glitch or the like.
Yet, she knows that the people around her in the halls are called agents, and she knew where de Sod's office was, so she's evidently met someone and that someone has shown her how to navigate HQ. Not everything seems to be clear, is what I'm trying to say here.

Why does de Sod immediately assign her to the DMS? Normally, immediate assignment as an Assassin or even a Disentangler come from intimate knowledge of a canon, tendency for personal attachment to canons, or a proclivity toward violence. From her interview, it seems to me that de Sod would have assigned her to an internship or to training to allow her to get a feel for the organization before giving her a permanent post. The only factor that would speak in her favor as an Assassin would be her experience in multiple weapons. It just seems like a decision that de Sod wouldn't make normally.

Jean seems... unstable. She asks a question of her interviewer in a confrontational manner and then immediately says "NOW it's going to give me some answers!" before de Sod says anything, her first reaction to "I might be hallucinating" is stabbing herself with a pencil, and she shifts between emotions randomly, chiefly reactive shock and befuddled confusion, which do not typically switch back and forth more than once. This, again, raises the question of why de Sod assigned her to the DMS. Assassins snap with regularity in the PPC, and she probably shouldn't be put in a high-risk Department when she's showing unstable tendencies without at least a few analyses from the Psychs.

I vaguely recognize your name, I think! (Sorry - I am pretty sure, but a terrible memory with names.) I've been meaning to reply to this with a welcome-back for a few days, but it took a dire situation, such as having an assignment to procrastinate, to push the issue far enough. So: welcome back!

The other procrastination means I had thought was starting a good old-fashioned water fight, such as we used to have in the dead heat of summer. But if you recall them, perhaps you'd like to do the honors! ^^

Help yourself to anything from the welcome-back pastry table!

I remember you! We went to a tiny Gathering in Chicago with Tungsten Monk, and your parents were really awesome to us. {= D

Your agent was Rowan Windfall, right? Did you do stuff with her besides the co-write with Tungsten, and if so, does that stuff still exist somewhere? I'd love to get it on the wiki if it's okay with you—all we currently have on her is the co-write. She doesn't even have a page, just a link from the Glossary of PPC Characters.

... What I am up to now is, in large part, being pseudo-librarian-and-historian on the wiki, by the way. ^_^; Still writing missions, too, just very sporadically.

What have you been up to?

~Neshomeh

I recognise your name indeed, although if pressed I would have thought you were around more recently than a decade ago...

I'm not long back from a bout of lurking myself, so I can't say much about what's been happening, but hope you'll be sticking around in any case.

Elcalion

Wonderful to get a visitor from History! Hope to see you around a bit!

Darnit, now I feel like a dinosaur! *wanders off mumbling*

Welcome back! I've only been here five years myself, so we won't have met before, but by [deity of choice] it's always good to see an old oldbie. :D

Er, not that I used to write missions, but I did read a lot of them, and it was pretty amazing to find that the PPC was still around and going strong. Welcome back! Who were your agents (and what department were they in)? I don't remember your screen name, but the agents may jog my memory...and also, I'm just plain curious.

*throws Swiss Bleepolate in the air* Catch!

~DawnFire, who has internet for approximately another hour, thanks to Israel's train system.

We're still here and kicking!

Welcome back! Yep, we're still here, still bonkers, still writing missions (occasionally) and talking rubbish (constantly). The latter is arguably a more important skill in the community - please don't feel you need to take up writing missions again to be allowed to stay around!

It's always good to see old faces showing up. I hope you enjoy hanging out here again.

hS

I dunno what the issue with the link is, but the network is now irc.sorcery.net rather than the old one; the room is still #PPC .