Hear ye, hear ye!
Let it be known that on this day, the eleventh of December in the year of our Lord two thousand and thirteen, that son_of_heaven176, Esquire, is celebrating his twenty-sixth birthday! All are invited to join in the celebration!
So, today is my twenty-sixth birthday, and I'm looking forward to enjoying it!
A birthday always needs candles. Here, have 26 candles made from generic wax. And of course, Bleepolate! * showers sonofheaven with little Bleepolate sweets* May you live as long as Bilbo Baggins did! (Without the possession of the Ring, of course...)
~Autumn
Pour vous, cher monsieur, des clowns qui chantent. Un sketch par l'humoriste François Pérusse.
Joyeux anniversaire!
Un pharmachien!
Also, happy birthday to SOH.
That was almost as bad as the horrible German pun (Warum heisst Kanada Kanada? Weil es gibt keine da!) I learnt way back when.
hS
Unfortunately, I'm starting to run out of variations on Happy Birthday to send to people, but hopefully this picture of a cake will suffice:
That's...quite a...big cake. I think we'll need more candles...
...I didn't realize the cake was going be that huge. Therefore, I don't have enough plates...
(passes them out to everyone)
And with Sevenswans's additional candles, it looks as though we'll be able to make Herr Wozzeck's enormous cake work, at least for everyone who hasn't gotten a slice from the one that 99Hedgehog brought earlier.
That said, happy birthday, sonofheaven176! Many more, happy returns, and several other birthday well-wishes to you!
I'm out of cake, but I think I have enough candles. :D
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear sonofheaven176
Happy Birthday to you.
And what a coincidence, I just updated my Sherlock fic in time for your birthday, isn't that wonderful?
*tosses Generic Gift*
*steals cake*
-Aila
Your stolen cake is now forfeit!
>>
<>...Mine now!
*replevies cake*
It's mine!
Perfect, a Generic Cake to go with Sevenswans's candles!
*walks away with cake*
Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me...
I've got sixteen packs of nms & nms. Want to trade?
It's my birthday, you should be giving me the candy! However...
*cuts a slice*
Here; you can have a slice of the cake.
Speaking of which...
*cuts up cake*
Cake for everybody!
Any plans for your birthday? Such as places to go, fics to write, food to enjoy, movies to watch, etc?
I am working on a https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9697398/1/The-Vexos-Chronicles-Part-I-Lost-Luster">Pokemon/Bakugan crossover, and I am planning on releasing the next chapter today. Hopefully it gets done!
Speaking of which, I'd like to let everyone know that I'd greatly appreciate more reviews! So far, my story's review count is languishing at a measly 3!
Have an undefined cake.
The Emperor Protects!
Just wow. What an awful fic. I think it might require DOGA attention. With the generic forest and "rivendale" at the start of the fic. And Legolas appearing before the Council of Elrond. Ugh. This fic just bugged me out. And what does she mean by half-dead? And half-way to "dark elf"? Half of her body is in Mandos' Halls? The other half is Avari? *sniggers*
~Autumn
Is that supposed to be a poem or something? Rogue is an overused title, and the grammar is horrible.
Have fun, dear Ninety-Nineth Hedgehog.
I noticed that you claim a lot of badfics. There's nothing bad in claiming a lot of fics, but remember that writing mission takes some time.
If you claim too many, you might end up not being able to spork them all.
just saying, try not to create a page for badfic if one's still within most people's checking range.
Hi,
I just wanted to introduce myself; I'm new here. My friends call me Rexy, and you can all feel free to call me by that name as well.
I look forward to having a great time here and meeting some cool people!
-R
Wow! Thanks for making me feel so welcome already, and the gifts are fantastic!!!
I'm in a LOT of fandoms... Main ones being Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Sherlock, Starkid, and Homestuck. I'm sure there are a few I'm missing in there.
Nice to meet you all!!!
-Rexy
Hello, there! I see that you've been asked twice about your favorite fandoms. Please answer; it's one of those things that everyone wants to know.
BTW, it's usually a good thing to check the Board every day; things sometimes change that fast.
as for your newbie gift, here: Have a snowglobe with a replica of your favorite fictional city!
What are your favorite fandoms? Why do you wish to join the PPC? How do you plan to survive the insanity that IS the PPC?
Also, have a fluffy velociraptor. His name is Floyd, and he likes to eat pig knuckle sandwiches.
Keep good care of him.
Hi, have some fudge!
I'm packing now, so have two oranges, some fudge, half a pack of notecards, twenty yards of wire, and a bandanna. Welcome a-board!
Nice to meet another new face!
Have a free hug and my eternal friendship.
Hello, Rexy. Have a bar of Bleepolate and a neuralyser (in case of really badfics). Tell us more about yourself. What are your fandoms? What brought you here? There is no need to be shy (or sane). ;)
It is very important that you check out the links provided on the top of this page, especially the PPC Constitution, the FAQ: For Newbies, and On Permission to Write PPC Stories.
Other links include: the FAQ: The Board, the Guide to the PPC and the Mission Writing Guide.
Enjoy the PPC!
~Autumn
I am 99Hedgehog but just call me 99. Anyway, have a set of Recon Armour!
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Recon_Armour#.UqqvePQW3kc
The Emperor Protects!
Hello and greetings!
Here, have a lined Infinite Notebook, complete with urple covers and wilver binding.
-Aila
We met briefly on the IRC, but I thought I'd just say welcome here too. Anyway, take your shoes off, leave your sanity at the door, and come on in!
As a welcome gift, I'll even gift you with the music of one David Del Tredici: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PerhPGn_w2Q
So there's this guy who apparently has a PhD, though in what he (I'm assuming 'Roahn' is a male name here), though in what he doesn't say; he has an office in the Physics Astronomy Building. Anyway, he has written a page entitled 'The Brave New World of Unambiguous Movie Criticism', in which he proposes to... well, I'll quote:
If you are tired of droll and vague complaints about contemporary films, you have come to the right place. It is the goal of these pages to identify specific script flaws and avoidable story errors with the hope of generating a useful tool for writers. No longer will a critic be allowed to say "It just didn't work for me," or "I've seen that idea before." It is our purpose to force rigor in the sensibilities of movie critics by giving them a solid evidence based structure upon which to lean.
A bit high-handed, but fair enough. What gets me is his page entitled 'Why the Lord of the Rings is a Bad Story'. It's the only story he dedicates an entire page to, introducing it with 'If the reader has familiarized themselves with the various plot problems I have mentioned in other sections of this website then he or she is now prepared to understand why the Lord of the Rings (LotR) is not a good story' - which makes me wonder whether the entire website exists solely to justify this particular essay.
But okay, sure. People are allowed to say they don't like LotR, or even that they think it's objectively bad. But... his reasons are, put simply, wrong.
It has three forbidden motifs, one LSOC, four separate unexplained prophecies one major internal inconsistency and one minor internal inconsistency.
(And my red pen is twitching at the missing punctuation, believe me)
According to Roahn, there are ten problems which demonstrate that 'LotR is a Bad Story'. According to me, he's wrong about... pretty much all of them.
-Forbidden motif: 'Frodo's adventure to Mt. Doom is the archetypical example of sneaking behind enemy lines and dealing a serious blow'. He allows for the fact that the notion (first on his list of forbidden plots) wasn't cliche at the time it was written by, er, saying 'don't care'. And, ultimately, yes, that is the plot of the book. But... Frodo didn't get into Mordor because of plot, he made it in because everyone else was working to distract Sauron so he could. That's explicit in the books, and even more so in the films ("... a diversion!"). Yes, ' a little detail that escapes Sauron's eye leads to his downfall even as he is on the verge of conquering Middle Earth' - but that isn't 'simply an irony', it's what all the Good Guys were working desperately to achieve.
-Forbidden motif: 'Aragron's compulsion to succeed where his direct male ancestor, Isildur, failed.' This doesn't actually appear to be on his list of Forbidden Plots, but that's okay - it's also not in the books. The movies made a fair amount of fuss over 'Aragorn can't get married until he takes Gondor', but that... really doesn't work the same in the books. He talks about 'until he has a chance to bring the royal family of Gondor redemption' - not only was Isildur not Gondorian royalty (again, not really discussed in the film), but Aragorn didn't express any desire to redeem him or make up for his mistake. Aragorn's goal was to preserve both the North and South Kingdoms against Sauron, and to restore order to what was becoming an orderless land.
-Forbidden motif: 'Gandalf, and indeed all Middle Earth, is betrayed by his boss, Saruman. Who would have thought that the man Gandalf respects and trusts the most is the very one that would betray him and take him prisoner, almost ending the whole story right there? Oh,... *I* would have guessed, that's who.' Er... would you really? Because Saruman's name is mentioned, um, once prior to Gandalf telling us the story of how he betrayed him. This is not a massive plot twist - it's part of the background. You could maybe make a case for Denethor's actions being a form of this motif - except I'd argue vehemently against that, too.
Next up is an 'LSOC', or Literary Second Order Confluence, which Roahn defines as two plot-driving coincidences which happen with no connection to each other. Essentially, he's thinking of times where we already have a reason to follow the main character (he gives the example of Bruce Willis in The Fifth Element being a super-trained soldier type), and then a second coincidence stacks on top of it (Bruce has already met the person he's supposed to protect).
-LSOC: 'How is it that a group of incompetent dwarves and one bumbling Hobbit could possibly succeed in traveling across middle earth and winning back the treasure stolen by a ferocious dragon? Answer: they can't unless the Hobbit happens to find a powerful magic trinket along the way and that Hobbit exploits its power of invisibility in the most obvious ways to save the hapless troupe from certain doom time after time.' This... is a very big assumption. The ways Bilbo uses the Ring to save the dwarves are: to fight off spiders, and in the escape from the Elvenking's Halls. Now, admittedly, we're not shown any other ways these problems could have been dealt with - because Bilbo had the Ring, and used it. But could he have distracted the spiders without it? Sure (though he might have been captured on the way). Could they have escaped Thranduil without it? One way or another, yes - probably when Thorin or one of the others finally succumbed and admitted why they were there. What would Thranduil have done then? I'm guessing sent them on (he wanted the treasure, remember) with Elven guards.
But the big thing, the killing of Smaug - that didn't require the Ring at all. It was all down to a thrush, a raven, and a bowman.
Furthermore, his description of the 'problem' is flawed. He listes the two coincidences as: '1) Bilbo knows Gandalf personally and Gandlaf is eccentric enough to send Bilbo on a hopeless mission and 2) instead of immediately dying on this hopeless mission the moment that Gandalf leaves the party, Bilbo is positioned to pick up the Ring which seems to be looking for a way out of the Misty Mountains.'
Well... no, Bilbo didn't know Gandalf 'personally' (or even the mini Gandlaf). He knew his name, sure - but not his face. And Bilbo himself was not significant - any hobbit could have filled the spot. The first 'coincidence' boils down to 'Gandalf sends a light-footed creature to do some sneaking'. Plot-driving, yes - but not exactly 'eccentric'.
But what about the Ring? If we re-render the coincidences as 'Bilbo doesn't die' and 'Bilbo gets the Ring', we still have a potential problem. Only... well, Roahn rather shoots himself in the foot here:
Now it is true that Gandalf believes that there is "something" special about Hobbits, but he never indicates why he believes this or what that special thing is. Can it be that the special thing is that they are DESTINED to find the Ring of Power and that they are DESTINED to successfully led it to Mt. Doom and destroy it? ... However if that speculation were true that would destroy the independence of Bilbo's quest as assigned by Gandalf and the discovery of the Ring of Power.
Have you got that? If there was an actual Power behind Bilbo's discovery of the Ring, then that would 'destroy the independence' of the two coincidences - ie, stop them being an LSOC.
Um... there is. Actually, there are several options. The most prominent is Iluvatar Himself, and that's what Gandalf seems to be hinting at (without presuming to declare it outright), but it could also be the work of one or more of the Valar - Manwe, Varda (Elbereth), or Ulmo are the most obvious candidates. The statement that 'the movie version of Fellowship of the Ring unambiguously claims that it is pure co-incidence that Bilbo found the Ring' may be true - but I'm sure I recall Sir Ian giving the 'Bilbo was MEANT to find the Ring' speech to Frodo, which I think negates that point too.
'Even if we accept prophetic power without reliable textual evidence we are still left with a story that requires substantial metaphysical groundwork, and this groundwork is never laid.' This is an interesting point. Apart from the fact that it's wrong (the metaphysical groundwork - Iluvatar and the Valar - is very much laid), it also exposes a bizarre oversight on Roahn's part. He insists on thinking that the only way Gandalf could have picked Bilbo (or any hobbit) without it being 'coincidence' is for Gandalf to know of an explicit prophecy. Which... no. Gandalf is a messenger of the Valar, and can be guided by them without knowing why - or even being aware he's doing so. There's an account in an unused chapter of LotR where he pretty much says 'and then the idea of sending a hobbit came to me out of the blue'. He doesn't know of a prophecy - but the Powers use him nontheless.
Next up, Roahn has a thing against prophecies:
-Prophecy: Boromir and Faramir's dream. This actually isn't a prophecy at all - it gives instructions ('Seek for the sword that was broken/In Imladris it dwells'), and then mostly describes events that are already in motion ('There shall be shown a token/That doom is near at hand/For Isildur's Bane is woken/And the Halfling forth shall stand'). The only 'prophecy' is that Frodo (or one of his three companions, who had all decided to accompany him at this point) will actually make it to Rivendell - and that the revealing of the One Ring will bring doom to someone. Yes, it's a vision from a higher Power (probably Lorien, Lord of Dreams) - but it's an instruction, not a revelation of everything that will ever happen.
-Prophecy: 'the visions that Frodo sees in Galladrial's mirror', and I'll add Sam's visions too, since they're mostly his in the books. Yes, these are prophecies - but again, not only is there a Power almost explicitly at work (or even Galadriel's own foresight - there's a Quenya word for it, even!), but they are specifically 'things that may yet come to pass'. Trees falling in the Shire, and Frodo sleeping/dead/drugged in Mordor - they could each have multiple interpretations, and indeed, could have had, if things had gone differently.
-Prophecy: 'The fourth is the fact that "the hands of the King are the hands of a healer"' Ahahahaha. That's not a prophecy, that's a statement about the old Kings of Gondor and Arnor. The fact that it also applies to Aragorn extends it into the realm of evidence of his kingship - but not prophecy.
-Prophecy: 'Lastly there is an implied prophecy regarding the army of dead soldiers that Aragron calls to arms in the defense of Gondor. They were essentially waiting there for his timely return.' I think this may actually be true of the films - but not the books. In the books, the Dead Men of Dunharrow were cursed by Isildur to linger until one of his descendents - any descendent - called for them. Aragorn used that, but it wasn't a prophecy that he would.
There are actually more prophecies in the books - that the Witch-King would not fall by 'the hand of man', that Arvedui would be the last king of Arthedain, the Prophecy of Mandos ('Tears unnumbered ye shall shed...'), etc etc - but they all fall into either the 'vague reference to events that would be correct either way', or 'stating the facts which are already known'.
'Remember: prophecy itself is not the problem. The problem is the missing metaphysical background. As it is LotR is a story that could NOT have turned out any other way. Failure was impossible because if they failed, who would taken the dead army out of bondage, who would have demonstrated the healing hands?'
No-one and no-one - but those weren't prophecies. And they both happened before Sauron fell, anyway.
Now Roahn identifies his 'major inconsistency', about which he claims 'This just shows how Tolkien confused himself, his editor wasn't paying attention and the error slipped by. Hype has kept the error hidden from view for years'. Are you ready for a good laugh?
-'He explains early on in the Fellowship of the Rings that Sauron assumed that the Ring was destroyed. However we eventually learn that the destruction of the Ring is essentially the destruction of Sauron himself. Honestly we were surprised by this. When reading the Return of the King we did NOT expect Sauron to evaporate when the Ring was unmade. '
Did you spot it? Did you spot the massive glaring error in Roahn's argument? Oh, there it is - no-one ever assumed the Ring was destroyed. The Wise, and (according to Saruman) Sauron, assumed it had been washed out into the Great Sea and lost. That's the scenario which would lead to Sauron being weaker. It's pretty clear, even in the Council of Elrond, that the only way to end the threat of Sauron forever was to destroy the Ring.
-There's also a final 'minor inconsistency': 'Sauron instantly knew where Frodo was and what Frodo was up to when he "claimed" the Ring as his own during those final moments in Mt. Doom. However just wearing the Ring wasn't good enough although there is some indication that simply wearing the Ring alerts Sauron and his agents in some way. However Gollum certainly claimed the Ring as his own while in the Misty Mountains and wore it frequently. Why didn't Sauron know about it then?'
The mechanics of Frodo's claim are fairly ill-defined, but Gollum almost certainly did so when he first took it from Deagol's dead hands. So why didn't Sauron know then? Simple - because his power had been dissipated by his defeat at Elendil and company's hands. All through Gollum's long possession of the Ring, Sauron was recovering, building up his power in Dol Guldur. Furthermore, there is no hint in the books (never mind the whole 'the Eye appearing in Bree' scene from the film) that Sauron could detect use of the Ring at great distances. The Nazgul could, almost certainly. But the only time Sauron senses Frodo before the final scene is when Frodo uses the Ring on Amon Hen - a magically-enchanted Hill of Seeing. Just like with the Palantir, Frodo had to open the way with powerful magic (and actually, it may have been through the Ithil Stone that Sauron responded). Remember, Sam wandered around with the Ring on on the very borders of Mordor with no-one sensing it.
But the claiming? Actually, I don't even know if 'claiming' was significant. The key component is that Frodo donned the Ring at the heart of Sauron's realm. The Dark Lord had his mind spread out over the entire country of Mordor - that's why he sensed the Ring being used, and why he sensed Frodo's outrageous challenge. Could he have sensed Gollum's 'claiming', by the banks of Anduin? There's no reason to think he could.
Am I saying LotR is perfect? No, of course not - for one thing, the status and nature of the Eagles is highly inconsistant (are they acting on orders from Manwe and thus unable to interfere, or are they basically giant birds like they're usually present), and I'm sure there are other things you could mention. But does Roahn's argument demonstrate 'Why the Lord of the Rings is a Bad Story'? No. No it does not.
Not that it looks like it was intended as humour, but I found it funny nonetheless.
Wow, that guy (I'm making the same assumption as you) sure has a lot of opinions, and I don't think I agree with any of them.
I'd be kind of interested in seeing him put his money where his mouth is and actually write something according to all of his principles, just to see what it's like. I think I'd have a much easier time taking the site seriously if it wasn't for the SPaG errors on each page.
A dissection I mean, not an anti-fandom essay. I've never bothered with those; the closest I got to that, was a rant on Facebook about how proper vampires should never, ever sparkle, shine, glow, glitter, radiate, shimmer or do anything associated with Christmas decorations.
But I digress.
My dissection was posted here: http://eileen-alphabet.livejournal.com/16016.html#
And for those of you, who don't read Danish, I can say, that it was about an essay by an actual professor in filmscience from an actual university and brought in an actual serious Danish film magazine.
It was also complete and utter BS.
It was about Harry Potter and LOTR (movie versions only, since it was very clear that he had never read the books) and he made a bunch of claims that were either grossly exaggerated or simply made up on the spot.
For example he called J. K. Rowling obsessed with bloodlines, because Harry is "of the right blood" ignoring the fact that Harry's mother was muggleborn and that a great deal of the bad guys in the story are purebloods, who are themselves obsessed with their bloodlines.
He also claimed that the Elves and the Hobbits were in a feudal caste-society with the Elves on top and the Hobbits at the bottom, which doesn't make a lot of sense, since the two races have extremely little contact. Humans and Dwarves were not mentioned in his argument.
So this just goes to show, that your credentials can appear to be in order, but you can still be talking about a subject that you don't know the first thing about.
Ethos/Appeal to Authority: He backs up his claim by "having a PhD." First off, since this is the internet, it is impossible to prove whetehr or not he does have one, and his having one or not is actually totally irrelevant. A PhD in literature would not in and of itself qualify you to talk about physics, and the reverse is also true. He is apparently laboring under the misconception that people who analyze movies and publicized "movie critics," who are often paid to say something short, witty and publishable about a movie rather than do analysis, are the same thing.
Now, I notice that he doesn't outright claim any personal qualifications to judge movies: he says
"A single flaw is often enough to pan a movie, but there are always good points to be weighed against the bad. The flaws identified here are based on viewing hundreds of stories on screen and on television and were simply deduced by noticing patterns over many years of exposure."
a) This depends what the flaw is. For example, Jurassic Park makes some grave errors about DNA in it's canned explanation of how the dinosaurs were cloned - mainly, that anybody with a functioning brain and the training to reconstruct DNA would decide to mix and match species like a jigsaw puzzle - but given the millions of people who wanted to see dinosaurs on the big screen, and the overall quality of the writing, it doesn't necessarily matter that the "science" is a lie, we just assume it's true of the movie universe, since it was integral to the plot.
b)"hundreds of stories on screen and on televison" sounds like the average media consumption of someone in their early to mid twenties, and is hardly a qualification. People have been known to watch passively: none of this is distinguishing his opinion from anybody else.
c)"were simply deduced by noticing patterns over many years of exposure," translates into English as "I made up my rules based on what I liked out of the movies I watched and what I didn't like," which is a valid position, but not one deserving this degree of pretentious academia. As a relatively minor point, that's not actually a deduction: the only definition of deduction in the realm of logic is that the conclusion absolutely has to follow from the presented premises... and what this guy has to offer is opinions that sound like TV Tropes articles dressed up for a thesis dissertation.
*****
I could go on, but honestly, another person who wants to increase their net-views and therefore credibility by panning LOTR because they know that it's a highly popular franchise with a huge fandom and they can get attention that way probably isn't worth our time. Especially when they're pretentious enough to think that they're somehow the first to d it.
I find it weird that he talks about literary criticism at all if that's not the field he's specialized in. Granted, I could be wrong about that, and being a musician it might be slightly hypocritical to point that out, but I still feel that it's strange that he's commenting on a field he doesn't have any real expertise in.
And only "a bit high-handed"? Huinesoron, I think that's an understatement considering that the truly great film critics can often articulate why "it just didn't work for me" in so many words. Can they be full of shit? Armond White repeatedly shows that yes, they can. But they can articulate it, which sort of makes Roahn's statement pompous and a little arrogant, all things considered.
I actually do have a little question about one of your points, though. Specifically, this:
"You could maybe make a case for Denethor's actions being a form of this motif - except I'd argue vehemently against that, too."
Are you saying that because the movies botched Denethor up quite a bit? Or what else is going on there that would make you argue vehemently against that too? (Don't mind my asking: judging from this, it's fun watching you geek out about LotR.)
Denethor: In the movies, he was a fairly undiluted villain, down to 'mwahaha watch me stuff my face disgustingly while under siege' (and the fact that Stephen Fry has bragged about being able to do the same thing as the Master of Laketown doesn't exactly fill me with hope). But in the books? He was a good leader. He didn't betray the people of Gondor, or even the Fellowship - he just broke under the strain of one son dying, another coming close, and having Sauron twist everything he saw to look as bad as it possible could.
Yes, Denethor snapped at the end - but he stayed loyal to his people. He didn't even betray Pippin, who had put himself entirely in his power - just calmly released him from duty and walked off to commit suicide.
I like Denethor. No, not like - he's a hard man to like, cold and rather bitter. But I respect Denethor.
hS
PS: One of the things I really enjoy about LotR - and Middle-earth in general - is that you can pretty much name any character, and there will always be more to them than is obvious on first glance. That goes for villains - Sauron, for instance, with his chance at redemption - and minor characters - Imrahil of Dol Amroth, the man with a hint of elvish blood, Prince of what may well have been the largest city in Middle-earth at the time, who likely spent his time fighting off pirates - as well as the main cast. It's fun!
(And Maeglin had never met a woman who wasn't his mother until he saw Idril)
I'm giving things a few days before I give the movie the full treatment, but... yeah.
(Incidentally, I have to agree with Wozzeck's assessment. The guy is extremely arrogant, clearly has never seen a truly great film critic at work, and seems to think having a PhD alone makes him the grand arbiter of everything good. Plus he makes a lot of flawed assumptions and common mistakes made in criticism, but I'll get on that in another reply; I might just feel insulted because, y'know, I actually am a film critic and he basically just called me and a lot of people I admire overblown windbags who don't know what we're talking about. :P )
Wait a sec. You're a film critic? As in, a professional film critic? I see another "Ask the PPC" thread coming...
I do movie reviews for my school newspaper. It's paid work, so I consider it a professional thing, yes. I'm not sure how to go about continuing that career path once I'm done, though.
And there's not much more to say about that. Silly essay; good dissection.
I think the Eagles are probably both, BTW. Manwe uses them (or things shaped like them) as messengers, but when they're off-duty they're just folks and have their own problems to deal with.
~Neshomeh
(An excuse? Why, thank you - don't mind if I do!)
What I'm thinking of is that old 'Why didn't the Eagles take the Ring to Mordor?' question. And I think I've... sort of solved it.
There are five- no, six- no, seven things the eagles of the Misty Mountains do in The Hobbit/LotR. In order:
-Rescue Thorin's company from Wargs and take them to the Carrock.
-Kill things in the Battle of the Five Armies.
-Take news to Gandalf at Orthanc.
-Rescue Gandalf and carry him to Rohan.
-Carry Gandalf from Moria to Lorien (and possible on to Tol Brandir? I forget).
-Kill things outside the Black Gates.
-Fly to Orodruin to pick up Frodo and Sam.
That's two battles, four transport missions, and one message.
The message is probably the easiest to explain - there aren't a lot of talking birds around, so Radagast went to the ones who did.
The transportation actually reveals an interesting fact: they're all very short range. Five Fir Trees to Carrock can't be more than 30 miles; Orthanc to Edoras is just under 150 (and Gwaihir does it on sufferance). Moria to Lorien is maybe 50 miles, Lorien to Rauros about 250. Orodruin to the Black Gates is about 100 miles, again.
Rivendell to Mordor? At least 700 miles.
Furthermore, none of those constituted direct action against the Enemy. They certainly helped, but their one action in Mordor took place after the Ring was destroyed. So I think, here, they are constrained by Manwe in their actions - just as Gandalf is. He, too, avoids direct action against Sauron in the Quest, though he will quite happily shoot down Nazgul in the cause of Gondor.
The battles? I think those are the times when Manwe took off the leash. The Powers seem definitely to have decided that nonintervention is the wisest course - but that doesn't mean they won't sneak in at the last minute. ;)
I've actually just discovered a massive essay on the eagle question on the Encyclopedia of Arda; it's quite detailed (though dealing specifically with the 'fly to Mount Doom' scenario, not the whole question). It also includes this delightful snipped:
The Eagle strategy has its own set of disadvantages, but it's perhaps surprising that the Council didn't stop to discuss it at all before making its decision. Perhaps it would be truer to say that they're not recorded as having discussed it; in fact there's a remote hint that they may have considered the possibility. We know that scouts were sent to seek out Radagast at Rhosgobel, and though we're not told why, we do know that Radagast was friendly with the Eagles. Just possibly, this is a hint that - 'behind the scenes' - this strategy was actually considered, with the hope that Radagast would act as a contact to gain the Eagles' help. In the event, Radagast could not be found; if he had been at home, perhaps the story of the Ring-bearer's journey would have taken quite a different turn!
And you thought my 'Tom Bombadil's Palantir' theory was strange... I've got nothing on these guys. ;)
hS
Wasn't it made clear at some point they needed a stealthy way into Mordor so as not to draw Sauron's attention to who had the Ring? Not to mention the Nazgul on their fell beasts would've made that journey extremely perilous at best.
The trouble with That Question is that you'll never be able to satisfy 90% of the people asking it, because the rebuttal will always be "but it doesn't say that in the book/movie!" And they're right.
I like the answer they give in the game Lord of the Rings: War in the North, though, which basically runs "What, you think you can just use the Great Eagles of the North like pack mules? Think again!"
I figure, like the Elves of Mirkwood and Lothlorien, they had problems enough in their own territory without flying an easily-detected and possibly suicidal mission into the very jaws of Mordor.
~Neshomeh, who hates That Question.
... is the one given by the webcomic Oglaf. I won't spoil it here, you can go see for yourself. http://oglaf.com/ornithology/ (Warning: that particular comic is pretty safe, but a lot of the other comics are very NSFW.) Unless you happen to be a minor, in which case, you'll just have to wait.
Language, you see. NSFW language.
-Phobos
...that perhaps the Great Eagles are just as susceptible to the pull of the ring as everyone else? What happens if they say to an Eagle, "Please airlift this Hobbit to Mount Doom so he can toss the ring in." I'll tell you what I think happens. You get a dead Hobbit (who was, after all, bite-sized) and a giant invisible Eagle who is slowly going mad.
No, I think that is a really bad idea.
-Phobos, who loves That Question
Maybe I'm just too pleased by the idea of a giant invisible eagle that's gone crazy through the influence of an artifact of ancient evil, but concept-wise, it's definitely something I'd read.
Ohhhh, *wipes tear from eye* this made me laugh so hard. The essay itself made me burst into laughter (attracting some very weird looks from random passers-by). The commentary made me cry. Of laughter.
I don't know why--maybe because of the absence of my sanity--but anti-fandom essays tend to make me laugh. There was this essay by a guy who claimed to be Scottish professor, about how "LotR is racist", that I can across, and I took one look at it and giggled. And then I chuckled. And then I guffa--er, I think you get the idea.
Ah, I'm weird.
~Autumn
I mean, when you write a story, you usually plan, so probability is nonsense. What's important is that you can explain what's going on to some degree, and obey the in-universe rules. Except Tamil Movies. They just have extremely different laws of physics and love that Marty Stus and Mary Sues of fanfiction will find themselves struggling there.
Secondly, how is cliche a point for forbidding? Cliche is when you repeat the same plot or point a thousand times without changes in the story flow. The list shows mostly things and persons. Orcs can be civilised, in space, even cute and cuddly, as Gummi Bears show. Robots have loved/been loved, kill, build, conflict, and plain there. but then, even cliches can be entertaining.
Hello again, and merry Christmas!
I have torn you away from your dull, drab lives to endorse a Harry Potter Christmas fic.
Now, I must warn you that this is a bit of fun, and not meant to be taken seriously.
It's a parody of the 12 Days of Christmas, and is really short... so... yeah.
www.fanfiction.net/s/9919119/1/
Also, try TatraMegami's Rambling Through the Woods.
Now, shoo. Go back to whatever you were doing.
~Kitty
The End of the Beginning: A Rising Gale
This story is a sequel to this, and draws on aspects of this, while having been referenced in this (not to mention here on the Board, which post may form part of a future story if I can come up with some more to do with it).
As to the character who never gets names - I'll let you make your own guesses.
hS
Does this mean that we might be seeing more of Selene in the future? I hope so - I've just started reading her DOGA missions and really like her as a character.
You've got some very nice lines in here, I particularly liked the opening sentence: 'The vines had gone again - the clinging, probing, torturing, healing vines.', I'm not sure quite why, but the addition of 'healing' on the end there just seemed like a nice touch. And the Oriental Artificer's vote of confidence was just brilliant. The ending scene, with Selene realising that she has a way out of her nightmare, was very well done.
It's also cool that this is sort of a sequel to 'Ten Feet Tall' (well, it involves the Grafin Gelassenheit, which is close enough for me). That's still my favourite story from the Pistons set.
There was one thing I noticed, it looks like you might be missing a comma in the second-to-last line. Should there be one after 'face'? I'm assuming that the bit about 'looking past the mockers who had stolen her face' is supposed to be giving more detail about her lifting her head, in which case I believe it should have bracketing commas before and after.
Oh yeah, and most people are guessing Dafydd for the Mystery Man, so I'm gonna place a bet on the longshot and say that it's actually Agent Huinesoron (I believe they share a basic physical description, with the possible exception of minor details like number of functioning limbs).
She's back! Yes!
Oh, I always felt so sad when Selene went insane. Ah well, is she going to be paired with agent!hS now?
Hmm, I'm guessing the unnamed character is Dafydd. Being a "tall, black-haired man with the unusual ears" and "grey eyes" and all...there's a high possibility it's him. But of course, the descriptions could trick us into thinking that it's Dafydd, while all along it's another agent, one that's quite unexpected, leading to a plot twist...
Or maybe I'm thinking too complicated. Argh.
~Autumn
(Because it couldn't fit in the title: SPOILERS WILL FOLLOW. Also, the post title is a little confusing out of context, isn't it? I think so.)
For example, the TCDA has a native Dafydd named Constable Davillo. Considering that much of this story takes place in the TCDA's native universe, though, it's not likely that it was Davillo, since the alternate version of Selene used "your world" when talking to the unnamed dark-haired man, indicating that they weren't native to the same reality. This could also be interpreted as not being native to the same planet, but I don't want to add extra variables in here.
Still, though, this story made me ask "Why are you getting involved here, TCDA? You don't have anything to gain by breaking out a mental patient from another reality. What's your deal?", so it's a win on that front. Looking forward to the follow-up to see if that question gets answered.
Oh, and in response to your question, Autumn_68, I severely doubt it. Selene is, judging by her internal narration, still three breeds of crazy. Even though the TCDA gave her the way out of her cell, they didn't give her back her mind, and she needs that to restrain herself from burning down everything in sight. Heck, the last time she got out, she went on a murderous rampage, so I'm not inclined to think she's going to be very stable any time soon, unless that switch that D'Article threw messed with her psyche in addition to giving her that key. It'd be an impossibly efficient switch if that was the case.
(Since I'm not sure if you know it, and if you do, I'm not sure if people would get it from what you said)
The 'door' Selene's been obsessing over isn't a physical door. It's this one, from Broken Storm:
"Oh, it's simple," a fourth voice said, as another Selene look-alike stepped into her view. "You've gone mad. We're alternate versions of you."
[...]
The newcomer shrugged. "I go by Fung Ying, mostly," she said, "but that's not important. What's important is that now you're here, you need to open the door."
Selene blinked. "But the door doesn't open," she pointed out, and gestured at the first of the other vampires. "She said so."
Fung Ying shrugged. "If you can't, you stay here forever," she said bluntly. "I'd recommend trying."
The 'door' is a manifestation of Selene's insanity; the 'key' is a manifestation of (the beginning of) a way out. Like Serenity said, stepping through the door isn't the entire process - but it's the beginning of the reconstruction of Selene Windflower.
hS
Yeah, I hadn't gotten that. The description seemed to indicate that there was a physical key in Selene's hand, which I assumed would correspond to a physical door. Of course, it could have been a mental key that she only thinks is a physical key because of her insanity, or a physical key that she's using as a catalyst to open a mental door. Metaphors can be complicated sometimes.
But wait, if the door she mentioned was only a mental door, how did she break out of the in-patient ward? Even if the security is as bad in FicPsych as the Bonsai Mallorn implied, you'd think that they'd put special watch on a room housing a known murderer and crazy person who can summon lightning at will, or at least put plenty of surge-proof locks on its entrance. Did she gain the ability to phase through solid objects from one of her hypertime vampire counterparts? I know, some of the information I'm asking about could be spoilers, but with the explanation that the door and/or key wasn't real, the situation just doesn't make as much sense as it did. At least if she was given a way out of her cell by an alternate-reality Makes-Things, she would have been able to do what the FicPsych handlers wouldn't expect and just walk out the back way, which could be accomplished with a fair amount of luck and a knowledge of where said back way is.
... the story is in chronological order.
First phase: It wasn't her, but it didn't mock - it just watched.
It stopped watching. It was by her, lifting her, carrying her...
The door stayed. The room changed. The white walls were brass now, brass and rust and storm-torn skies...
That is Serenity entering Selene's cell and taking her away. The (mental) door stays, but the walls around it change to reflect the real environment - the deck of the airship Grafin Gelassenheit.
Second Phase: Serenity, Creator d'Article, and Dafydd the mystery man set up the Ultra-Chiastic Mental Assistance Apparatus, while Selene lies around being crazy. In her madness, she sees herself as surrounded by alternate hers, lying in a Steampunk-y room, with a locked door in one wall.
Third Phase: The UCMAA has been turned on, and Selene - still locked in her mental room - has been given a key to start the process of escaping from her madness.
hS
...the crazy-narration at the from the beginning from the actual events that were represented, and that changed the proverbial color of the rest of the story for me. I thought, based on the context, that the feeling of a presence, the motion, and the changing background were just symptoms of Selene's insanity-warped perception of the world, to serve as a basis for the parts in the next scene when alt-Selene and unidentified-observer-who-might-or-might-not-be-Dafydd discuss how insane she is. It makes sense the intended way now that you've explained it, though, with the details like Selene seeing brass and the ship described as having four occupants(I'd previously thought that person #4 was another unidentified observer, possibly a second member of the TCDA's Department of Applied Technical Creativity who was helping out with the key-making device, or another alternate-reality Selene, but the latter would have been even more unclear, come to think of it) supporting that. The bit about her hallucinating that the TCDA members surrounding her are alternate versions of herself, though, that's new to me. The closest I can find in the text to fit that is "the mockers who had stolen her face", which I thought was a reference to Broken Storm. Maybe I just didn't get it.
Countess Serenity of Transprussia knelt on the deck of the Grafin Gelassenheit, her burning eyes oddly gentle as she studied the woman huddled in front of her.
I thought it was fairly explicit that Selene was on the airship? Serenity takes her hand and wishes her good luck later.
And she didn't hallucinate anything about the Oriental Artificer and Dafydd - when Serenity showed up to get her out, she saw her as 'Beyond the faces... stood the past. It wasn't her, but it didn't mock - it just watched.' Because Serenity looks like Selene, you see. The only other faces she's registered are the crazy hallucinations.
hS
I'm so glad she's coming back! Not sure how, although I have to admit I don't really grock steampunk technology, even when I was writing TCDA stuff.
But I'm very happy, nonetheless! Are we going to see new Selene missions, now?
(Also, I'm calling the unnamed character as Dafydd.)
I saw it last night at the midnight premiere, and well...
Wow. Worth the ticket price.
Okay, so as we know, Tauriel is a bit... uh, let's say fickle. We have a scene of her mooning about over Legolas, followed nearly instantly by her falling for Kili. That's one of her personality traits. The other? A violent hatred of orcs, to the point where she'll disobey direct orders so she can kill some more.
Oh, wait, one more: she doesn't think locking the gates and letting the world go hang is a good idea.
Thranduil, now... is a raging xenophobe. He kind of was one in the book, but he's dialled it up to 27 here. He's actually nicer towards Thorin, but refuses to even consider fighting outside his borders - and is racist towards Silvan elves. Which is weird, what with his kingdom being made entirely of them.
So where'd that come from? Well, let's take a look at Thranduil's history:
-Born and/or lived a long time in Doriath. Doriath was populated almost exclusively by Sindarin elves. It was defended by a magical barrier which kept evil entirely out, but left the rest of Beleriand to get utterly wrecked. Sound familiar? Movie!Thranduil's strategy is Thingol and Melian's strategy.
-Driven out of Doriath by the combined violence of dwarves (who killed Thingol) and Noldor (who killed everyone else). Gosh, I wonder why he hates dwarves so much? The death of Thingol, by the way, is the origin of the elf-dwarf feud. And a very shiny rock was involved...
-Moved with his father to Mirkwood Greenwood, where they spent a couple of thousand years ruling a bunch of Silvan elves before they...
-Went to the War of the Last Alliance, where Thranduil's father was killed. That war, by the way, is the one that was caused by the Noldor and the Numenoreans feuding with a renegade Maia who the Valar failed to properly deal with. Literally everyone is to blame for Thranduil's father getting killed.
-So now he's stuck in a woodland realm which is slowly going to pot, in rather grotty halls (compared to the grandeur of Menegroth in Doriath - or of Erebor, for that matter; this is why he wants Thorin's gold and gems, to make his home into something he can think of as worth having. It may also be why he drinks so much ;)).
-He's also surrounded by his social inferiors. Now, Thingol was quite good at dealing with Silvan folk - some of them saved him in the First Battle of Beleriand, after all - but they were the ones who kept heading west, even if they took a while to do it. The elves of Mirkwood (and Lorien, for that matter) are the ones who gave up completely. Compared to the Sindar, they're layabouts. And the Sindar are the only elves in Middle-earth who never compromised. The Noldor got kill-happy in Aman. The Silvan elves, and the Avari if any of them ever show up, wussed out of the Great March. The Sindar? They're the ones who stayed in Middle-earth to search for their king - and found both him and his Maia bride. Even if he wasn't born then, that's a decent amount of cultural pride.
Does Thranduil have a reason to be racist against Silvan elves? No - but given that he's busy hating literally everyone else, I rather suspect he's narrowed his 'acceptable people' definition down to 'Sindar'. He does, at least, seem not to be too angry at Elrond (at least, he was willing to send his son off to visit a few decades later), and Elrond is the last non-mortal descendant of Thingol and Melian.
But what about Tauriel? We know why she hates orcs so much - her parents were killed by them. We don't need a reason for her to think ignoring the world is a bad idea - it is a bad idea, and anyone other than the brainwashed-by-his-racist-dad prince would agree (and, actually, Legolas does agree - or at least go along with it). But the bizarre romance angle?
Well, let's look at her role model. For 600 years (possibly her entire life, but a long time at any rate), Tauriel has been raised by Thranduil... who is racist against her and has no qualms about saying so. Her emotional contact with the person who shapes her worldview consists of him saying 'You are worthless'.
So I figure, she's a bit messed up. She doesn't know what affection feels like. She has four emotional responses in her repertoire:
-Hatred. She hates orcs. Hate hate hate.
-Nothing. She's a captain of the guard - but we never hear anything about the people she serves with, or commands. They seem to be little more than tools in her quest to wipe the orcs off the face of the planet. Look at how she treats... is it Bofur she grabs the athelas from? He's a tool, useful for her goal, then ignored.
-Sorrow. She is sad at... well, Thranduil. Probably she doesn't like people being racist about her when she can't hate them.
-????. There's a fourth emotion she hasn't felt very often. She feels it about Legolas (her pseudo-brother), and about Kili (because he's young and she first met him by saving his life - he's almost like a younger brother, really). Most people would just call this 'affection', or even just 'liking someone'. Tauriel? She's got zero emotional baseline. She calls it love.
hS
Messed up Silvan elleth with no clue what love really is because all she's known is serving under a racist party dad and her pseudo-brother who happens to be the son of said racist party dad.
Sounds like a more interesting OC than most of the stuff that's in the Hobbit section on the Pit anyway.
... are worth telling if you spin them the right way.
(I know, it's off the Front Page - but I'm still replying! OH WHAT A WORLD)
I think I may need to make my own Tolkien Crackpot Theories list - 'Tolkien theories that make just enough sense...'
hS
"Ickle, unhinged Tauriel who has never seen the world outside, falls in love a speshul, Dwarf-Stepping elf prince and a dwarf somehow made hott by PJ's casting choices. (I have no problem with Aiden Turner being Kili, really. He did a great job acting, and I liked what his character did in AUJ.) Who will she choose?"
But honestly, I would really like to see you make your own Tolkien Crackpot Theories list. It would be great fun to read about how the Istari are actually various regenerations of the Doctor, etc.
Incidentally, I'd be the first in line for a ticket if that "LotR made for Hollywood" movie gets made. "Frodo, I am your father." XD
(Not-so-coincidentally, David Salo, the creator of that crackpot theory, later became the chief linguist working on the LotR films. Wondered if he suggested that idea to Peter Jackson.)
~Autumn
I don't know all that much about him - did the languages for the films, and literally wrote the book on Sindarin - but the fact that he's connected to the Crackpot Theories is pretty awesome.
hS
"From a rec.arts.books.tolkien posting by David Salo, dated 15 September 1997."
I think that's him. Either that, or some other guy writing under the pseudonym "David Salo".
~Autumn
When Bilbo kills the trapdoor spider, the only thought going through my head was "My peanut."
My time is coming. Be afraid.
Visually pretty awesome, they did succeed in not reducing Tauriel to a romance plot (if you're going to add someone, make it worth it,) Bard and Beorn were awesome, but
a) Convection? What convection? It makes some sense that Smaug shook off being laminated in gold, but nobody else should be able to shrug off all the fire.
b) Daylight Orcs again, you can imagine how I feel about those.
c) They made mirkwood about the size of a city park. I understand that they wanted to get to the action, but they made the walk to Dol Gildur so short that they had to lock up Gandalf for his absence when the dragon was woken to be credible.
d) Reusing scenes. Tauriel shining through and Gandalf being imprisoned reminded me a bit too much of similar scenes from Lord of The Rings.
E) If they were going for vermissilitude, they could have made the mirkwood spiders closer to Shelob's design, given that there's one species of great big giant spider in Arda, and they come from Ungoliant.
f) I dunno how Jackson can know all about the birth of the sun and moon and why the elves love stars, but not get that we don't get daylight-walking orcs, and that there's a good reason for that.
The acting and the setmaking and the music was magnificent, though.
Quick! Someone catch Dol Gildur before it's too late!
Oh, and Sevenswans? Do remember to capitalise "m" in Mirkwood.
Er, about Jackson's knowledge about the birth of the Sun and Moon, I think that's because at least 1 of his team have read the Silmarillion and the Unfinished Tales. Which means they know that the Sun is actually the fruit of Laurelin and the Moon is actually the flower of Telperion. Oh, and that the elves first awoke beside Lake Cuivienen, staring up at the stars in the sky.
But I do agree with d). Gandalf imprisoned in Dol Guldur reminds me of Gandalf staring down at industrialised!Isenguard from the pinnacle of Orthanc all over again.
~Autumn
*Nets Dol Gildur* I truly hope that you're not a new one, because you're either going back where you came from or in for a long wait at the adoption center.
Mirkwood. Mirkwood. Much merriment in Mirkwood.
--- But only when I manage to find my Shift key.
Your comment made me chuckle.
~Autumn
There were plenty of things that didn't make a lot of sense, in some cases because it felt like some scenes were cut, but in others just because something strange or silly just decided to happen. Like [SPOILERS TO FOLLOW] that bit at the end, where the dwarves make a giant dwarf out of molten gold, and then it explodes all over Smaug? What were they expecting to gain out of that? Did they want to sear off his scales with the metal? If so, why make the molten metal into the shape of a giant dwarf? Plus, Smaug's heatproof, isn't he? He's a fire-dragon! On a related note, when the big metal dwarf first showed up, the camera held so long on a shot of its face that I halfway expected its eyes to open and it to swing its giant axe at Smaug. It would've been incredibly silly, of course, but come on, a giant golden dwarf fighting a dragon in an underground castle, even if it's only for the few seconds it takes for the dragon to melt it into a pile of slag? It would've been pretty awesome, in my opinion, even though it would've completely gone against the tone of the rest of the movie.
As for Tauriel, she didn't seem like too much of a Sue. I mean, she had her speshul moments, but she's a Tolkien Elf. She's going to have those. Legolas had loads during the original three movies. My main problem regarding her was the shoehorned-in romance between her and Kíli. It felt like the writers realized "Wait! We haven't given the dwarves anything individually to do for the whole movie yet! Let's make one of them and the new elf we just created hit on each other!" And then at the end, where she saves his life with "elvish medicine", which essentially consisted of "doing what the dwarves were going to do, but while chanting and backlit with a Light of Glowing Significance", the romantic subtext came across as so forced that I half-expected Kíli to say that dreaded "it must be an angel" line that comes up whenever the writers can't think of how to make romance go. Granted, there are no angels in Arda, but there aren't any angels in Star Wars either, and Young Anakin said a variation the line in Phantom Menace.
But all in all, Tauriel had plenty of cool things to do that didn't forcibly upstage or sideline others(unlike Legolas, who sidelines the dwarves so hard during one scene that he uses their heads as stepping-stone to shoot arrows at the orcs and the dwarves don't so much as complain), didn't make the plot serve her, and didn't really drive anyone aside from Kíli too out-of-character, aside from one odd moment of stalker!Legolas, so I say she's passable.
But Smaug was awesome, the spiders were awesome(and I liked the change they made so that instead of the spiders being able to talk all the time, Bilbo could only hear and understand their speech while he's touching the Ring, because it makes a bit more sense that way), I liked how some of the dwarves split off from the crowd in the Lake Town section so that there could be two groups doing two things, rather than one group with half a dozen redundant members, and all in all, I'm glad I watched it.
Oh, and a proposition for this movie's exclamation, in the vein of the "Flaming Denethor!" and "Radagast on a Bunny Sled!" Creative Curses from the previous two: Barrel-Busting Bombur! It's named for the scene where Bombur's barrel rolls out of the river, smashing up several orcs as it passes, immediately followed by Bombur busting his arms and legs out of the barrel, grabbing two axes that were tossed to him, and whaling on several more orcs that were unfortunate enough to be standing nearby. It's been a while since I read The Hobbit, but I think I'd remember if something like that was in there.
Honestly, though, it was one of my favorite scenes in the movie. It was just so over-the-top silly, and gave one of the dwarves something unique to do that didn't revolve around ascribed roles like "the old guy who knows things", "the stalwart leader", "the comic relief", or "the fanservice". At the same time, though, it's memorable and canon-incompatible enough to be given expression status, and it's alliterative, too, for an added bonus.
Alternatively, it could be something on how Smaug and Thranduil were constantly monologuing. I'm pretty sure that breaks canon, too, but it's not nearly as memorable.
I'd like to submit 'Pirouetting Legolas' for consideration.
Remember that bit? When he was standing on the dwarves' heads shooting Orcs, and then he takes his foot off one of them and legitimately does some sort of pirouette (aided by the barrel turning around, I think) while still standing on the other's head? That bit had me gaping at the screen and then laughing hysterically.
Pirouetting Legolas!
...I don't know...I think it could work...
Barrel-Busting Bombur sounds pretty awesome, by the way. Especially the alliteration. Although, something that's been puzzling me about that...if they're suddenly one barrel short, why doesn't that actually come up? If I remember correctly, Bombur just jumped back into an empty barrel, but I don't think I saw any of the others doubling up...
...the barrels respawn. That's the only explanation.
~DF
Y'know, I always thought Legolas did a lot of stuff to name a new Creative Curse. For example, I always thought why "Shield-Boarding Legolas!" wasn't considered.
'Pirouetting Legolas' sounds great. It actually works.
Respawning barrels? My glod, this reminds me so much of Minecraft. XD
"Feed each barrel with an apple. Each barrel which is fed its food will enter "love mode", preparing to breed with another barrel that is in "love mode". Barrels that are "in love mode" emit hearts constantly and will path towards nearby barrels that are also "in love mode." The two barrels will bob side by side for about two and a half seconds, and then a baby barrel of the same species spawns either in between the parents or on the same blocks as the parent that was spawned first, which ends love mode for the parents."~Adapted from the Minecraft Wiki
~Autumn
And you all may have a point about the sound of 'Pirouetting Legolas'. It did really catch my eye--because he was already stepping on the dwarves, and then he goes and *pirouettes*?! Well, I've been a dancer for a while (hobby more than something I want to do as a profession, but I've got about a decade's worth of lessons under my belt), and, well, the pirouette cracked me up. However, it is a bit more difficult to say...
How about 'Legolas on a dwarf!'? Or 'Dwarves as stepping stones!'?
I just really think that scene should be commemorated, because it was both hilarious and rather misplaced...and definitely one of the main 'are you *kidding me*?' moments of the film.
~DF
If you stuff things in them, they create more barrels.
This is what happens when I don't scroll down to the bottom of the Board on a regular basis. People start writing ficlets about the reproductive processes of barrels. I can only imagine the tales of ribaldry that spontaneously generate once a thread passes onto the second, or gods help us, the third page.
I don't know about "Pirouetting Legolas", actually. The word "pirouetting" sounds too soft in the mouth to be shouted out as a sudden, shocked response. At least "Barrel-Busting" has the same sort of harsh feel that words like "Glaurung" do. Plus, the pirouette wasn't all that distinctive, at least as a separate action from the rest Legolas's other hopping-around-on-dwarves sequence, and wouldn't likely be noticed in the same way one would notice Denethor on fire leaping from Minas Tirith or Radagast riding a toboggan pulled by unconvincing CGI giant rabbits. Bombur's barrel-busting, on the other hand, was much more noticeable.
But the scene it came from? Yeah. That scene was weird. The whole river scene was just unfiltered crazy compared to the rest of the movie, in fact. What I picked out from the Legolas sequence wasn't the pirouette, though, because as I said before, I didn't really even notice it. What I picked out was that the dwarves weren't even complaining or anything as he jumped off of them. I saw one make a distressed face as Legolas leg-stretched between his head and that of another dwarf, but that was it. It was as though they were deliberately suppressing their reactions so Legolas could have another "perfect" moment like his flawless scaling and execution of an oliphaunt in the Return of the King movie. It just bugged me. I mean, I know that about about half of those dwarves could be written out of the story and the audience would barely notice, since most of the viewing public will probably only remember the names of the dwarves that have speaking lines, but it's not good form to treat them in-universe as featureless lumps only existing to occupy space.
It was the product of sugar-rush, a sudden impulse to write something weird, and boredom.
Yeah, I agree. On hindsight, "pirouetting" seems too soft when spoken in harsh, loud tones. "Legolas Using Dwarves' Heads As Stepping Stones!" could've been considered, if only it weren't such a mouthful...unless it could be cut down further?
The Barrels Out of Bond scene was really crazy. We had the elves knowing the dwarves escaped (I'm actually quite alright with this; it's the next few points that bothers me), orcs in daylight, Legolas being speshul, Tauriel being speshul (although considerably less than Legolas), Kili being wounded by...by...a "Morgul-bladed arrow"? What, Peter Jackson.
That particular "Legolas Using Dwarves' Heads As Stepping Stones" bothered me more than all of his "perfect" moments. Yes, even more than that time in TTT when he "shield-boarded" down the stairs, reminding us of Captain America. At least when Legolas did the shield stunt in TTT and that slaying of the Oliphaunt (seriously, Legolas, you've got a bow, just shoot it in the eye!), I get the vague idea that a character was rolling their eyes off-camera. Plus, "That still only counts as one!". But for this...? It's like everyone's making way for him to be perfect. Because he can. Ugh.
~Autumn
What would have happened to them if they went out in daylight? It's not as though they would have turned to stone or anything; that would have made them absolutely terrible soldiers. If a battle went on until morning, and the orcs all melted or were petrified or otherwise became incapacitated, the forces of Sauron would have handed their enemies an easy victory. After that, all battles against the orcs would just be trying to keep them occupied as long as possible until the sun came up and they all keeled over, and that's definitely not the case. Heck, most of the battles in the Silmarillion and the big final showdown in Return of the King were fought in the daylight, and we didn't see the orcs having any problems then. Are orcs just pathologically afraid of bright lights?
Heh. It's funny; one of the main ways that I determined Tauriel wasn't a Sue despite her forced-in presence in the plot was "Well, she's not nearly as speshul as Legolas." Legolas, or at least movie Legolas, seems to have some sort of compulsion to show off how unnaturally skilled he is at every opportunity he gets. If Sauron could be killed by an arrow in the Eye, I'm willing to bet that Legolas would have tried to scale his tower just to find the single spot on the flaming spirit-eyeball that would bring down the Dark Lord, just so that he could look insufferably smug for about five seconds.
I agree with you on the morgul arrow thing. I'm not exactly a Tolkien scholar, but doesn't a morgul weapon turn its victim into a wraith, instead of poisoning them in a way that can only be healed by cramming some medicinal plants into the wound? How did cramming those plants into the leg wound even help Kíli at all? If the result of Frodo's stabbing in Fellowship is any indication, which it should be since it worked this way in both the book and the movie, a morgul weapon's curse is capable of affecting the victim's entire body. Frodo could hardly move after he'd been stabbed, but one might just be able to chalk down Kíli's continued activity to differences in biology. Regardless, if a poison that's been shown to behave like that has been running rampant in a victim's system for several days, it should be dealt with in a way that will affect more of the body than just the entry wound. It's basic toxicology.
Another "shield-boarding moment" I noticed in Desolation of Smaug was near the end, with Thorin. When the dwarves were making that titanic gold dwarf for ill-defined reasons, he finds a wheelbarrow, just somewhere, and then drives it into the molten metal, leaps into it, and rides it along the stream of liquid gold like it's a toboggan. If the metal was a high enough temperature to stay molten, wouldn't it melt holes in the bottom of the wheelbarrow and subsequently in Thorin's body? Who even keeps wheelbarrows in a forge? Why did Thorin feel that wheelbarrow-riding was even necessary? What did it accomplish?
Yes.
When Morgoth created the Orcs (however he did that), he did it in darkness - before the sun was created or even conceived. They were literally designed for unending night - and the rising of the sun terrified them.
It's significant that, in fact, almost none of the battles in the various books take place in full sunlight. In order:
-The First Battle of Beleriand: took place at Morgoth's return, decades before the sun rose.
-The Battle-under-Stars: as the name says, took place before the sun appeared.
-The Glorious Battle: heralded by Thangorodrim 'vomiting flame'; both Dark Lords really liked having pet volcanoes. It's not said how effective this was at darkening the sky, but this is one battle the Noldor won handily.
-The Sudden Flame: Morgoth learnt his lesson. Listen to this:
There came a time of winter, when night was dark and without moon... suddenly Morgoth sent forth great rivers of flame that ran down swifter than Balrogs from Thangorodrim, and poured over all the flame; and the Mountains of Iron belched forth fires of many poisonous hues, and the fume of them stank upon the air, and was deadly. Thus Ard-galen perished...
-Unnumbered Tears: The one battle where Morgoth didn't actually set the time, but he still prepared. Fingon looked towards Thangorodrim, and there was a dark cloud about it, and a black smoke went up... Furthermore, it's only when the Noldor are winning (Turgon rides to Fingon's side) that we hear about the sun. And this is the only battle not decided by force of arms - Morgoth won by treachery.
-The War of Wrath: there's so little detail here, but Morgoth threw everything at the Host of Valinor. If he didn't blot out the sun, he missed a trick.
Skipping ahead, there are three encounters with Orcs in The Hobbit (the book):
-In Goblin Town: When Bilbo escapes, the goblins close the door - they don't immediately follow. That's because the sun is out. When night falls...
-Fifteen Birds in Five Fir Trees: The goblins wait for night to fall before following. I believe the dwarves actually discuss this.
-The Battle of the Five Armies: pass. ;) I believe the bats are described as a very thick cloud, but I don't think they blotted out the sun.
And in Lord of the Rings:
-Moria: again, the Orcs don't follow the Fellowship out (indeed, they stop for a while a couple of bowshots from the wall to discuss Frodo's injury). The Fellowship have to run to Lorien, though, because when night falls - it's orcing time.
-The Three Hunters: here the Orcs do run in full daylight - because Ugluk is whipping them to force them to do so. 'We are the fighting Uruk-Hai!'
-The Hornburg: Night-time.
-The Pelennor and Dagorlad: Both of the final battles take place under Sauron's shadow. 'Tomorrow, there will be no dawn'. What exactly this shadow is isn't defined.
As regards the Hobbit movie: regardless of what the cinematography shows, it's worth noting that the 'murk' in Mirkwood isn't just metaphorical. The place is dark. So that running battle could easily have taken place.
In summary: yes, Orcs are pathologically afraid of sunlight. That's mythology for you.
hS
I dunno about that one, really. When orcs appear there always seem to be a certain darkness, a rain-cloud following them. Or at least that's how it feels. And there was still the "there will be no dawn" thing in RotK...yes, yes, I think you're absolutely right. But I dunno about why I said "orcs in daylight", really. Could be that they all look fancy and CGI-ed as a cartoon.
Yeah, Evangeline Lilly actually shows less compulsion to be "perfect" than Orlando Bloom. As far as I could tell from the production videos and behind-the-scenes look, and book-to-script explanations, most of the stunts were improvised by none other than Mr. Bloom himself. Mr. Bloom, may I just remind you Legolas was an extremely humble elf in the book, not the "look-at-me-I'm-an-elf!" person you portray.
Ha ha. They did something like that in a LotR parody video. Well, the way they suggested it should've ended is that Legolas, during the Council of Elrond, suggests he tie the Ring to an arrow and shoot it seven hundred miles to Mordor. Because Glaurung walking to Mordor, he's Legolas.
Yes, and if Frodo surviving the Morgul poison without being turned into a wraith for two weeks was already an amazing feat for Men, shouldn't Kili succumb to the poison much earlier? I know that dwarves are hardy and stubborn and all, but honestly, Mr. Jackson. Just so Athelas can save the day and Tauriel can do that "shining" thing like Arwen?
My theory about Thorin: Other than moose-races and wild parties, another national sport of Mirkwood is shield-boarding, popularised by its very own Prince Legolas. Thorin, apparently, saw this sport during the "Feast of Starlight" or Whatever-it-is-called-in-Sindarin Festival (does it even exist? I haven't read the Silm in such a long time...), and set out to prove that not all dwarves are incapable of shield-boarding. ;D
~Autumn
and thought,"OMG! THE HOBBIT WAS AWESOME!" Well, she's not into the Tolkien fandom, but she is a fangirl anyway. So...apparently she thought Tauriel was awesome, "not a Sue", because she [SPOILER ALERT!] healed Kili when he was "mortally wounded" (oh, of course the "hot dwarf" must be wounded, Jackson. And healed with Athelas.) and defied Thranduil's orders to go kill orcs in Laketown with Legolas. [END SPOILER] But then, my friends actually wouldn't recognise a Sue even if it's dancing naked in front of them.
She also thought Legolas has the most swag in the world. Er...
I'm still apprehensive, with the number of spoilers and reviews I read about the Movie "dividing the Movie fans and the purists more than ever", and the Movie would "cause heated debates among fans for years". Plus, my friend enjoyed the movie as another movie, without having read the books.
~Autumn
I'm going to give my full thoughts a few days, a) for them to gather better and b) so people have a reasonable chance at catching the film before I go all critic-y, but while I liked a fair bit of it it felt somehow underwhelming. A lot of moments where I went "Really, Jackson?" or "That's it?"
At the risk of sounding ignorant, I am willing to hazard the guess that the stereotypical PPCer is a twenty-something college student (which obviously gives him or her the maturity and a greater command of the English language that the tween- and teen-aged stereotypical Suethor lacks). However, it is starting to become very clear that not everyone here is a college student: we have a lawyer, a
...back in my day (which was ten years ago, mind you) it was mostly teenagers, but there were quite a few 20-somethings as well, and older.
I'm past university now, but then again I'm no longer an active member of the board, so I clearly don't count. :P
The idea that 'we're better at writing than badfic authors because we're older!' is, um, kind of rubbish. The average age of the Board has mostly kept step with the age of the people who've been here all along. So where PPCers used to be mostly between 14 - Kaitlyn, for instance - and 18 - me - nowadays, we're mostly in our twenties. There's always been something of a spread (we had people with grown children even right back at the start), but we've all grown older.
And, funnily enough, at least a few of the people back in '04 could write anyway... ;)
(Although I don't recall you ever writing much, BiD...)
hS
I graduate in May.
I've also volunteered in a paleontology lab, worked at a renaissance faire, written for the school paper, run my university's writing club, and done a bunch of random stuff that gives me some knowledge of various topics. :D
Given that I missed up the posting please reply to my reply a few posts down. That way, I can be sure that you've read the entirety of what I intended to say.
Just helping some little kids get into Maths really. When I graduate I'm looking at starting up a full Tutoring service, but until then I'll work for KUMON.
Storme Hawk
As I've mentioned several times since joining I am planning on writing a Trilogy of books, Book 1 of which is currently under slow construction. I've been planning for 5 years and actually writing for 3, I'm currently on my 5th (I think) incarnation, and it's the first one I'm really, truly happy with and can actually see where it's going.
Storme Hawk
Let me guess: You're British, aren't you?
...I'll be a musician once I get out. Hell, I've already built a bit of experience doing opera pit, so... We'll see.
Oops, hit that "post reply" button a bit too quickly there. As I was saying,
a lawyer, an analytical chemist, and a professional editor. And yes, we have our fair share of college students.
So allow me to ask: What other occupations are represented here in the PPC?
No it's not a Time Lord (although it could well be), it basically means that I design/measure/assess things involving sound or vibration in the built environment). It's rather varied, ranging from things like designing a concert hall, opera house, lecture theatre, recording studio etc (I've literally just got home from doing some late night noise measurements for a new live music venue I'm designing), through things like making sure that acoustic privacy/confidentiality is maintained in buildings (very important for law firms offices and medical examination rooms, for example) all the way to noise in the environment, eg working out the height of a noise barrier needed to reduce noise from a motorway or designing an outdoor music venue so that it's not too loud at the neighbours. It also involves some really weird work, like the time I had to assess whether cuttlefish would go deaf as the result of construction of a new shipping pier!!!
How did I get into a fairly-unusual career? I studied mechanical engineering and I've been a musician for the last 20-odd years; acoustics seemed like a good way to combine my interests.
Elcalion
Random info: I have a flash patch on my coat that says Evil Librarian. So if I ever fall through a plothole into the PPC, I should be right at home.
I’m not, I’m a software engineer.
HG, retreating under his Invisibility cloak
Though the thread was originally your newbie thread, note that I linked directly to the post where I signed off as sonofheaven176,Esq. Translation: I'm the lawyer that I was referring to.
Software engineer, you say? For whom?
I’m working for a very small German manufacturer of customized business software, and I’m under the Invisibility Cloak because
- a standardized application will become dysfunctional at the end of the year for reasons nobody bothered to tell me
- the rollout of a potential substitute purchased from a global player is delayed, again for reasons nobody bothered to tell me
- so now an application which is fortunately maintained by people with very short response times needs to be extended to do a job it was never intended to do.
We are quite busy these days.
HG
That's basically a fancy way of saying a high school that decided non-AP class options were not any kind of options at all. I'm approximately sixteen years old and swamped with work. I am currently attempting to decide whether I want to become a book editor or a foreign service official. In whatever free time I have, I enjoy co-writing, acting, doodling, learning new languages, and dabbling in pretty much everything I can.
However, much of the free time I have amounts to nil, as I barely have enough hours to fit in some semblance of a sleep schedule. My surroundings on a day to day basis are composed of crying peers, people sleeping on textbooks, tiny lockers, gigantic backpacks, and one dark room that smells vaguely of pigeon faeces that has been lovingly dubbed, "the dungeon". Nevertheless, I enjoy it, which may say quite a bit about me in and of itself.
And I used to be a hostess, but that's a different story.
I went in for International Relations but I really like Cinema and Media Studies soooooo...
Never, ever major in Cinema and Media Studies. Never minor in Cinema and Media Studies. Never get any form of degree in Cinema and Media Studies. Why? Because although it is fun, it is totally, completely, unnecessary. If you want to become a critic, go for something like journalism, or history, or sociology, or something along those lines. After that, watch some movies, write some reviews, do some analysis, then show people that you can, indeed, analyze media. If you do well, someone will hire you. Am I saying to drop the class now? No. It's fun, fills up some time, and is really very interesting. However, I don't want to see your talent wasted.
Now, I don't know much about you, but looking at your writing and seeing what you went to college for originally, I'm going to say this too: Don't settle for what's fun. Fun courses are the trap of college. Sure, philosophy is great fun, but what can you do with it? Yes, acting is a blast, but what about that degree will make a director pick you over any of the thousands of people trying out? Absolutely, communications is a hoot, but... Oh wait...
The point is, you have a talent for writing. You have a way of getting into people's heads. You have a clear, deep-seeded love not only for England, but for other cultures around the world. Your love for Great Britain is so great, many people think you are from there. If you want to go into International Relationships and represent a company or the government to other nations, then by God, do so. Those jobs are hard to do, but they are some of the most fulfilling jobs out there. You contribute to society, using your skills to their best. Don't settle for something fun. Work for something you can use.
I'm sorry if that seemed uncalled for or something, but... Well, I'm only in High School, but I have heard a lot of stories from those who went for the fun degrees. There are also success stories, but there are so, so many more that are not. Just... Be careful.
I do like IR, for what it's worth. The problem is, I hate econ.
Like, seriously. Econ is required for the major in IR here, and I just can't be bothered to deal with it. I want to write, but I don't want to write essays. Sure, okay, fine, I've gotta take plenty of classes that require essays, but I'm not so entirely sure if I want to major in something with a component that just gives me a certain amount of pain just thinking about it.
And actually, I want to be a screenwriter. I want to write the movies that people are complaining aren't happening right now because the mainstream media are too scared to do something 'risky'. The only thing I'm really interested in in regards to IR at the moment is the bombs aspect, because the study of aerial bombardment and national security raises a lot of questions about inequality, and I can handle that. The econ side just goes horrendously over my head.
And in terms of jobs in IR? As you've pointed out, the only country in which I'd be of any use is Great Britain, and maybe some French-speaking countries. But I'm terrible at representing countries and companies, and I sure as hell can't stand up on a stage and spout all of that military-industrial/Westphalian/western horsecrap that they teach most students of IR. I don't like saying things that go against my personal morals. I can't tell the people in the countries the US is bombing right now that it's necessary that we do it because we gotta flush out the terrorists. No. It just makes me mad thinking about it.
I haven't made a decision, but whatever it is, I'm sure as heck not going to do something that'll make me scream with boredom or frustration.
Though I do feel a little silly, now having more information. My point, however, still stands. However, I was also told, and believe, that one should not go for something that they hate. Do something you not only love, but can use. If you can't, it is a waste of your money and time.
Well, now that I know why you want to leave IR, I can't exactly say you are throwing your life away. If it is that bad for you, then look for something else. Still, I do think some of that attitude is needed in IR. If there is not somebody calling put people on the inside, then excuses will be very quickly made. Somebody needs to sympathize with those being damaged. After all, people are more willing to work with those who agree, right? Do it well, and do it right, and you can still keep your job and morals. Just push through the boring Econ. ;P
So, you want to be a screenwriter, eh? Alright, I can see that. Still, I would not do the Film Studies just for that. Take the class, learn as much as you can about writing, and then write as many scripts as you can in your off time. Bother filmmakers, be it independent or Hollywood, and eventually somebody will take the script. Just be warned that screenwriters are almost always freelance, even in television. Indeed, I only say 'almost,' because I think some writers do manage to stay with only one company, though that is very, very rare. It's hardly a stable job, I'll say that, but can be fun and fulfilling. Have you considered teaching? The summers off would be a great time to write and send your scripts while still having a stable job to fall back onto. That and you would be one of the coolest English teachers ever, I'm sure of it.
Actually, speaking of learning as much as you can about writing, let me ask this: Have you taken any Technical Writing classes, in College or High School? I suggest that you do, even if you don't go for the degree. It helps with any writing, and is a highly sought-after skill. Definitely minor material at least, if you like it.
...OK, my curiosity is piqued. As a potential actor,* I have to know what some of your script ideas are. Even if it's not a full script, a pitch will do, I'm interested in hearing a little more.
*Yes, I know the hypocrisy in that statement. The difference is, I am not silly enough to go for an Acting major. I'm currently thinking Communications, with a strong chance of going into Education instead. All depends on what happens when I get there.
I know some writers already, but like I said, I'm just starting out in college and there's a lot of time for me to actually figure out what the hell I want to do. I might even end up doing both CAMS and IR, just because.
Well, it's my current ambition to write a Star Trek screenplay that actually knows what it's doing to the TOS canon. It'd involve the mirrorverse, too.
Barring that, of course, I have vague ideas of red strings of fate and fantasy lands that involve people of colour, and a reverse Bechdel test thing where the female characters carry on the plot while the male characters only talk about the female characters. And something that involves attractive male actors being subjected to what is traditionally known as the 'male gaze' and getting picked off just to further the character development of the female characters (mostly because why not have Robert Downey Jr. in soft-focus).
I like it! It would be rather awkward for most people to watch, but not necessarily in a bad way. Usually that material lends itself to parody, but if written well enough, and handled by a competent director, it could be a cool film without being for laughs. Although, I hesitate to see how the one where males are stuck under the Female Gaze could be anything other then fricking hilarious.
Hmm. Do I sense some resentment towards the new Star Trek movies? Honorable goal, I assure you, but I would sooner see a Next Generation movie then another TOS reboot, but that's just me. Though, I must admit, a large part of why is because I want to see John De Lancie play Q on the big screen. Yes, I know he is much older now. I do not care. Heck, I would not care if they were to replace Q with some weird chimera dragon thing, I just want to see it!
Well, no matter what you do, I shall wait for your first big breakthrough with high hopes and good wishes, no matter where that is.
I want the chance to work with this batch of perfectly-casted dorks (well, except Cumbers, but he's a wonderful person despite, you know, being the wrong race for Khan). Which is probably why I still want to work with TOS Reboot.
Robert Downey Jr. in soft focus, though. And covered in kittens.
...I kinda want the reboot cast to do a TV seres.
Think about it! As a reboot of TOS, this new Star Trek could do whatever it wants! If they want to do original stories, fine, they can do that, it's a new universe. If they want to do classic TOS episodes with some twists, fine they can do that, it's an alternate timeline. If they want to completely redo old episodes with new technology, fine, they can do that, it's still TOS! Plus, due to restricted budget, those darned Lens Flares would be dramatically reduced, and they would have to rely on good prop making over grand CGI. The writers would have almost complete creative freedom, as long as they were consistent with the characters and stayed with the tone of their new seres. What are the downsides?
Oh, right. The fanbase that would murder anybody that even dares suggest that they could do anything better then the original seres. *sigh* Someday...
But Reboot Star Trek has so much potential to be even more progressive than TOS, if not as progressive. It's got updated information about space and life out there in the universe and it's got social problems and a new set of international relations issues to address under the allegory of finding new civilisations. It's got the ability to update the looks of the aliens, so they don't all look humanoid. It's got the freedom to allow practically any character to fall in love with any other character without as many repercussions. KIRK AND SPOCK COULD ACTUALLY BECOME A THING, INSTEAD OF BEING RELEGATED TO IMPLICATIONS VIA THE WORD T'HY'LA.
It's got so much to work with, and the films just decide to go for revenge and making Jim Kirk look like a total arse.
Well...Mostly agree. While I am more then fine with having a gay couple on the Enterprise, I just... I can't support Kirk/Spock. I'm sorry, I can't, especially this new Kirk. He is just far too interested in women to be gay. In my eyes, that man is straiter then a 2X4. I guess he could be bisexual, maybe, but it just does not feel right to me. I have, and will, support slash pairings, if it feels like the character would act in that way.
I'm not going to get on this tirade now, especially since I actually am a progressive-minded individual, but... Can't two people just be friends without everybody squealing because, "Look at how much in love they are! Because they are close as friends means they have to want more from each other!" Yes, I am calling out both slash and het out on this, though most of my ire is pointed towards slash. It seems like friendship is treated as a barrier from the true, raw passion of "love." Do I need to teach everybody Platonic Love 101? Or Just Being Friends is OK?
...I'm sorry about that. It's fictional characters and our love for them, I know. It's just that romance is one of my pet peeves. Done right, I'm fine with it. I roll my eyes because I am not interested in reading romance, but fine. Just romance for the sake of romance though, or messing with the minds of characters so they can have teh hawt seqx, often sends me ranting, especially if it is changing sexual orientation. I don't really know why either, it just does.
On a completely different note, yay, I'm glad you agree with the seres! Now to see if Hermione has anything to add...
Here I am!
As for a new Star Trek series...well, I have some strong opinions about how everyone's so obsessed with reboot. Not that there's anything wrong with that
I also feel like it's not right to make so much bromance and subtext and then pull a huge No Homo out of nowhere with such couples like Spirk and Johnlock. That sort of thing (called queerbaiting, if you wanted to know), is just... wrong.
And I am fine with them being not sexually attracted, but I feel like there's still at least a deep friendship/emotional connection that they've gotta have, with the whole t'hy'la thing. Kirk and Spock love each other in more ways than one because of t'hy'la, and I just wish the writers of the Reboot could actually understand that.
And don't even get me started on the shitty way the Reboot's treated Bones's role in the triumvirate. Kirk and Spock love him too, even if it's in a sorta 'look, Spock and Bones are the only reason Kirk's even alive because he does dumb things' sorta way.
"[...] and a reverse Bechdel test thing where the female characters carry on the plot while the male characters only talk about the female characters. And something that involves attractive male actors being subjected to what is traditionally known as the 'male gaze' and getting picked off just to further the character development of the female characters [...]"
Isn't that just taking most films we see nowadays and re-casting all the male actors as women (and vice-versa)?
...treatment, at that.
The thing, it isn't enough just to say, let's genderbend Sherlock and Watson or Spock and Kirk. Male characters getting genderswapped via actors still forward male characters.
I kinda wanted to build from the ground up, with females of all shapes and sizes and ability levels and races, and females that are only females in a technical sense.
If I were in charge of a big-budget, popular franchise movie, I wouldn't really overthink it.
I'd just go ahead with a cool story with action, adventure, people being okay with each other's differences, and not too much romance. Why ogle your actors when you can have...
*clears throat, epic booming announcer voice*
EPIC SPACE BATTLES WITH LASERS AND EXPLOSIONS AND EPIC TACTICAL MANEUVERS IN A THREE-DIMENSIONAL ENVIRONMENT OR *inhales* PIRATES AND DARING BOARDING MANEUVERS AND CURSED TREASURES OR DUELS AT HIGH NOON WITH GIANT SUITS OF POWERED ARMOUR OR TIME TRAVEL OR *wheezy inhale* KNIGHTS FIGHTING HYDRAS AND MINOTAURS AND DRAGONS AND *passes out from lack of air*
...also, how can one be "only female in a technical sense"? Are you referring to transsexuals or am I misinterpreting your statement?
And genderfluid/agender people who might happen to physically be female.
The problem is, not thinking about it would mean that the people in the big ol' franchise can get away with perpetuating the same story with a slightly different tweak. I mean come on, the Reboot Star Trek movies were just two giant revenge flicks. That's... kinda boring? Even with explosions and space jumps and Benedict Cumberbatch in swishy grey coat?
I want epic space battle as much as you, but I also want to make sure people are getting represented in this space epic.
I do agree representation is important. On the other hand, if we staple a ton of labels on a character and say: "Look! Representation!" we run the risk of creating a special snowflake-type token minority. Perhaps we can have the current Enterprise bridge crew encounter an Unfortunate Accident and replace them with a more diverse cast?
Eheheheheheh.... *rubs hands* That's spinoff material actually. Just imagine:
>The Adventures of the USS Foucault, Newton-class starship
>TOS/TNG-style episodes with New!Trek visuals and CG
>Captain Nada Hassan, Muslim woman originally from Beirut, Lebanon.
>First Officer Cmdr. Marcel Côté, mixed-ancestry (Caucasian-Vietnamese) Québecois man.
>Ensign Helga Davydova, of Kiev, Ukraine. Helmsman of the Foucault and pursuing a romantic relationship with...
>Ensign Maria Ramos, of Córdoba, Argentina, the ship Navigator.
>CMO is Dr. Mc Vulcannamesomething
>Lt. Mc Andoriannamesomething as Comms Officer.
I have to admit that I don't really really like New!Trek. Everything is about Kirk and his Popular-With-The-Ladies, Brash Hot-Headed Male Protagonist ActTM or Spock blowing a fuse and learning that feels can be okay sometimes.
I agree the revenge plots are really annoying. Where's the exploration? Where's the unknown? Where's the (pseudo) science?
Seriously though, they messed up the warp scale in New!Trek. Suddenly Earth-Vulcan or Earth-Cronos trips are a matter of minutes? Gimme a break. Not to mention that the Alternate Universe Constitution-class cruiser bloody well dwarfs a Galaxy-class ship:
Nnnngh. And don't even get me started on the size of the USS Vengeance.
Where basically the crew of the starship in question was mostly non-human. The funniest bit was the Klingon Chief Medical Officer.
"What do you mean you're hurt? You aren't dead yet, so get back out there with a phaser!"
I can just imagine the CMO with a slightly worrying case of bloodlust.
Well, minus the cheesy fake German accent, that is.
By they way, have you ever seen/played FTL: Faster Than Light? It's an awesome indie game available on Steam that lets you command a starship, almost Star Trek style.
I'm 14 year old. Physically, at least. I've been mistaken for a Harvard Freshman (I'm in 9th grade) and the oldest age people have thought I am is 28.
I want to be some sort of scientist. And, also, I currently have a girlfriend (and she is fantastic, omygod) who is... who is fantastic.
I know I don't really have an occupation, but I guess I could say poet and fanfiction writer. Yeah...
Mostly Sherlock.
I manage a drop-off store for a local dry cleaners. I don't do the actual cleaning; they tried to talk me into learning that and taking over one of the cleaning plants, but chemical fumes + contact lenses = problems*. Though, I've been in the plants enough that I can do very basic spotting.
For the most part, my job is basic customer service. I take the customer's clothes, check them for anything that will take extra care (or that we can't do at all), and write up the invoice. When the customer comes back in, I take payment and hand over the clothes.
I also do minor repair work, rather than send it out to our seamstress. I don't have a sewing machine here, but I'm pretty good at handsewing.
And of course, there's the usual manager-type stuff. Not hiring, that's run through the main office. But I order supplies and do the daily and weekly reports.
---
* It turned out that the reason my eyes were burning every time I pulled a load out of the cleaning machine was the plant manager I was working with at the time was ripping off the company. He'd reopen the plant after we'd closed for the day, and use the equipment and solvents for his own dry cleaning business, pocketing all the cash. But to cover this up, he couldn't change the filters as often as he should have, meaning more chemical fumes in the air. I'm a little cautious about my eyesight, though, so I might have turned down plant manager training even if I'd been working with someone honest.
I work for a company that mostly does business telecommunications stuff; specifically, a side-project of theirs, which is a VoIP application for computers and mobile devices. My job is to answer customer questions and help troubleshoot when problems occur.
Technically I'm a contractor, not an employee, which means they don't have to give me benefits or direct deposit my checks or any of that fancy stuff, which is kind of a drag. However, there are many reasons my job is awesome:
1. It's all online, so I never have to talk to (or be shouted at by) anyone on the phone or face to face.
- 1.2 I can work from anywhere there's a decent Internet connection, so I can travel freely and still get paid.
2. I get paid rather well.
3. It's mostly the same questions/problems over and over, which means I can work efficiently and get done quickly.
4. My one coworker, who set me up to get the job in the first place, is a former PPCer and a friend. We cooperate well, so if one of us has another commitment or wants to go to a con or something, the other a) understands why that would be a thing, and b) is generally willing and able to take the extra hours.
I wish I got more work hours in a day, but it's a pretty sweet gig.
~Neshomeh
I'm a soldier in the IDF's C4I Corps. I can't really say what I'm doing, it's highly classified.
Dem coputar teknitins 'rom dem forine nations 're allwas tryin to spy on us! Were dis from anywase...
... Isrieal? Well I'll be darnd. N'vr mind den. Mov' allong.
*I got mah gun sighs on you...*
Now, Isrieal, give it back...
"MEEEEEP!" *sigh* *sigh* *sigh*
Everyone get down! He'll depress us all!
*sigh* *sigh* *sigh*
(Yes, I know what you meant. But "gun sighs" coupled with "Isireal" was... stimulating. Is that the word? I think that's the word. "Inspiring" might work, but it means something slightly different.)
(stares over at Isireal and Isrieal) This is just not my day.
Oh, crap, Isireal has another sighing gun! Get down! They now have double the depression-producing power!
*sigh* *sigh* *sigh*
*sigh* *sigh* *sigh*
I'm hit! I'm hit! I... (sobs) I've failed you all!
I'll be happy to take them off your hands, if you want. You can keep the sighing guns, though ;)
Wait, no, hey, I'm nice, don't shoot me, nooooo...
*is hit*
*bursts into angsty rant that comes close to giving Bella Swan a run for her money...but is less purple*
(Isireal is making me think 'is-it-real' or 'is-he-real', by the way, whereas Isrieal sounds vaguely like an angel name...that's it, someone suggest it to the SPN writers, half their angel names don't originally belong to angels anyway (at least as far as I'm aware--seriously, Zachariah? Naomi? Ezekiel? King or prophet, Ruth's mother-in-law, and prophet. Kind of ridiculous...and rather funny...) Seriously, what's up with that? Has anyone ever asked them? If so, I'd like to be directed to the answer, please.)
~DF
I would have thought that the awful spelling due to over-the-top accent would have tipped you off. Seriously, what were you two—
I'm doing it again, aren't I? I'm being unintentionally rude. You know, that's not usually me. Being rude and not-ginger. I'm usually nice and sorta-ginger. See, my hair is a orangish-mostly-brown kinda brown in most lights, but if it is shown in just the right light, it bursts into a brilliant orange. Well, that and me beard is more red then the rest of my hair. So that's kinda awesome.
Anyway, what were we talking about?
*pointed at by sighing gun*
...Oh. Right. HELP! HELP! MY ACCENT-CREATED MINI AND GUN ARE ON A RAMPAGE! HELLLLP!!!
*Marvin portals in with large box on wheels*
Marvin: Alright everybody, take a seat. I got this.
World-Jumper: AAHHHH!! WHAT THE HECK IS THAT!?
Marvin: Oh, it's nothing special. Just Vinyl's Bass Cannon!
Isrieal & Isireal: NOOOOoooo...!
Sighing Guns: *sigh* *!* *yay!*
World-Jumper: (walks over to guns and Marvin) ...Huh. Interesting.
Marvin: Yeah. Who knew Bass Cannons made sighing guns yay guns?
World-Jumper: Well, thanks for saving me, I guess.
Marvin: No problem.
World-Jumper: Oh, before you go, can I ask where you got that thing?
Marvin: Oh, this? Apparently the darn thing got so popular in badfic featuring Vinyl Scratch that clones were made. As it is technically uncanon, I was allowed to take one. Now, may I ask a question?
World-Jumper: Sure.
Marvin: When is that mission going to be finished?
World-Jumper: ...Give me that cannon, and get out.
Marvin: Oh come on! I just got that— *portaled back to RC*
World-Jumper: Hmph. Asking me when his mission is finished after 8 months. How rude. *looks at Bass Cannon* ... Well this is a fun little toy... Hehehehe...
That...
That...
That is THE COOLEST THING EVER
First time I hear that. And my job is way less interesting than you think; I mainly shuffle pieces of paper around. And change tuners.
I spend my days producing the 3D CAD models and associated drawings that go out to subcontractors for manufacture.
It also means that I can use the CAD software in my lunchbreaks, so I currently have a virtual chessboard, and have previously created models of various spacecraft.
Although now that the idea is in my head, I may have found something new to do during my lunchbreaks.
what does "CAD" stand for, in the context of your post?
For some reason, it didn't occur to me that 'CAD' has a different specific meaning over here.
In the context of my day job, CAD stands for Computer Aided Design - which basically just means that I produce technical drawings using a piece of software rather than pen and paper.
Not quite a zookeeper yet, but I think I have a good chance of getting one of the new openings within the next year-ish. Right now, I work as an attendant at the petting zoo, stingray touch tank, and invertebrate touch tank. I also volunteer with some of the zookeepers on off days, so I still get to do zookeepery stuff. (My goal is to maximize animal interaction, minimize customer relations interaction.
When I say 'again', I mean I've returned to get a secondary degree/technical certificate that'll give me the training I need to get moving towards an actual career in my chosen field.
I've recently (within the last two weeks) become a debt recovery agent, which basically means calling people on behalf of the company's clients and asking them to please repay their debts, and helping them do so in a way that won't make things worse. Still in training at the moment, but I hope to do some good once they let me loose.
(Before that I was part of the group often regarded by snobs as a drain on society and useless trash - in other words, unemployed and on government benefits.)
Well, that's what the certificate says anyway.
It exactly says "Specialized rotary wing aircraft assembly line technician" or something like that (I'm translating the title from Italian, and some stuff in it isn't exactly translatable.)
Which is just a fancy way to say that I can work on an aircraft assembly line.
Currently unemployed, but things should change soon, hopefully.
...which means I do homework all day, every day.
I'm also an aspiring astronomer, 'cause space is cool.
Sights like the Carina nebula are things that I wouldn't mind looking at all day long...
Picture credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team.
Looking at the night sky is honestly something. Fills me with a sense of wonder. Like "what is out there?" and "will we get up there?".
The Emperor... already conquered the galaxy so he knows I guess.
Neat, isn't it? This is a picture of the US East Coast.
New York City and Long Island are over on the right side of the picture.
Picture credit: NASA, International Space Station Expedition 30.
I'm actually a 14-year old high school student who is an aspiring writer.
The Emperor Protects!
Greetings, fellow young PPCer :)
I'm in 7th Grade.
I'm eleven. I hit my 12th birthday four days before Christmas. Which leaves me to wonder whether I'm the youngest...
~Autumn
A writer? Me?
Well, actually, this year I'm on the editing staff, which upgrades the job from a class, to... well, a job, with a ridiculously low paycheck. When the year's over, I'm going to quit the editing and go back to reporting; editing is not nearly as much fun as writing news.
...theatre professional by night.
Yeah, I run the print shop and mailroom for a company in downtown Chicago. I produce and send out various promotional materials for the company. When I'm not doing that, I function as a handy-man. I run around fixing printers and the soda machine and whatever else needs fixing. I'm also in charge of making sure supplies get ordered so we have coffee (run out of coffee and there will be a mutiny), paper, and the like. I pretty much keep the office running.
I am also a member of a theatre company. I've been the Company Manager there for a couple of years, though I am stepping down from that after the first of the year. I do a little of everything: acting, stage management, house management, basic tech, and directing (though I am new to that one).
-Phobos, jack of all trades
Though I have aspirations to become a librarian.
-Aila
...which is a fancy way of saying 'unemployed for about 95% of the time.' My only other major thing right now is my website, where I review games and applications for the iOS in both written and video form.
Am I right?
Could be that I'm a cynic with no money. Could be that I'm not a very good cynic. Could be that it was a name kept over from a previous project that was a hoighty-toighty reference to Poor Richard's Almanac.
So which one is it? I (obviously) guess that it was the first one (cynic with no money), but that last one is oddly specific.
I made up the name for a blog project that didn't get off the ground. I liked the name, so I decided to keep it. It's not the only one I use now, but it's still good.
I'm one of the younger ones here, which means I've just graduated from primary school. Er, and I haven't hit my 12th birthday yet. Soooooo...
~Autumn
as well. Or may be not, considering how old I am. I might change that anytime.
~Autumn
However, once I get into the work force, I hope to be doing something having to do with presentation and using my speaking voice. Perhaps voice acting, perhaps teaching, perhaps representing a company, or a safety man, or...
...Well, let's just say I'm keeping my options open. If I become a teacher, I hope it's social studies and/or history. We will see what happens.
The first chapter of Sergio Turbo's masterpiece (uh, maybe?) in the totally awesome Media Enhanced Writing (If it works...) is now avaible!
*notices weird stares*
Ahem... Let's try with a synopsis, shall we?
What looked like a normal mission for Sergio, Nikki and Corolla ends up being something bigger as canon characters disappear and ghosts from Sergio's past come back.
Says it all, doesn't it? Anyways, this multichapter story isn't exactly a "normal" PPC story, for two reasons:
1) It's more of the final actiom "movie" about Sergio and Nikki (to the point that the working title was Wings Of Canon: The Movie). All known loose ends and even some unknown ones will be fixed up by the end of it. For the same reason, though, it might not sit perfectly well with the PPC. If it doesn't, it won't be considered canon.
2) With this story I'm experimenting with built-in background music. It's a bit of a crude system, but I hope it works.
So, here it is. I worked something like one year and half, maybe even two on the plot of this thing. I hope it is good enough.
Thanks to Desdendelle, Firemagic and DawnFire for betaing.
http://wingsofcanon.blogspot.it/2013/12/blank-sprite-mission-report-01.html
http://rc1587.wordpress.com/2013/12/20/blank-sprite-mission-record-01/
I fixed up the grammar stuff pointed out (thank you all guys) and modified other things (changelog inside)
It should be more readable now.
and back at a computer where spell check works for English.
I would have removed the left would, but I’m really not sure whether this would be right or German written with English words.
HG
I end up with Italian written with English words quite often.
The indirect statement is a question, so the correct syntax is "how long the surveillance part would take."
MEW doesn’t work for me, it’s just distracting,. But that’s only me. I never understood how my brother could listen to music and do homework at the same time. I can imagine that it works for others when it technically works smoothly (obviously it doesn’t at this stage of evolution).
Concerning the story, my knowledge of Puella Magi Madoka Magica and of Alarm für Cobra 11 is very limited, and I know Sakura and Nanoha only from reading your missions, but I still want to know what will happen next. So this obviously works.
Grammar problems:
Why it isn’t in the manual?
Shouldn’t this be Why isn’t it in the manual?
.
as there was no indication of how long would the surveillance part would take
There is one would too much?
HG
I quite enjoyed the music, but two of the players (the one right before "Sergio raised a hand to stop her as he noticed the lights of a vehicle coming through the curtains." and the last one) didn't work, for some reason.
The story itself was quite good, though, (despite my non-anime-ish knowledge; seriously, I know none of the involved continuums) and I can't wait to see where you're going with this. Good luck!
-Aila
Well, I like the plot, and the... intrigue, I guess, that's building up in it. The mystery, maybe. And I like the idea of the MEW (have to ask - did you get the notion from my Pistons of the Plot Continuum, which also featured clips of music, though admittedly not embedded?).
What didn't particularly grab me was some of the implementation. Now, partly that's the lack of paragraph breaks (you know what I mean) throwing me off, and partly I think it's a 'this isn't the writing style I usually read' thing - but it's also linked to some specific things. Things like your characters leaping to conclusions - such as that Nanoha will be next - and they just... happen to be right. It takes a Sherlock Holmes to get that much information from a sample size of two - and the only reason he can do it (as Sam Vimes would tell you) is that he has the writer on his side.
Another thing that doesn't work for me is lines like 'either Nanoha accidentally blasted up something in Germany and the GSG9 anti-terrorist unit is after her'. Er... say what? Is this something from the canon, or something from another canon that just features submachine guns, or what? I'm guessing there is a logic to it - but it's a reference to something I have no connection to. In fact, there's nothing fandom-y in there for me to latch on to. That's not really a criticism, of course - but it's a reason I can't get into it.
I'm also wondering whether you've recently read Jasper Fforde. The line about 'Besides, isn’t this truck too... definite?' doesn't seem to follow from the 'they're Defectives' discussion. It would, however, fit nicely with Fforde's generics. Alternately, I guess you could be going for 'Suvians don't plan that well', but the word 'definite' throws me off.
While I'm talking (and will I ever stop?) you also have a small amount of repetition. Things like Sergio explaining why he doesn't like the Codec, only for Anne to respond with, 'You aren’t a fan of it, am I right?'. Well, no, he's not a fan - it gives him headaches, for one thing.
But as I said at the beginning, I do like the plot. I kind of hope that you'll drive the writing style a little further into action-military, actually; at the moment it reads as a cross between that and a mission, which isn't a comfortable hybrid. Once they're off-mission, the style can really come out (though of course keeping the PPC humour in place).
Anyway, good luck! Big stories are always hard, I know.
hS
Nanoha has quite an habit of... uh... making friends by blasting them up with magical beams. Usuallly with quite a bit of collateral damage.
There's a reason The Nanoha Trio (me, Desdendelle and Firemagic) often does team missions in that continuum... and it's the powerlevels.
GSG9 is Germany's anti-terrorist unit, and the van's license plate was German.
So, the joke pretty much was "either they're our kidnappers, or Nanoha just blasted up someone there and is wanted as a dangerous terrorist"
The jumped to the right conclusion thing actually has a reason. Let's just say that it is the other way round...
I actually didn't read the Pistons and Fforde. I kinda came up with the MEW on my own, just inspired by fanfiction with suggested soundtrack. I just made things easier by adding the music itself instead of just the name, but it messed up the paragraphing.
About the equipment thing, I though that bits like Defectives would have generic stuff.
Thank lyou for the concrut!
Namely, I can't scroll effectively because the blog is covering my scroll bar with stuff that pops out from the side about a "Blog Archive" at the top and a thing that says "Send feedback" at the bottom. I can scroll using the arrow keys on my keyboard, but anytime I click a music player I have to re-click on the text to get my scrolling capability back, and it's a pretty big hassle to have to go up and down to click stuff in the first place. I'd have to go without the music to get through it with a minimum of scrolling irritation.
Also, the lack of double line-breaks or indents to set off new paragraphs is a serious turn-off for me under any circumstances. I don't want to ever have to guess whether a paragraph continues onto the next line or whether it's just that the last sentence is the right length on my screen to look like the paragraph is continued with the next sentence.
Sorry. {= (
~Neshomeh
... When I get out of hospital, that is. Atrial fibrillation isn't a good thing.
Since the Media Enhaced Writing was pretty much a fiasco (hey, did you know it is the Italian word used for a kind of straw-covered bottle used for wine, but also used to designate utter failure like in English?) I decided to drop it and use my usual mission blog (thus getting rid of the sidebars)
The right music can help setting the atmosphere, but my attempt to mix it with writing simply needs far more advanced html-fu. And it might not work even then.
And your idea of having BGM to go with the story is a very innovative one. Find someone who can tweak the HTML more, and you might have a winner on your hands.
I'm intrigued with the idea of this story, and I don't think that this will run afoul of the no-emergencies rule. Granted, I am relatively new, but unless I am mistaken, the problem with PPC Emergencies was that they affected EVERY PPCer, so if a Boarder was unwary, he'd be setting a mission in the midst of an emergency. But IMO, something like this, if handled correctly, might not run afoul of that. Of course, an Oldbie might have a different idea.
As for the story itself, it's pretty well-written. A few gripes:
"Wake up Corolla and come out, you were right!”
It should be "Wake Corolla up and come out; you were right!" When you are telling someone to wake someone else up, the name goes between the words "wake" and "up." Also, if the two independent clauses are supposed to be said as one sentence, then a semicolon, not a comma, should connect them, hence the semicolon before "you were right!"
The male Agent took his Benelli M4 shotgun from it, and kept rifling through the shelves in search of something else.
You have a misplaced pronoun: What does "it" refer to? Apparently, you meant for the pronoun to stand in place of the Benelli's shelf, so say so:
"The male Agent took his Benelli M4 shotgun from its shelf, and kept rifling through the shelves in search of something else."
“Well, I was keeping it ready as an emergency weapon,” Sergio justified himself, “those tend to be useless without bullets.”
Was he saying one sentence or two? Consider these fixes:
“Well, I was keeping it ready as an emergency weapon,” Sergio justified himself, “and those tend to be useless without bullets.”
“Well, I was keeping it ready as an emergency weapon,” Sergio justified himself. “Those tend to be useless without bullets.”
Keep up the good work, and I, for one, want to see where this story goes.
I don't think this runs afoul of the emergency rule; it's being kept quiet for that selfsame purpose, that is so there won't be widespread chaos (more than the usual for HQ, anyway).
I think that so far, even if its tone is a little more serious than the PPC would bring you to expect, it's got a good atmosphere to it. I also like how we're setting up quite a bit of intrigue right away, both on Sergio's personality and on what's going on around them. And even now, I get the sense they may be related, though I trust that'll be revealed soon enough.
Really, I think that's the strength of this so far. I want to read more about what's going to happen to these characters, and I want to see how this'll pan out. So on that, this is successful.
I also like the subtle ways that you've allowed the SO to have a little more dimension. The Flowers are tricky bastards to write for, and I think you've given the SO new dimension without making it seem OOC for him. So good job on that.
If I had anything to complain about, I'd complain about the embedded background music. I found it did match what was going on, but I don't know, I don't think that BGM really works in a written setting where people can finish reading the music in question before they're done. It's a nice idea, but in practice it can be very distracting when it comes to reading. So going forward with the remainder, I would suggest not using the background music.
But other than that, this is turning out to be pretty damn good so far, so keep up the good work!
So I thought I should come on here and say hi, as the wiki suggests.
My name, if you haven't met me before, is Cloud. I am an internet lurker, and a dabbler in many things, who uses the same username for absolutely everything that catches my attention.
I found the PPC through a beautifully written story/mission that I later found out be part of one on the spinoffs. Although I no longer recall the agents, the story they fixed was "Cupcakes"-a story I have loved to hate since the moment I read it.
I later found the original series through TV-Tropes, which I immediately devoured. As I've run out of the original series, I would like to delve into the various spin-offs, as well as the community as a whole.
So, uh, all rambling aside...
Please come talk to me, I am very lost. Excited! But lost.
Hello Cloud, nice to meet you :)
Here's some wilver string, a bled book and some turnips.
Have popcorn, a broken sword, and a small mountain of fudge!
I'm 99Hedgehog but just call me 99. Have a pet Carnifex!
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Carnifex#.Uq6HPvQW3kd
The Emperor Protects!
Welcome to the PPC! We love newbies here, so come on in, take your shoes off, and leave your sanity at the door!
As a welcome gift, I would like to present to you some music by Bruno Maderna: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djcJmstljXs
Welcome, friend! Please leave your sanity at the door as it is quite unneeded here.
That said, have a cup of tea, just don't let the leaves eat you. Also, let me recommend Neshomeh's missions; her spinoff is one of the funniest around.
Hello and welcome!
I hereby give to you one of my signature lined Infinite Notebooks, complete with urple covers and wilver bindings. Be careful with thine eyes!
Oh, and as for spinoff recs, I'd say all the Blackout interludes, beginning with Lily's. And also the Chirstianne and Eledhwen missions. And, for that matter, lots of others.
-Aila
Welcome to the PPC! My name is sonofheaven176, and you'll likely be seeing me either pushing my story or asking questions of everyone on the Board! (Please check out those links!) I'm usually the one giving the standard questions (How did you run across the PPC? Did you read the Constitution? Did you read the Original Series? What are your fandoms?), but it seems that you've answered those questions in another post, so I don't have to ask! Yay!
As for your newbie gift:
*rummages through bag of holding*
Here you go! Have a Rapidash, known in the brony fandom as angry Twilight Sparkle.
Lovely to meet you. Let me gift you this Rolling Stones CD, a copy of the Silmarillion, a piece of lemon cake, and an Infinite Pen with Urple ink. Never runs out of ink, it's just painful to look at. ;)
Let me recommend Suicide and Diocletian's missions, if you need more PPC to read.
I'll definitely read them next then. Once I figure out how to navigate around the site and the spin-offs, anyway. This place could use a map. Or maybe I'm just paying too much attention.
then you should look at the List of Killed Badfic if you know which fandoms you want to see missions in, or The (in)Complete List of PPC Fiction in order to read missions by particular Agents or particular Departments. Personally, I like the Department of Technical Errors.
Happy reading!
Now there's what I was looking for!
Thanks, that's a huge help.
Here is the proper URL: http://ppc.wikia.com/wiki/The_Complete_List_of_PPC_Fiction
http://plotprotectors.tripod.com/ This website has not only their missions, but a bunch of others' missions and PPC stories.
Welcome! *rummages for bottles of Bleepolate milk to dump on Cloud* Here you go!
Tell us more about yourself. What are your fandoms? No need to be shy.
I see you are rather lost here. Have you read the links given at the top of this page? If you haven't, here's the links:
Articles of the PPC Constituition
FAQ: For Newbies
On Permission To Write PPC Stories
Other links include:
FAQ: The Board
Guide to the PPC
Mission Writing Guide
Happy reading! And enjoy the PPC!
~Autumn
And yes, I've read the constitution, the FAQ for both newbies and the board in general, and the permission thing for new PPC stories. I'd like to add to this awesome series someday, buuut, not anytime soon.
I've been looking for that Guide though, thanks!
As for fandoms, let's see, what would my main ones be...
Probably, MLP:FiM, One Piece, Black Butler(manga only), Arrow, Harry Potter, Bleach, annnd Vocaloid, I think. They're the things I'm most inspired by, at least.
Because I did, after buying it for a friend (I had to read it before I gave it to her, shh), and... well. Spoilers below.
So in Redshirts, the main characters become aware that they're part of a sci-fi television show and that the stupid things they are doing is the result of the influence of something they call the narrative. They then decide to go back to a time when their show is being aired, and essentially stop the show so they don't get killed.
I'm wondering how applicable that is to, say, the world of the PPC. Say, in a twist like in Suedom, some OC is suddenly thrown under the influence of the Words and turned into a Mary Sue, and becomes aware that this is what is happening to them. In that case, if say two PPC Agents went after her, how would they attempt to rid the world of the Suefluence without killing what has suddenly become a self-aware Sue?
And who'd read a story like that?
I think that concept could work well. My only question is how would the Agents involved notice that the Sue had become self-aware?
While I'm sure a Sue could have that realisation, Assassins generally don't stop for a friendly chat with Sues. I'm just not sure how they'd notice they were dealing with anything other than a regular Sue.
As for how they would deal with the situation, assuming that they'd been made aware of it, I've got a couple of ideas. An exorcism would probably be worth trying, as would taking the Sue out of the continuum and seeing if she still suffered from bouts of 'Narrative Influence' or whatever.
It's certainly an interesting idea - I'd read a story like that.
Me and a friend of mine, as soon as we get permission, will be writing a mission for Life of Cristancia. That is possibly bad parody, and having Cristancia become aware of the fact that she's stupid, and basically an instrument for either a fantasy or a dumb attempt to emulate My Immortal, and she could team up with the agents before purposely imploding herself to bring the universe back to normal?
I would definitely read a story like that. What kind of fandom would the OC turned Sue be part of? It's an interesting idea and it reminded me that I need to work on my plug about a Sue gaining self-awareness and some self-loathing.
But I would totally read this.
Well, I would for one. I love self-aware characters and narrators- They're fascinating!
I have a couple of friends that also read PPC that would be rather interested in it too.
I can't speak for the others on the forum though, as I haven't met anyone yet, I'm really really new.
Out of curiosity, which universe would you be writing this story in?
Add my Dad to that list too, then.
He won't admit it, but he's a total trekkie. A very sane, reasonable one, but still.
I think my favorite 'Sue parody comic was a Star Trek one.
Or at least our modern understanding of her.
Is that, by any chance, Ensign Sue Must Die? Because I adore that comic. I'm thinking of titling this piece, if I get around to it, "The Brief Life of Ensign Sue".
And that doesn't even count the old-timey sporkings of Sueish characters in older literature.
In that case, I very much look forward to seeing it.
Should a distinction be made between character and person if any missions are ever written? I mean, say if there's a Suefic and the sue is for ASFJerome(a Minecraft Youtuber). This fic doesn't mention World One at all or whether ASFJerome is a bacca(Wookie) or not. Would it be treated like a separate character named Jerome or transporting actual ASFJerome into Minecraft?
Or what about the ones that clearly take place in Minecraft, but reference, say, BajanCanadian's (another Youtuber) nationality in a world with no countries? Should that be treated as RPF or not?
I only ask because of the prevalence, if that is the word, of badfics for the Youtubers that say that they only ship the Minecraft skin, which is bizarre because they're apparently shipping an entirely unattractive collection of blocky pixels on a screen.
I would say that most YouTubers would fall under Real Person Fic. That said, if it were somebody like the Yogscast, where they have a clear character personality and world of their own, then that should qualify as sporkable. When Suethors write about Simon, they are (usually) writing about Honeydew the dwarf who likes to diggy diggy holes, not the overweight Brit who plays video games all day and stuffs his gob full of Jaffa Cakes. Just saying.
(While we are on the subject, PPC Englishmen, what do Jaffas taste like anyway? Are they near as good as Simon makes them sound? As an American, I have no access to them without paying quite a bit online, so I have to ask those who know.)
Actually, can Minecraft fics be missioned anyway? It has no plot, no characters, no real timeline, unless you count the development one. Any story we would try to kill could be argued for as original fic, and so falls outside of our jurisdiction. Thinking about it, I would argue that only smaller, defined universes set in the wider Minecraft 'verse would be workable. Like if there was a Sue running about in Minecraftia from Shadow of Israphel, or the kingdom in CaptainSparkles' music videos, it could be killed.
And yes, before anybody asks, I would think that Minecraft minis would be mini-Creepers. However, the right to create the minis falls to those who make either the first Minecraft fic mission or Minecraft OFU. After all, if I were the final voice in mini creation, we would have mini-Hydras for Percy Jackson and mini-Daleks for Doctor Who. I would not want to take that right away from those who do create these stories. I'm just throwing my opinion out there.
I understand how just Minecraft fics shouldn't count as sporkable. It's just, some fics are so character de-railing and, and...they're some sorta weird RPF hybrid too and ugh, I just can't. Plus, I think Team Crafted sort of counts as a "smaller, defined universe", right? And the Yogscast isn't my fandom, so I can't really say anything about it.
On minis, I always thought they'd be mini-Ghasts. For Percy Jackson...mini-hydras sound good. Maybe mini-Chimeras, though? Poisonous, and fiery.
Nominating Chicken Jockeys as this 'verse's mini.
Baby zombies are bad enough: they don't burn in the sun, can fling themselves out of 1x1 holes in mines into your face, run at near supersonic speeds, and produce what is arguably the next-most terrifying sound that is not a (cave) spider or a Ghast.
Now, they can stalk you over continents and parachute safely into your base using their mounts.
...I need to build myself a lava moat.
Luna's Mane, that thing is scary. Here I thought Spider Jockeys were bad enough!
I guess it's a good thing I don't play unmodded Minecraft anymore. Currently, I'm mostly playing Hexxit. It's a cool little modpack, with a more fantasy, adventure feel to it then the Technic pack. Don't get me wrong, I like science as much as the next guy, but Hexxit fits my play style better. Hopefully those things are not a part of it for a long time!
...But I still say mini-Creeper. It's the most iconic creature in the game! That mob is part of why the game is as infamous as it is! Besides, there is already a mod for them! Look at them:
AWW!!!
A mini which exists solely to blow itself up? That's just... mean.
hS
Maybe the mini version could just blow other stuff up or something? Rule of Funny n'all.
As evidenced here. They just puff up, sizzle out and look cute.
Not sure what happens if they grow up, though.
And they do fit the theme of 'major monster but not the main villain, rendered cute by being tiny'. I'm not sure how many will actually show up, though... how hard is it to spell 'zombie'?
(And, for that matter, if it's a generic term... if a story said a character killed a 'peg', would that be a mini, or would it be a, you know, clothes peg?)
hS
Yeah but Zombie's aren't a major monster, creepers are the renowned and most feared mob in Minecraft.
In the example it'd be a mini because pegs don't exist in Minecraft, I'd of thought. If they misspell a mob or something that once misspelt still exists as an object in minecraft then you just get the block or whatever there instead. Although I suppose that wouldn't work for fan nicknames of certain mobs (for example lot's of people call Villagers Testificates or Skeletons Skellingtons)
Storme Hawk
Hello fellow members of the PPC, I have decided to return to lurking (and occasionally posting on) this forum. You probably don't remember me, but last year I would post here as KittTheCat. I was immature, stupid, and was impatient with things. But today, I've decided to not be a douche and try again. So here goes.
My fandoms are: Dangan Ronpa, Attack on Titan, Free! Portal, Avengers, Frozen, Nichijou, and a few minor animes that nobody really likes.
I'm a n00b writer so don't expect anything too great. I guess that's it! ^_^
I also am a returnbie, though I didn't change my name (I just bugged off for a semester.)
Have chocolate, and a fake dobloon, and a jump rope!
You've created some NM&NMs. (The board automatically puts the nm on.)
Hey, everyone scramble for some bleepolate candies!
Hi, I'm also new.
YAY WE SHARE FANDOMS!!
Here's... um... here's a wilver 3D maneuver gear, some toothpicks and some brownies.
I also have an urple chitauri helmet.
Hey! Thank you ^_^
Hi!
Have an unlined (special for returnbies!) Infinite Notebook, featuring, as always, urple covers and wilver binding! Don't look at it too hard!
-Aila
Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but are you Kittythekatty, the one who wrote OFWho? I think not, but just asking...
Anyway, welcome back! Here's your newbie gift! *showers Kitteh with hard Bleepolate candy* Enjoy the PPC!
~Autumn
Actually not! I lft around the time that KittyTheKatty joined, and I actually commented on her username!
And it's basically that sometime we throw either an RP or an April Fool's joke where everyone makes posts as usual...but changes their usernames to include some form of Kit or Kat in it. So, y'know, I could be FireKit, Karen du Lay could be KittduKatt, Neshomeh could be SoulKitty, and don't ask me about other people, I'm out of ideas for the moment. But it could be hilarious...or maybe I'm just imagining that this would be funny because I've stayed up far too late on a day where I both saw a theater production of Les Mis and submitted a creative essay to be published? And oh yes, I'm excited about all that. That is--
*starts snoring*
Yup. Time for bed. Thanks for putting up with me and my randomness, anyone reading this :) You're awesome. Here, have a, um, Gummyblee Headphone. Yes. Those. Hi.
...good night.
~DF
that is actually quite a good idea for next year's April Fool's Day!
~Autumn
forgot MLP and a few creepypastas
I'm certain I'm not alone in this, but when I started off writing fanfiction. Well it wasn't good, I'll put it like that. Now, looking back at my first attempt at a fanfic that still lies abandoned in the Pit, and due to me going through a phase in my life where I'm looking back at what I once was and standing up to it, I'd like the Board's opinion on my first work, just how bad is it? is it sporkable or not? etc. etc.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8759278/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Guardians-of-Hogwarts
Many Thanks
Storme Hawk
"Hugglepuff" shows up in the last section of "Seeing is Revealing." *g*
I've only just skimmed through up to that point, but so far I think there is definitely what I'd consider sporking material present—mostly related to people acting OOC. The story is marked AU, so I'm willing to cut Thorne and Nova's "immortal guardians" deal and the whole fifth house thing a little slack if it turns out there's a good explanation for it, but stuff like Molly drugging Harry with love potion (which is illegal, not to mention something she'd never do), Dumbledore giving teaching positions to two people he doesn't know who just marched into Hogwarts bristling with weapons, Professor Binns being unceremoniously launched from the Great Hall by unexplained means, and Harry listening to a single word Thorne says after invading his mind without permission and then going "I'm sorry I went too deep," which basically amounts to "I'm sorry I got caught"... yeah, there's some silliness going on that simply being in an AU doesn't explain.
Also, Thorne at least definitely has some Aura of Smooth (see above note about Harry not distrusting him forever), and the two of them being above using charms for their SCUBA diving, plus having all their powerful connections and special abilities and their superior attitude about everything... yeah, they're a little wilver-sparkly.
That said, I was encouraged by the first author's note, which promised Thorne and Nova would fade into the background and let Harry be the main character. That's a respectable thing, if it really goes like that, and the story could conceivably work itself out of the questionable place it's currently in.
I don't know if I'll be able to read all of it, since it's kinda late right now and I don't know how much time I'll have this week, but I hope that's the kind of response you were looking for and wasn't too harsh. D'you, er, wanna see the schlock I wrote in the 8th grade for comparison? I had different problems, mostly to do with the prose being unbearably saccharine and also full of itself. >.
~Neshomeh
Yeah, most of those points I'd agree with, I know there are a couple of extra things that appear in the later chapters (like healing a broken arm stupidly quickly) that make no sense to me when I read through it now.
The First Author's note was really looking at the long term, I was writing Third Year as a base year to try and get everything sorted out, Fourth Year would be more focused on Harry and the school itself with the Tri-wizard and everything, and each year Thorne and Nova would become more support characters, before (at least Thorne) falling to the old 'Death of the Mentor' Trope. However I gave up at the end of Third Year, so I have no idea how it would of actually gone.
Thanks for looking through it. That's the sort of response I was hoping for, and no you weren't too harsh.
May just go straight up and claim it so I can have fun sporking it for my second mission (still working on the first)
Thanks once again
Storme Hawk
Because I might be a tyrant, but I'm no tyrant!
But seriously, I'd like to get some input from more than just one or two people here. It's your wiki, too, even if you never make a single edit.
1. Recently, a user (who has showed up on the Board, but not under their own username) wiped the content of our VeggieTales article and converted it to a page about their agent, for which they do not have Permission. I tried to contact them about this, but they have not responded.
The question here is not whether or not to get rid of the unauthorized and presumptive agent page. The question is whether or not we should bother restoring the VeggieTales page. I'm personally of the opinion that we don't need it, since there are no missions there and no agents from there, and it isn't otherwise of any particular significance to the PPC universe. I say we just delete it properly. What about you guys? Delete or restore?
2. While we're at it, what about these other candidates for deletion? They have been sitting around without being discussed for some time now.
I think I'd agree with deleting all the continuum pages. My usual criteria are 1. Are there any missions there? 2. Are there any PPC characters from there? 3. Are there a lot of pages that link to it? Is this topic important to the PPC? If the answers are "no," I don't think we need the page.
I'd also agree with deleting Cold's page, since there's no information about him and the only link to his page is from the Glossary's Talk page.
I'm not sure about Suichi Sanders. I think maybe the content should be merged with Anamia Sanders, since they have a shared backstory.
As for the images, you can actually see all unused image files here. If you've got files there that you're not using anymore, would you please delete them if you can or else mark them for speedy deletion? (You can do the latter with the template {{Speedydelete}}, or just add the category "Candidates for speedy deletion".) Thanks!
3. So Wikia has rolled out a new version of itself that's more friendly to mobile devices and such. With that has come a new WYSIWIG editor they're calling VisualEditor. I use source mode, so I don't particularly care about this, but I know plenty of people prefer the current rich text editor. Do you guys want an admin to switch on the new VisualEditor so you can try it out? I hear it's got some problems, but so does the current RTE, and they won't get fixed unless people find them and tell Wikia.
4. Might we want to replace the current User Talk pages with message walls? This would allow you to be notified when someone responds to a conversation you're in on someone else's wall, which is a major improvement over only being notified when someone posts on your own talk page. The downside (at least for me) is that message walls can't be formatted like other pages, so in my case I'd lose the section I've got for story reviews and my other subheadings. Not that anyone ever bothers to NOTICE and USE them anyway; I almost always have to sort new posts after the fact. So I'm okay with losing that. --;
5. Uh... anybody else wanna bring up something wiki-related for discussion? (Just don't ask me about the Mary Sue article. I am very busy right now. I will get to it when I get to it.)
~Neshomeh
P.S. How do you all like the new format I've been using to spruce up department and division pages? If you haven't noticed, check out the current <a href="http://ppc.wikia.com/wiki/DepartmentofMarySues">DMS, DBS, DIC, and DF articles, then compare them to the rest. (I've also done a number of divisions in the DMS, DBS, and Floaters, but I'm not gonna link all those.)
~Neshomeh
Looks like we're all in favor of deleting the VeggieTales/Olivia Fries page. It is done!
As for the rest, it's a little fuzzy, but here's what I've got:
2. Candidates for deletion
Continuum pages
- Delete all continuum pages: 7
- Delete all except Trigun: 3
I'll go ahead and remove all but Trigun for now.
Cold's page
- Delete Cold: 6
- Keep Cold: 2
Most seem to be in favor of deleting it, but a few voiced their concern about losing something that might not be recoverable. My suggestion, then, is to move him to the Out of Continuity category. That way the information isn't lost, but he won't be sitting around being confusing in the main categories anymore.
Suichi Sanders' page
- Merge Suichi: 5
- Delete Suichi: 3
- Keep Suichi: 1
The majority seem to be in favor of not deleting the page. Anybody want to be in charge of merging the content with Anamia Sanders' page? I don't think I'll have time this week or next.
Unused images
Seems like we're in favor of deleting anything non-unique, that's been replaced by something else, but we might want to find a place for the likes of Zaneth. (Also, thanks to PoorCynic for actually marking his own old images for deletion as requested!)
3. VisualEditor
- Try it out: 5
- Leave it alone: 1
Lots of us are ambivalent about this—even most of the yeses took the tone of "eh, I guess." So, uh... I guess I'll turn it on? Anyone want to say anything else first?
4. Message Wall
- Turn on Message Wall: 5
- Leave it alone: 1
Same deal as above. This I'm even more hesitant to go ahead with, since they do outright replace the current User Talk pages. The content wouldn't be lost, just archived, but... ehhhh. Any further comments on this?
~Neshomeh
1) I vote to delete the page.
2) Go ahead with your suggestions. I doubt those pages had much traffic anyways.
3) 
Just do whatever. I don't really mind.
4) Sounds like a good idea!
5) Nothing to add, ma'am!
1) Regarding our VeggieTales page.
I dunno, about the user, honestly. I would've said,"Wait for her response!", but it seems that this user never, ever, seem to respond. So, I'll say go ahead and delete the VeggieTales page.
2) Regarding the Candidates for Deletion.
Yes, I'll agree with deleting all the continuum pages, since no agent I've heard of is involved with A Series of Unfortunate Events.
As for Cold's page, I'm not so sure...
For Suichi Sanders, I agree we should merge the content with Anamia Sanders.
3) Regarding the VisualEditor.
I almost always use mobile devices when I edit the wiki, and I'm perfectly fine with the source mode. Plus, I'm more familiar with it. But we could try using the VisualEditor for a while, to see whether it's better, or too buggy.
4) Regarding replacing our User Talk pages with message walls.
Yes, I do want to replace it with message walls. It seems more convenient that way.
5) Regarding more wiki questions.
Nope. Can't think of any, now, at least.
~Autumn
Although we more or less put the kibosh on adding characters to the wiki with no writing or anything behind them, we don't want to delete pages created before then with good content that people put work into. (Cold's page, by contrast, contains next to nothing, and he can't even be attributed to a known PPCer, since hS denied creating him.)
I'm personally rather serious about making sure the wiki is based on external primary and secondary sources, but because people have done a lot of original writing on it, there are cases where the wiki itself counts as a primary source. IMO, this is one of them.
~Neshomeh
1) I've never even heard of VeggieTales before, and the general consensus so far seems to be 'delete', so I'd say go with that.
2) Of the other candidates for deletion, I don't know much about most of them either, so don't really have an opinion. Deleting stuff that isn't relevant to the PPC sounds sensibel to me. Your criteria for judging whether or not a page is relevant seems good to me. 'Is this topic important to the PPC' could be a little tricky to quantify sometimes, but the others are nice and straightforward. And I can’t think of any other criteria to add that would be useful.
With specific regards to Trigun, I actually do have a mission in the works for that, although I've got no idea when it'll actually be published. If you think that makes it worth keeping the page, then keep it - and I'll do my best to justify that in a timely fashion. If not, then I'll just link to an offsite wiki when I have the mission done. I'll probably be doing a fair few missions in continua without their own pages (there's a reason my current agent pair are DMS/Freelance), and I wouldn't bother making a page for any of the other one-off visits I do. Don't really see the point in duplicating info if the only link between them and the PPC is 'one team went there once'.
As for Agent Cold, given that the entire page is about a dozen words, I don't really see the need for it. I would think that line could just be transferred to the 'C' section of the Glossary of PPC Characters. If more information turns up about him at a later date, then he could get his own page back.
3) Just want some clarification on this point: is the VisualEditor thing going to replace either of the existing options, or will it run alongside them?
4) Um... I don't think I've ever written on anyone's Talk Page, or had anyone write on mine, so I'm struggling to come up with an opinion on this one.
5) Nope
6) The updated Department pages look good, and I think the unified structure/layout is a big improvement. Nice work.
I'd be okay keeping the Trigun page around knowing that someone is actually working on a mission there. And, like doctorlit says, there's plenty of precedent for single-mission pages. IMO, it's useful to have them for people who might want to browse for missions that way. I suppose the Killed Badfic list also fills that function, but having an actual page is an opportunity to discuss the continuum in our own style, with a focus on what's important about it to the PPC. I agree there's not much point in having a page just to duplicate information from other places. {= )
I use "How many pages link here?" as my qualifier for "Is this page important?" I'll sometimes also do a search for the term in question to see if other pages mention it without actually linking to it.
Re. Cold, I'm afraid putting him in the Glossary isn't a solution, since the Glossary is explicitly only for characters that a) are Permiss'ed, and b) have something written about them or otherwise proving they exist to link to offsite, however minor. If we could find any mention of him anywhere in a permitted spinoff, then we could do that.
VisualEditor will eventually replace the current Rich Text Editor. It will run alongside source mode, just as the RTE does.
~Neshomeh
But you can happily leave creation of continuum pages to me, if you would prefer. I like making those, and mini pages as well. I might hit you up for info, though. Researching whole news canons is tricky!
I guess I've mostly just been browsing the larger continuum pages.
As for leaving the page creation for you to do, well, I do think that's a very generous offer, but I also feel that I should take responsibility for my actions. If/when I do publish missions in a new continuum, I will make at least a basic page for it on the wiki.
Others can come in and fancy it up later.
Would that be in addition to the current Rec Center setup?
I'm not sure I like the idea of putting lists of fics on continuum pages. Seems like an invitation for anyone to drop anything they like on it without quality control—which is fine for the personal recommendations, but putting it on the page itself is more like a stamp that says "The PPC Endorses These Stories," which can't really be true unless a bunch of us actually read them and agree on it, in which case they're probably Legendary Goodfic.
So, er, in other words, please do elaborate! I may not be understanding what you mean at all. ^_^;
Re. Talk pages, apparently you can follow someone else's User Talk (I just followed yours). I don't think you necessarily get notified when someone edits a followed page, though. Maybe that's something you can alter in your preferences. I'll have to poke around and see.
~Neshomeh
I love the Rec Centers and use them myself, but since they are ordered by users, it makes it kinda difficult to look up fics from your favourite canon.
Also, the PPC promotes good writing and goodfics, but that isn't very prominent on our wiki. Missions are easy to find, but you have to look for pages like lists of people willing to beta and the Rec Centres. Even the Legendary Goodfic from LOTR are featured neither on the LOTR of the LOTR fandom pages. I wouldn't mind a more visible promotion of goodfics.
I have had some of the same thoughts as you, about how to ensure quality control. Great minds do think alike, after all. :D
I imagined a sort of formalized nomination system, to ensure that there’s a filter in place.
Basically, what I had in mind is a process along the lines of:
1) Boarder A (you would not need Permission, but you should at the very least have introduced yourself on the Board) recommends a fic on the continuum’s talk page, not the page itself. The nomination includes a short description and warnings, if any apply. For the rest of the process, this recommendation counts as a yes-vote.
2) The fic then sits on the talk page until at least two other Boarders have read the fic and given it an enthusiastic yes. It is then moved to the actual page for the continuum and signed with the names of all three yes-voters. Everyone gets cake.
3) If one or two of the Boarders vote no, it gets booted. Possible to an archive list, so people don’t nominate a fic that has already been rejected. (Maybe the fic can get another chance if, say, two more Boarders vote and it gets three yes-votes in all. That way, it would be more of a best-out-of-five-contest.)
This is the basic idea. All the specifics are of course up for debate, such as how many votes are actually needed and what constitutes an 'enthusiastic yes'. Maybe also a rule that says that we can only nominate works that are either finished or have been long abandoned, so that we don’t approve a fic that later goes bad.
So yeah, that's the basic idea.
Re. Followed pages. It is probably a preferences thing. I have gotten email updates when pages I follow (such as Dragon Age) have been edited. Although, it has been a while since last time, so it is possible that they've changed it.
I can absolutely get behind more obvious promotion of goodfic. That's a great goal.
I'm still leery of sticking lists of fic right on the continuum pages, though. You'd have to explain the process of how to nominate a fic on every single page to prevent people from thinking they can add things on a whim, and it could easily be cluttered.
My solution to that would be to take advantage of the "In Fanfiction" sections that most continuum pages have (and all of them could have). You could link from there to the rec page for that continuum, which could take the form of "[Continuum Name]/Goodfic Recs" —or maybe "PPC Rec Center/[Continuum]", incorporating the continuum rec pages into the existing Rec Center.
The process you suggest sounds good to me, but my only other concern is that you may have your hopes set too high for the likelihood of enough people participating to make it work. I don't know a remedy for that (except coming here, jumping up and down, and waving my arms around, that is). {= (
~Neshomeh
Having /Goodfic Recs pages would serve the purpose just as well and would mean that we don't clutter up the continua pages or their talk pages. I would still suggest making the recommendations on the talk page for the Goodfic Recs page.
I also still think a voting process would be a good idea. (And it has nothing to do with the fact that I have concocted an elaborate voting system and now I've grown overly fond of my own idea and want to see it used. Nope, not at all.)
As for how many people will participate, I imagine that it will vary much depending on the continuum. I realise that with some of the lesser known canons, a fic can sit on the talk page for quite some time, maybe indefinitely. But I don't think it can be helped, except by making more goodfic threads, which I personally wouldn't mind.
I don't know how many of the other Boarders have noticed this sub-thread, but I could make a new thread, outlining the idea and see how many think it would be something they would like to participate in?
Ooh, this is kind of OT, but here's a thought I just had for promoting goodfic: what about starting something like a book club, where every month somebody picks a fic they like and everyone else who's in the club has to read it? Sure, you'll most likely end up reading things in fandoms you don't know, but if the fic is good enough, maybe it'll get you interested enough to check out the original work. Then there could be a discussion about the fic, and if it's well-received, it can go on the rec list. This could be in addition to the other nomination process.
I'd probably participate in that, though I might be hard-pressed to come up with fics for reading myself.
~Neshomeh
I'd participate, now that I know about it.
-Aila
1) Another vote for deletion. If we ever get a VeggieTales mission, the article can be recreated then.
2) I'd roll Suichi into Anamia's page, and delete the rest.
3) Not using a mobile device, I'll leave this up to those who do.
The new editor isn't just for people who use mobile devices, it applies to all users. Updating the editor is part of a general movement on Wikia's part toward greater mobile accessibility, though. (Apparently an increasingly large percentage of people are accessing the Internet from smartphones and tablets these days.)
Also, it will eventually replace the current RTE anyway. We have a choice of switching it on early if we want to get used to it and give feedback on it before we're forced to convert. I don't know when that's slated to happen.
~Neshomeh
Since the information about him is only "he is male" and "he works in the Department of Finance", would expanding on him from that basic framework step on anyone's toes? He could always return in some future story, in the honored tradition of bringing back minor characters to serve a purpose in some new plot development, but only if the writer of that new story was allowed to give him more description than just those two small facts. As it is now, we don't even know what species he is.
If the uncertainty means that no one can do anything with him, I say the page should be dropped, but if the uncertainty means that he can be expanded upon, there's still at least a partial reason to keep the page.
I'd actually been toying with including Cold in a side-story I'd write once I got permission, but that inclusion would have established his species and a few personality traits, so if expanding on him is a no-go, then I'd have to shelve that idea.
Given the concerns about losing a trace of history, we could just move him to the Out of Continuity category with a note that he could possibly return to continuity if any information is found about him. Sorry I didn't think of it sooner!
I don't know how I feel about someone else just picking him up and using him. We don't even know who he belongs to, so it's impossible to get any kind of consent. Plus, if we ever do find him, we might end up with contradictory information on our hands, and that would be a bother.
~Neshomeh
There's not much that putting his article Out of Continuity would solve that couldn't be solved the same way by deleting it. Plus, if we find something on the original Cold, if he even existed(it's possible that Cold's was one of the many articles created prior to the in-story appearance of the character it details, though I'll admit that's a little unlikely since Huinesoron, the only editor on Cold's page, admits in his talk that he doesn't know where Cold came from) and the one-sentence existing article had previously been deleted, there's nothing stopping someone from just creating a new article with the new information, but putting it under the same name. As for the "losing a trace of history" concerns, I'm not sure they're entirely valid, since the little information we have doesn't exactly support him being in the history at all, and if he doesn't have a place, he can't be expanded upon, and he can't be properly categorized, I'd say it would be simpler to delete the page and resurrect it later on the off chance someone finds something than to spend lots of effort searching for a mention of this guy to justify a two-sentence article's continued existence.
Honestly, I've never really liked the Out of Continuity section. I can see the point in it, like if people want to find information on the Dusk'n'Dawn unauthorized spin-off or the Chliever spin-off that was removed from PPC canon by its author, but there are also several articles that are in there when they could or should be deleted, such as the pages on the two agents that were created before their author attained Permission, only for said author to vanish before updating the pages or receiving said Permission. If we start a precedent for moving things to the Out-of-Continuity section rather than removing them entirely, then... well, I don't know what exactly would happen, but it probably won't benefit the wiki. It's probably not going to form a huge problem, either, but I don't think it would be for the best if the Out of Continuity section gets bigger than it needs to be.
I have absolutely no authority to assign tasks, but I'm gonna try anyway. {= P
It seems to me that the only way to properly resolve this is to find out where the heck Cold came from, or else determine once and for all that he came from nowhere. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is nothing less than the Quest for Cold. *cue theme music*
I've saved you some trouble by going through hS's Webplex earlier this morning—most of it, anyway. Everything in the Agents section and most of the History section. Nothing else looked too promising. I think you can also disregard Tawaki's spin-off, since I've been over that with a fine-toothed comb many times. Were I to continue the search myself, I'd start with the spinoffs of agents hS has adopted over the years. There's a list of these on his User page. Good luck, and godspeed!
... Or not. Up to you!
~Neshomeh, who would do it if she weren't about to leave for a week and a half and thus busy preparing.
Unfortunately I can't access the Wiki at work, but my guess at the chain of events is this:
-Someone Unknown adds Cold to the Glossary.
-Someone suggests on the Glossary's talk page that he must be mine.
-I disagree.
-I make a page for him.
Because I have no idea where he came from. I don't think any of my adopted agents are relevant - they all either predate the Department of Finance (Vemi) or post-date Cold's mention (the Building Maintenance team). I've also checked over the two relevant History stories (Reorg and CD), and he's definitely not in there.
I've also also checked the Board. Every mention of the word 'finance' can be found by the Search function, and he's not there. Neither does he appear as 'Agent Cold'. The word 'cold' is too general, sadly. As for 'Clover'... nope. Unfortunately, the Board only goes back to 2008, so if it's before that, no chance.
Um... I have an archive of every thread title that can be salvaged from before the Board archives begin... 'cold' appears once, in another context; 'finance' also appears once, referring to the PPC Manual, which he's not in.
The other person to have been particularly involved with Finance (sort of) was Keily, and her agent Keily Shinra... but searching 'ppc keily cold' gets me nothing mentioning him.
I don't know. My guess is that he's a simple name-drop somewhere, like Chiaroscuro of Legal. I don't suppose he comes from the same source as Fix-It? [Ducks]
hS
April 20, 2008, to be exact. I started the Glossary on February 8, 2011. Page histories, they help.
So no, he got on the Glossary's Talk page because he had a regular page with no links, and you must've had some other reason for making the page. My guess is the same as yours: he's a once-off bit character who's mentioned once somewhere. You must've come across him, and since you like Infrastructure, you took the time to add him (but not where he came from), and here we are now.
And no, he's not from the same place as Fix-It. I just checked. It would have been funny, though!
~Neshomeh
Well, bang goes that theory. Hrm. Pretty sure Crashing Down was done and dusted by '08... actually, I don't think I was really working on anything at that point. Hmm... my Board stats suggest I was at least actively posting, though.
Bother it all, this is just annoying. How hard can it be to track down one stupid character?
hS
There has, so far, been no mention of "Cold" outside of mentions of cold temperature or cold expressions, and almost all of what I haven't gone through has either been purged or are some of those spin-offs that post one mission and vanish into nothingness. The big sites that host multiple spin-offs don't have him, which means to find Cold's original mention, if it's still around, I'd need to rummage around in whichever miscellaneous livejournals I've missed so far. In summation: oh, bother.
You mentioned some of your Agents predating the Department of Finance, Huinesoron. About when was the DoF introduced? It would help me eliminate some of this potpourri.
... is first mentioned in the beginning of The Reorganisation, which dates to... looks like March 2005. And, obviously, we know Cold existed before April 2008, when his wiki page got made.
Hmm... one thing you might want to look into is the revision history for the Wiki's Main Page around that time. If Cold appeared in a mission, it may well have been posted there - it's a heap of files to look through, but less than the sum total of all PPC.
hS
I think I like the idea of putting a note on list entries that come from Board discussions or off-hand mentions. That way the information is there for anyone trying to look up that particular mini, but it won't appear to be set in stone.
On a related note, d'you wanna come up with some kind of standard format for the mini articles themselves? It's quite the hodge-podge right now. I recently cleaned up the "Mini/A-Team" page on a whim, but then I realized I really don't want that job. >.
~Neshomeh, picking her battles.
Or rather, I already had. I've just been working at veeeeeery sloooow speed. Once I get my next mission up (finished it six months ago, sheesh) I'm going to focus on the mini pages a bit more.
Oh, and on the A-Team minis, I think the movieverse mini-Lynch would be an example of what I mentioned in my earlier post, a suggested idea that was never officially published (need to double-check to be sure) so I'll take care of finding the source there.
While I'm thinking of it, I believe one of your agents is the owner of the only mini-Budong? Are there still any plans to finish that Farscape mission?
-doctorlit, who likes to list and categorize things, yes he does, and he will make the pages so pretty, my Precious, yes . . .
You are correct. Sadly, that mission will never be completed, because my copy of the badfic was corrupted in a change of computers and it doesn't seem to exist anywhere online anymore. I don't think it was very missionable to begin with, honestly, but I was new and shiny and overexcited. ^_^;
As for the rest, godspeed and good editing to you, sir!
~Neshomeh
I can see what happened. In the Yu Yu Hakusho mission, "Captured by the Breeze," a mini-Tree is mentioned twice.
"'Not our department, thank Inari,' Kit replied, idly patting the mini-Tree."
"Teena muttered, going over to cuddle her beloved mini-Tree."
(Remember that Kit and Teena are basically the same person.)
Somebody saw these mini-Trees and, knowing that Yu Yu Hakusho has something called a Death Tree, assumed those were the minis of YYH, then listed them on the mini page. However, a few paragraphs above that first line I quoted, we get this line.
"The dragon [this is Wyldehorse] immediately started tumbling about with the mini-Balrog they had left behind, as a small, walking sakura tree approached the youko." [The youko could be either Wyldehorse or Teena, but that's not important here.]
Death Trees are, from what I've been able to research, made all or mostly from roots:
and definitely don't look much like a sakura (Japanese for cherry blossom tree).
In fact, reading just a little further would have shed light on the confusion.
"Teena muttered, going over to cuddle her beloved mini-Tree. This was what Wylde saw when she finished her shower and came out. Not to mention heard.
'Yes, wouldums like somebody to eat, honey? Does sweet Suabru miss his Mommy when she's gone? Maybe Mommy will take oo along on the next mission, and oo can eat the nasty Sue's soul, wouldums like that, sweetie, of course you would!'"
So the mini-sakura is named Suabru. There's a character named Subaru in the manga X/1999. Subaru appears on a "prisoner" Tarot card in X, with the chains replaced by cherry tree branches. And Agent Teena just happens to be the coordinator of the Official Fanfiction University of X.
I think it's pretty clear that the "mini-tree" is a mini-sakura tree, and was Teena M's choice of mini at the OFUX. But what about Yu Yu Hakusho's mini-Death Trees?
I don't think mini-Death Trees ever existed. The only thing nearing a description of YYH minis is this, again from "Captured by the Breeze."
"'Ah, the minis have settled into their blobs,' Wylde noted, scooping them up quickly. 'I'm sure they'll like their little section of Companion's Field while they wait for a University.'
'Nice little evil Amorphous Mini,' Teena said, patting Yusuked. Then her attention was yanked back to what was going on nearby."
I'm pretty sure "Companion's Field" refers to Valdemar's minis, which were mini-Companions at the time this mission was written. (Wyldehorse wrote the Official Fanfiction Collegium of Valdemar, and later retconned her mini choice, but that's another story.) I was confused for a long time (including the beginning of this post, which has taken over ninety minutes to write) because I couldn't find any reference to any "amorphous" or "blobby" creatures in Yu Yu Hakusho. I finally figured out that the authors referred to the minis as "amorphous" because no OFU yet existed for YYH. Two have since been written, but neither names a mini type, and haven't been updated since 2002 and 2006, respectively.
So . . . What now? I think we should simply remove the Yu Yu Hakusho listing from the mini page, since it never actually existed. It can then be open for standard mini invention by anyone who publishes a YYH mission (which it technically has been all this time, without anyone realizing it). I just want to double check that the Board at large thinks that's appropriate. So, thoughts, everyone?
. . . since Teena and Wyldehorse did bring back three minis from "Captured by the Breeze."
Whatever. I AM GOING TO MAKE THIS ALL WORK OUT
So it turns out there is a source for mini-Death Trees:
http://agent-chliever.livejournal.com/1866.html
Yep, it's one of Chliever's missions--the ones that he declared not PPC canon just before he left.
Now, despite this mission technically not having happened anymore, I think we should still leave the Yu Yu Hakusho mini as the mini-Death Tree, because Chliever did write them for the first time (after Teena M and Wyldehorse passed on doing so) and is still the only person to have even written in YYH since ye olden times. Would anyone else have a problem with that? Or shall we ignore Chliever's spin-off entirely and say YYH has never had a mini defined?
Aside from the fact that it was removed from canon, he never explicitly names the minis as mini-Death Trees; there's just a vague description of "something small and woody ... with sharp teeth." Oh, and a "tentacle" a couple paragraphs down. I guess that's kind of an odd choice if it's a sakura tree, but then, would all the X minis be the same tree, or is the sakura specific to Subaru? (I've seen X, but I don't know this stuff. >.
~Neshomeh
A lot of this problem has been people (read: mostly me) seeing "mini-Death Tree" on the wiki and misinterpreting what they (I) read Yu Yu Hakusho elsewhere to match the assumption of the Death Tree. Which just goes back to why it's important to base the wiki on solid info from other sources.
I guess it's possible that Teena M intended for different characters to have different minis, but with no original source to go by, it's a little hard to make the assumption. And you've seen the anime and still don't have any other suggestions, I think we're stuck with mini-sakura tree for X.
The Sakura in X is connected to Subaru Sumeragi, but it is more closely connected to his counterpart, Seishiro Sakurazuka. Seishiro is the Sakurazukamori, an assassin who buries his victims under a specific (possibly malevolently evil) Sakura tree. I think that is probably what the mini references.
As for potential other minis, options are limited. This really is a series about one group of people fighting another for the fate of the world, there's not really any monsters or beasties. Though now that I mention it, mini-Beasts could work. Beast is the more-or-less sentient computer connected to another one of the characters (Satsuki Yatoji).
Hopefully that gelps a little.
-Phobos
That saves me some research, too. Thank you!
Well do I know that feeling! Here, do you take sugar?
I think removing the list entry would be fine, actually—unless you want to create a YYH mini listing for the ones Teena and Wylde brought back, in which case I guess it needs the entry on the main Mini page to link to it.
But, another option would be to remove the list entry, but mention on the YYH continuum page that although YYH minis have been spotted on missions, they have no determined form yet. That preserves the integrity of the list (such as it is) while still making the information available in a place people would be likely to look for it.
It's totally up to you, though!
~Neshomeh
1) Delete the page. I don't think I've seen anything related to VeggieTales around here. Maybe it was written in anticipation for a VeggieTales related mission that got scrapped? I dunno. Either way, it doesn't have much of a point, even with the hijacking of the page to create an agent.
2) I say go ahead with deleting the continuum pages and the two character pages you mentioned there.
3) Eh... I'm used to the old format. But at the same time, I often find myself dipping into source mode to get some HTML-related stuff right, so maybe this version streamlines that better? I don't know, maybe it's worth experimentation.
5) What is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?
The meaning of life is "nothing very special. Try to be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations."
Works for me. {= )
~Neshomeh
I mean the meaning of life, the universe and everything!
Sorry. *stares up at 5 exclamation points* Couldn't help myself.
~Autumn
Sure, it's the answer to the great question of life, the universe, and everything, but reading it to be a meaning assumes the question in, uh, question to be 'What is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?'. Which is certainly possible - but by no means certain.
hS
…is "What is six times nine?"
But we have been told all our lives that six times nine is fifty-four.
Does this question and answer mean that all we believe is a lie?
Or does it highlight the contradictory, unpredictable, ultimately incomprehensible nature of the universe?
We will never know. We need never know. We simply must accept our insignificance in the grand scheme of the universe.
(Been listening to Night Vale, can you tell?)
You're a Tyrant :p
1) I'd say Delete
2) What you've suggested seems perfectly reasonable to me
3) The programmer inside me wouldn't mind, just to have a look at it. But otherwise it wouldn't effect me.
4) I haven't used the User Talk pages but from the looks of them I think I'd prefer Message Walls
5) No
6) (The P.S) Looks good
Storme Hawk
hello! my screen name is 123bugsy, i discovered the PPC though a blog (marysuefacepalm) and instantly got hooked. I love stuff that makes fun of other peoples hilariously bad mistakes and sometimes pokes fun at itself.
I have read the articles of the constitution and the FAQ: for newbies, I have yet to read the original series but i do plan to. I also have yet to read every story and read up on most of the agents, but like the original series i do plan on getting to that.
I have a lot of fandoms, but to save you a long list i'll just list the top 8.
1. Homestuck (it is my absolute favorite)
2. pokemon (mostly the games now days)
3. Creepypastas (i love reading these stories, even if they do prevent me from getting a good night sleep)
4. walking dead (mostly the games)
5. OFF (an online RPG, has a big following on deviantart)
6. Thatguywiththeglasses (a website dedicated to reviewers)
7. Disney (including kingdom hearts)
8. MLP FIM (lost some of my love for it during season 3)
I mostly draw and I hope to become a comic writer or even a cartoonist. i'll be honest and say that my spelling can be bad but i try and you'll never see me spell like this "OMG i super happy 2 day !!!11!!"
I have an idea for a nuzlocke comic taking place in a multiverse setting. but at first, after trying to make up my own rules for a mulitiverse, I gave up the idea until i found the PPC and got new hope for the idea. If you would let me i would like to use my characters for the nuzlocke and for riffing, again for with your permission.
Pokemon? Shared fandom, woot! Is Bakugan among your fandoms as well? If so, please take a look at a crossover that I am working on: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9697398/1/The-Vexos-Chronicles-Part-I-Lost-Luster
A multiversal Nuzlocke, you say? Well, you've done well coming here; there are quite a few Pokemon fans, so you should be able to find someone whom you can bounce ideas off of.
Oh yeah! your newbie gift!
*rummages through Trainer-issue bag of holding*
Here, have an EV-Trained Ninjask!
BTW, here on the Board, we do insist that you use good SPaG (spelling, punctuation, and grammar). I've already noticed "your" used in place of "you're," and "to" in place of "too." Please watch your spelling--and please capitalize your sentences!
Sorry, but I don't know much about Bakugan,though i'm not against learning more about and I still want too take a look at your fanfic though (if you do't mind).
Nice to know that you like my multiversal Nuzlocke, I hope it will work out and it will be something most will like :)
Thanks for the Ninjask i'll take good care of him :)
Finally, thank you for the tips on my spelling, i'll try and keep track of my capitulation, your's, you're's, to's, and too's more often.
Please, take a look. And if there's something that you don't get, feel free to ask!
What do you think of it?
though my knowledge on Bakugan is next to nothing, I though that the fic as a whole is pretty good :D
I hope you will continue it :D
And in fact, the next chapter is in my beta's hands as we speak. But given that your knowledge of Bakugan is next to nothing, were you still able to follow the story?
I meant 'thought' sigh.. I wished I caught that before I posted -.-
I'm so glad to see you :)
Here's a blue notebook, a snow globe with your favorite fictional city, and some turkey leftover from thanksgiving.
thanks for the notebook, snow globe, and turkey to which I plan on using for a BBQ turkey sandwich [yum!] :)
Greetings and welcome!
I give to you a lined Infinite Notebook, featuring urple covers and wilver binding.
-Aila
thank you for the note book, it will be useful in recording my daily activities. :)
Have a plastic replica of Sting, since like Sevenswans, I just got back from DoS.
Erm, I don't actually share any of your fandoms, except I'm a little more familiar with ThatGuyWithTheGlasses, since I used to watch Nostalgia Critic and the 5 second movies series.
As for your spelling, I'll say it's quite good, actually, except that you have to work on capitalising your "I"s and other letters.
Eh, for your last idea, I'm not so sure about that, since Boarders usually have to stick around for a longer period of time before they get Permission. Of course, that's just me, and you can ask any other more experienced Boarders.
Again, welcome! And enjoy the PPC!
~Autumn
thank you for the Sting replica, i'll be sure to look him up later. I do hope that some day, if you and i become better antiquated, that I can learn about some of your fandoms.
thanks for the tips with the capitalizing, if you don't understand something from my writing please let me know so I can ether explain it or fix it.
Finally my comic, really i'll wait for permission and i will change anything if it doesn't fit into the PPC rules. I'll be posting what I have got for the comic on Thursday for criticism and general comments. I if your on the board then please give your two cents, I like to believe that every comment has something to help you along with your dreams. :D
I believe that the word you are looking for is "acquainted," not "antiquated."
Dang it :/ A well, now i know and knowing is half the battle :D
Yes I would like to grow old with you, as long as you want to :)
Hey! Shared fandoms! Pokémon, Homestuck, TGWTG, and My Little Pony! Plenty of opportunities for geeky conversations lie ahead, young one!
For a newbie gift, take this Lord Vyce talking action figure! It comes with nearly 200 menacing phrases! Also, the Cherub weaponry I give out to all fellow Homestuck fans! (rolls d6) My dice roll has arbitrarily decided that you seem like a Battlespork of Zillywut kind of person! Here you go!
Wow, lots of exclamation points are in this post! I must be excited or something!
Oh, and what exactly do you mean by what you said with the Nuzlocke comic and the PPC multiverse? Would one of your PPC Agents be a former Pokémon or Pokémon trainer from a world running on Nuzlocke rules, or would there be pan-dimensional counterparts of the same character acting largely independently of one another in both the PPC and in the Nuzlocke world? And if the latter, would they know about one another and how much personal history would they share?
Awesome to find another with shared fandoms! I can not wait for those geeky conversations, i'll tell ya what, and thanks for the battlespork (i will use it wisely)and the Lord Vyce figure.
As for for my comic i'll be honest and say that i'm only 50% sure on what i'm doing. I got most of the characters done but my original idea consisted of the characters/agents (three as a whole)meeting each other though the PPC and though one (that one being from a Pokemon world with nuzlocke rules) going on a Pokemon adventure. They still being able to get missions form the comlink or something, and the mission part will be shown ether though witting or comic (if i'm allowed).
But in if this wont be allowed or cant be done in the original way i planned then i can change (hey its why i'm here now, better to know now what to fix, then after i get absolutely every thing done) I do have planned to write up what I got on the board at some point (maybe Thursday)and see what everyone has to say. But, hey if you got some criticism now feel free to tell me, wont know what to fix until you or someone else tells me. :D
I miss msfp :(
Have an invisible umbrella!
; ' ,
' , ;
=====
|
☺
thank you for the invisible umbrella! :)
And have some lembas, since I just got back from The Desolation of Smaug. And some of Beorn's bread. And a rope and chocolate.
Dang, I'm hungry. :D
We don't appear to share any fandoms, but wait a few moments and you'll find someone here that does!
thanks for the food, it will do well on my journey (what ever that maybe)
I hope the move was good for you and that you had fun
I hope i can find some fellow fans and find some fun new fandoms as well X)
I hope we can become good friends, see yah around :)
*Dusts self off*
"Ahem."
*Reads off a sheet of paper*
"Agent *******, soon-to-be of the Department of *******, specializing in *******, various *******, and Excessive Violence was a strange person to say the least. This was hardly unusual, as all PPC agents were strange in some way. It was practically a requirement at the nebulous organization run by telepathic plants.
He spent his days reading ‘the good stuff’ as he called it, particularly crossovers. He was perusing the archives for a rather specific crossover when a sense of doom fell upon him. Only one story existed, and every instinct told him not to click it.
His idols, awe-inspiring in every way, were in danger. He knew what to do. He knew da rules. He would be patient. He would wait.
Then, when the time came, he would hunt."
"My time will come, but for now, I'd like to say hello. My two years of Japanese tell me there is a word that means 'please treat me well' but I'm afraid it has slipped my mind. What you choose to call me is irrelevant, I simply am."
Due to the nature of your arrival, I must ask you to submit to interrogation by the Inquisition'to determine whether or not you have a connection to Chaos. Don't worry, just a formality. After the tests, I'll give you a Daemonhammer.
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Inquisition
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Daemonhammer
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Chaos
The Emperor Protects!
I need no blunt mass of stone and metal to destroy my enemies! If I am to rule the world, and all of creation, it would not do well to place myself under the command of someone else.
I'll send the Emperor some cookies though, always good to stay on the competition's good side.
My time is coming. Come the conqueror.
Hello! Have some Urple cookies in a bottomless can! (They're good, but don't look at them.)
Also, the word you are looking for is yoroshiku onegaishimasu. In Japanese, it would be よろしくお願いします.
Hi, Shadow Amber, here's some cookies, some urple thread, and some potatoes.
Aaaand, I forgot to say anything about myself. How embarrassing. I like Bioware games, Pokémon(the autocorrect adds in the funny little accent, it's so cool!), Halo, the Whateley Academy Universe, Worm(go Taylor!), making and then eating cookies, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Fallout(oh so much), and more but I can't recall them off the top of my head.
I hate common word confusion and all forms of... Balls, I forgot where I was going with this.
Welcome, Shadow Amber. I'd better not bring you to Oreburgh City; I might end up dealing with an Aerodactyl!
Enough of the hilarity. Welcome to the PPC.
1) How did you run across us?
2) Have you read the Constitution?
3) Have you read the Original Series?
As for your newbie gift...
*rummages through Gen-VI-issue bag of holding*
Here, have a Jaw Fossil!
TV Tropes.
Yes.
Of course. Only a heathen would assemble an army of slavering Deathclaws and Zangoose to enact his revenge upon all False Creation without reading the Epic of Jay and Acacia.
My time shall come. I hunger.
Hello and welcome!
Here, have a lined Infinite Notebook, complete with urple covers and wilver binding.
-Aila
Nice to meet you! I, myself, just joined yesterday and I hope you and I can become good friends (or acquaintances what ever you prefer), we don't have a lot of shared fandoms, except Pokemon. I also don't have anything to give you really, since i'm just as new, but I will give you the best of luck in all your future missions!
Excellent. This begins a friendship of lies and crumpets. I shall not forget this day.
And neither shall you.
My time is coming. Beware the Jabberwock.
I dole out random gifts, so have two leaves from Mirkwood, an absurdly sharp thumbtack and half a package of tea!
Worm is quite awesome. :D
I'm a big Mass Effect fan myself! So yeah, if you need stuff relating to some Bioware franchises, you know who to refer to, I hope.
Anyway, welcome to the PPC good friend! We love newbies, so step inside, take your shoes off, and leave your sanity at the door!
As a welcome gift, I give you some music by one Witold Lutoslawski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV01PpNi7nM
I am definitely not reading the right thing to go with this. A manga full of warm and fuzzy feelings does not match a piece that should be playing in the background of the Golems of Amgarrack DLC.
Grim Reaper is easy with an Arcane Warrior abusing Storm of the Century, spell resistance armor and Dweomer runes.
Sir, what makes you think I had any to begin with? A coherent thought pattern is unnecessary in this world.
Alternatively, I am a cat. Meow.
Well played, well played.
Welcome, welcome. Since Autumn pointed you toward the wiki and Constitution, I'll just point you to the IRC channel, where people hang out and sometimes talk, and The Original Series, which is a recommended read. I also recommend Neshomeh's Spinoff, which is one of the awesomest around.
That said, have this cup of tea. Just don't let the leaves eat you.
Where did that come from? *mends tear with logic thread*
Ah-hem.
Greetings, Shadow Amber from Places Unknown. I gift you with this plastic replica of Orcist, may you wield it for good use. And may I be so kind as to lead you these helpful links?
Anyway. Enough of trying talk in painful Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe. Welcome, and enjoy the PPC!
~Autumn
That was not Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe by any stretch of the term!
Thank you. When I rule this base earth through completely respectable means, I shall order a batch of cookies baked for you.
My time is coming. You cannot escape the inevitable.
"You cannot escape the inevitable." Why is it that when I read this sentence, I immediately thought of you standing atop of a mountain with lightning flashing around you (*cough*Sauron from the Akallabêth*cough*), while you're doing a Master-esque laugh?
"Hail to the Lord Shadow Amber, Master of the Earth, Wielder of Plastic, the Ultimate Baker of Cookies!"
~Autumn
I pride myself in making impressive boasts. I learned from Sovereign, Gilgamesh, The Courier, The Lone Wanderer, the Gravemind, and many others.
Plastic applies to Bionicle, which equals god in my world.
I AM THE GOD-KING OF INFINITE-MODIFICATION ACTION FIGURES.
My time is coming. Ash nazg durbatulûk.
A while back, I was reading Agent Len's Wiki page. When I came to the end of the article, I noticed the little "But did he die?" line added for dramatic effect. Now, I don't want to sound too crazy... *adjusts tinfoil hat* ...but I actually believe that Len wasn't killed by the DES.
Instead, he fell into a 'verse where his insanity went unnoticed and even made him useful to some very... interesting people.
Len is the Team Fortress 2 Pyro. [YouTube link, some pretty PG-14+ stuff]
...only I was hesitant to publish my hypothesis due to being rather new.
Well, you have another supporter here.
We can't see the Pyros' faces, after all.
But then, the question becomes . . . is he the red Pyro, or the blue Pyro? And who is the other team's Pyro that can match Agent Len's madness?
There can be even than one Pyro in a single team... and all the other classes look the same as Blu or Red meaning those are cloned too.
(Story contains mature language.)
Upon my return, I noticed that a number of AU PPCs had sprung up -- the steampunk AU, the various flavors of bad future AUs, and so on. The overall quality of these settings mixed with my desire to do something new in the PPC has led me to try my hand at creating my own AU.
A bit of forewarning: this is not a happy universe you're about to step into. This is a universe of grime and shadows, of hard men and women in harder times, of cold sweat and hot lead.
This is a story of the Plot Protection Agency.
As always, responses and constructive criticism is appreciated.
Have you ever played Discworld Noir? Obviously, being a Discworld game, it's got more parodic bits, but when I was reading over the story and some of the comments here the it came to mind for getting a noiry feel from a usually lighthearted kind of setting (though, I'll admit, less so in a lot of the more recent books it seems). Though the Vimes books can get a bit hardboiled too.
Anyhow, I know I had my shot when betaing but I'll provide some more concrete feedback in another reply, a lot of things I could say have been said by members of the community smarter than I am. :P
My experience with noir and hardboiled has been more typically straight-laced, apart from the City Watch books. Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and so on.
Still, while I dunno if the game itself's still around it's easy to find a good playthrough on youtube. The talk of a normally semi-comic setting going all hardboiled brought it to mind.
(And I know about the influences, we talked about them in IRC. :P )
...I have one criticism of the whole piece. I think you could have gone further with the Noir style. Now, don't get me wrong, the setting and atmosphere were pretty good. It was the style that was a little off.
I felt like you were maybe missing some asides, and the asides you had (like the opening paragraphs) were missing some of the colorful metaphors and similes, all of which are a staple of Noir. I really wanted to get inside Danny's head more.
Other than that, I liked the imagery you used. I could visualize all of this going on in a grainy, black-and-white world. I liked how you handled the Weeds and especially the "badge and gun" bit. That was all classic.
I also think you might have missed an opportunity to make things even more Noir with the portal at the end. A portal the way we think of them in the PPC, is a little out of place. However, office doors are often used in Noir to show entrances and exits. You know the kind I mean; frosted glass with someone's name on the outside. I would have used one of those as the means of entering and exiting the worlds. But that is just me, and a small quibble in the grand scheme of things.
So, to sum up: I like it a lot. You had excellent atmosphere, and a few tweaks to the style would make it even better.
-Phobos
The tone was definitely something I struggled with in places. My very first draft had a lot more mental metaphors, but it started to come off as being a noir parody instead of legitimate noir, so I took a lot of them out. I'll be keeping that in mind when I next write for the PPA.
Gah, I wish I'd thought of the frosted door portals beforehand! I really the idea the more I think about it. Maybe it can come up in some form or fashion later on.
Again, thanks for the comments!
I'd been imagining them as rectangular, and opening with a low creaking sound like rusty hinges instead of the silence or low electronic fizzing noise the PPC portals make. They'd also let in a blast of cold air and a brief flash of light when expanding, referencing the cold and windy mornings in which a noir detective often receives the first visit from his new clients. It invokes some of the frosted-door imagery without actually being a giant door that appears out of nothingness.
I was going to include something to reference how rainy it sometimes gets in noir, but that seems way too many references to just pack into one system, plus, it would probably result in people getting drenched when they walked through portals, and there are only so many snide sarcastic remarks a hard-boiled detective type can make about holes in space that dump water all over your new hat.
To be fair, I was envisioning the New Shade as something more noir-parody myself, especially since my first reaction to this new AU's existence in the ever-growing PPC Multiverse was imagining a New Shade agent meeting up with his Transfictional Canonical Defence Authority counterpart and immediately going on some sort of trans-dimensional buddy-cop journey, so my portal idea might not connect well with what you had in mind for the tone.
Most of what I have to say about the story has already been said, but for one personal response, I really liked this universe's Flowers. Not only getting to actually see some of them, since PPC AUs seem to be averse to that for whatever reason, but how well they transitioned into this. The Flowers' tone of detached, vaguely haughty phrasing fits really well in the setting, and I loved the contrast between it and Danny's blunter attitude. The part where the Sub Rosa makes an offhanded and aloof comment as Danny walks into the room, only for Danny to say "You're in my chair." was one of my favorite exchanges. I'm sort of interested in what the extent of the differences between these Flowers and the main universe Flowers are now.
Also, the fedora-wearing bodyguard Weeds were great. I know there's a noir term for what they are, but the only word I can think of is "kneebreakers", and I know that's not right. It sounds like something that would be part of some sort of malapropistic noir-parody inner narrative, maybe, but not an actual term. Anyway, I liked their inclusion. It both set some differences between the main PPC universe, where the high-ranking Flowers would usually go to these sorts of situations alone and the Flowers would attack telepathically rather than carrying guns, and it provides extra detail for the setting without making those details explicit. There was a sizable amount of low-context world-building in this, actually, which I think makes it a good start for an AU. I'm wondering exactly how noir HQ is going to work, though. Noir detectives are notoriously at their best when walking down some sort of shadowy street in the cold hours, not letting the man following them know that they know he's there, and other situations that are rather solitary in nature. HQ is, by its nature, not very solitary. You can't exactly have everybody going on a dimly-lit trudge through the halls, leaving about twenty feet of space in front of and behind them so everyone else can trudge in their own space, because that would be venturing into parody again.
...a sort of programmable doorknob that can be attached to any surface (or at least, that's what I thought once the idea had been put into my head after the fact). Stick into onto the nearest wall, tree, cliff face, or whatever. Push a few buttons, and boom! Instant door.
There's obviously going to be a bit more cooperation in the PPA than in a typical noir story. Still, I would argue that noir detectives and characters are at their best when interacting with others, be those others partners, clients, contacts, or targets. An over-emphasis on internal monologue runs the risk of falling down the path of parody. Plus, maybe it's just me, but HQ has never seemed like a particularly packed place. I think a large part of that is due to how little most agents seem to interact with others outside of their partner. Outside of the occasional co-write or RP event, the vast majority of partnerships operate in their own little universes.
Minor note: I'm pleased that you picked up on my little pun, albeit not in the way I intended (new shade = darkness = noir). It's not what I'm calling the universe, though. It's the Plot Protection Agency, or PPA.
It's a nice twist on the RA, and a way to make the technology particular to the PPA. Are you planning on doing the same thing with the other typical PPC tech like consoles and CADs?
I've also thought that HQ seems to be a surprisingly empty place most of the time. The thing that struck me most about that is that while some locations always seem to have people in them (such as the cafeteria), agents very rarely seem to encounter anyone else while walking through the corridors. It does make it seem like a fairly desolate place at times.
Yeah though, a lot of stories don't really give a good sense of scale or of lots of agents all living in the same place. Maybe it'll come across more in future, spotlights on the more social aspects of HQ (Rudi's, the 'Cook, etc.) seem to've been helping. And of course, a big place doesn't necessarily mean everyone's wandering around all at once. :P
Goons, legbreakers, gorillas, thugs... I think the second one's most common. :P
Also, New Shade?
Toughs, muscle, or buttons.
Phobos
It basically means a really low level person. If the boss tells you to "push a button on a guy (aka kill)", you don't ask questions, you just "push a button on a guy".
A button man is just there to make sure the higher ups don't have to push that button personally. Wouldn't want their fingerprints on it, after all.
-Phobos
That's the name I was using for the universe, based on its entry post being called "A new shade of PPC AU". I thought the "New Shade" title was a pun based on the fact that noir often has window shades casting fragmented light, which would be a second definition of shade, on peoples' faces, and so adopted it as a universe-designating name that would be less awkward than "that noir version of the PPC that PoorCynic started working on a while ago". It'll be immediately overwritten once he comes up with something official, of course. This was just for convenience on my part. Categorization and such.
Legbreakers! That's what I was thinking of. Also, "gorillas" is a good term. It's direct, self-explanatory, and mildly insulting at the same time!
New Shade sounds like a story title more than a universe designation, heh. And I know I've seen at least one work use "gorillas", just not sure where.
Funny enough, I'd been thinking on trying a more hardboiled PPC kinda story with my DIA people, but I suppose now that's on the shelf.
That this is fantastic.
This is utterly brilliant.
I wish I had more words to say brilliant,
But instead I'll just stay here sounding like Arthur Shappey on repeat.
The setting is meant to be a noir version of the PPC. Sorry about the lack if clarity.
PC
I was a little thrown at first by the idea of yet another ~*dark*~ PPC story, plus the old "grizzled veteran pulled out of retirement" thing, but since it's noir—and because the writing is just that good—I can forgive that.
I think you've got a great voice for Danny here. His sarcasm is entertaining to read, and it makes the grittiness of his surroundings bearable. You've also got a good balance between description and thought. I had a solid picture of what was going on without ever feeling like I left Danny's head, and I never felt lost in his thoughts, either. I liked the moment where he realizes his cane is missing, and where he remembers the incident that made him leave without feeling the need to spell it out for us right then. It keeps both the mystery and the pacing alive.
It's interesting that the Flowers are explicitly telekinetic in this. I usually just assume they somehow grip stuff with their leaves. I also particularly liked the details of how the Sub Rosa's thoughts feel to Danny.
Good word use in We shall wait out in the other room while you comport yourself. "Comport" is one of those excellent yet underused words, and it's nice to be reminded it exists.
I liked Danny's rant, and I like that he was proud of it. Did he practice that? Unless his saying it was good was sarcasm, but that's fun, too.
I noticed a couple small mistakes:
1. I think you want drunk instead of drank in "Maybe I’d misjudged how much I’d drank last night." He drinks, he drank, he has/had drunk, yes?
2. A missing comma in "'Sounds like things are in a tight spot.' I meant it[,] too."
3. Missing word in Even as [you] slowly drink yourself into oblivion, you still take time to help people.
Oddly enough, Phobos and I have discussed the possibility of a noir-style PPC mission before, but we never got around to it for lack of a badfic in an appropriate setting and the fact that I haven't really read or seen much in the genre and wouldn't be at all confident in that style. I'll be interested to see how you do it.
~Neshomeh
Your compliments are much appreciated, and the errors you pointed out have been addressed. It's much appreciated.
I borrowed the idea of the 'feel' of the Sub Rosa's thoughts from one of Huinesoron's Flower-centric interludes. I really liked the idea of agents having to deal with mental 'tastes' rather than body language or something similar.
I imagine that Danny practiced some version of his rant in his head early one morning while staggering back home from the bar. All the things he'd wished he'd said at the time he'd left and whatnot.
The only badfic I can recall seeing in a vaguely noir setting was some Who Framed Roger Rabbit lemon where the authorial insert character was paired up with Jessica Rabbit. That was a long time ago, though. I'll probably end up just making up some appropriate noir badfic if I want to make an actual PPAverse mission.
Listen there's this character in my Nuzlocke that will be a magical girl (Tokyo mew mew) but i'm just wondering if that would be allowed.
So there won't be possible confusion, there are three main characters (basically three agents) in this Nuzlocke, two from different continuums then the Pokemon girl(one a male homestuck cherub and the other being the magical girl) just so were clear.
Also if this won't be allowed, again, please tell me so I will know what to change, please and thank you. :)
By "Nuzlocke", I'm assuming you're referring to your agent team, so please feel free to correct me if I interpreted that incorrectly.
Short answer: no, it's totally okay to have that combo. Just be aware that we usually write agent duos, 'cause it's easier to do a two-man routine than juggle three characters around and give them all some equal screen time.
Long answer: you need to be careful with your agents' power levels. We have a Homestuck!Cherub and a turbocharged!DNA!human on the same team, and that has a possibility to be a game breaker. Note that the Pokémon Trainer will be fairly normal on missions, since I highly doubt 'mons can be brought with the agents.
It's no fun for us if all that the agent team does is snark, roll their eyes at the Suvians, and completely wipe their tuchus with them when it comes time to engage.
We want to see quick thinking! Resourcefulness! Narrow scrapes! That's usually where the Disguise Generator comes into play: by changing their morphology to fit their surroundings, powerful agents are usually taken down a notch. Other factors can also serve to bring down an otherwise overpowered agent's power level down and give the Agents a run for their money.
...out of curiosity, what is the alignment of the male cherub? I assume that it is "good", otherwise Internal Affairs would have a Situation on their hands every time that cherub-boy gets his claws on a new weapon.
Thank you for the answer, it's great to know that I can do this with out people getting mad at me :) and to be very honest the magical girl is technically owned by my sis but we both agreed that I can use the character in my Nuzlocke and that well be working on missions together.
Which, I feel, is for the best as she can help me with my spelling, finding fanfics to spork, and handling the three characters with her keeping track of her character while I can keep track of the cherub boy and Pokemon girl.
As for keeping the the agents' power levels at a respectable level, my plan is to have each agent to specialize in a certain area and/or weaponry.
For example my good aligned cherub boy is best with close combat and especially swords (having a cane blade as his main weapon)and though while he can fire a gun, he dislikes too as he hates the kick back and will close his eyes because of this, making his aim very poor, and while he isn't afraid to defend himself/his friends and help protect the continuums from Mary sues he has a problem with with blood and guts type killing, so he tends to have the poke girl handle that, while he works with author wraiths and disentangling. He also doesn't have any powers (as of now), is not god tier, and has to keep a disguise generator with him at all times (as it would be weird to see a green alien skeleton boy running around in most continuums now wouldn't it :P) so i hope that makes sense, if it doesn't please tell me.
Oh, and a Nuzlocke is basically a fanmade hardcore mode for Pokemon games, if you want to know more here's a link that can explain more then I can could: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Nuzlocke_Challenge
Somebody probably told you about getting Official Permission to write PPC stories in your intro thread, but both you and your sister will need it if you're both going to be writing. We sometimes make allowances for a newbie without Permission to team up with an older member who has it, but the point of that is that the more experienced writer can guide the newer one and provide quality control, and that doesn't really work if the one person with Permission only just got it. {= )
~Neshomeh
I don't actually have permission to actually do any of my ideas right now. my plan is to just wait until me and my sister can get a little bit known on the board and on Thursday write up our ideas (mostly plot and short character bios) and get some critique on them, and when me and my sister feel that the plot and ideas can hold together and most everyone likes it then we will ask permission together.
I haven't really posted any pics or writings of my characters and plot as of now, and if I can't be doing any of that without permission please tell me so I can tell my sis and we will go get permission as soon as we can, thank you. :)
You can discuss your ideas on the Board before you get permission (though be warned, obsessing over them and not talking about anything else gets really annoying), and you can write character bios and stuff for betas to look at, but you do need permission before you can actually publish PPC stories on your journal, website, Google Drive, or whatever you end up using.
I'd also recommend waiting until you and your sister feel like the plot and ideas hold together before you put them up for critique. You'll get better feedback on a coherent outline than you will on vague fragments. Plus, this Thursday really is jumping the gun a bit, especially since you just started this thread to discuss your stuff. Give it time! At least wait until this thread falls off the front page before you start another one on the same topic. We're not going anywhere, and it doesn't look like your plans are, either. {= )
~Neshomeh
Now that I think about (and after you mentioned it) I really should wait for say after Christmas or something, and after I talk to my sis about everything, before I start with posting the plot thanks for the tip.
Also thanks for the idea of making sure this whole thing doesn't take over myself, i'll try and not let that happen and if it dose tell me or I wont notice and will continue to unintentionally annoy people.
Hey,
just want to check what you mean by Nuzlocke. I'm massively into Pokemon, and so the only meaning I know of the word comes as part of a phrase 'A Nuzlocke Challenge' which invariably involves you going through the Pokemon game and if a Pokemon faints, you can't revive it and must release it. I hope this isn't the meaning you're alluding to when using the word, or rather if it is I'm worried :p .
Storme Hawk
X and Y have ruined my Nuzlocke. I got to the third gym(fairly far in Kalos, almost half the region) without losing a single teammate. Giving you a free Kanto starter makes things way too easy.
I miss Hoenn and my veritable army of Zigzagoon with Cut and Pickup.
My time is coming. I command the Alpha, the pale horse.
Now that's not a thing to do! Just because he was making a reference to an internet meme doesn't mean you steal that meme when his back is turned! And you call yourself an ominous conqueror. Resorting to petty horse-thievery. Do you think Lord Vyce would have done something like that? Dormammu? Unicron? If a true Dark Lord wants a mount, they create a personalized steed with otherworldly power and unquenchable force, shaping it into an interminable engine of destruction! They don't just snatch animals from other people. Tsk tsk.
The Alpha is no mere horse. He is the first of creation, who carved Sinnoh from the void and wrought the Three Dragons of Reality from the nothingness.
And from the desolated Halls of the Looking Glass, I reached out into Infinity and drew forth One of Many. He is no mount. He is general, a commander of my legions.
Only at the End of Time, when the Glorious Imperfection of Resplendent Creation breaks free of the ebon chains that bind him before the mighty gates of the Halls of Creation, shall I ride out; the Solitary Horizon of Soundless Reclamation astride the Endless Desolation of Infinitesimal Genesis, the dread Ragnarok, Dragon at the End of All Things.
My time is coming. The end of an era is the dawn of a new age.
Good for him! They aren't easy to find. You need Action Replay codes for them most of the time. Because of that, after the Arceus is done commanding that army of Zangoose you mentioned a few posts back(I feel for you, man. Breeding for perfect IVs is hard. I had a whole box full of imperfect specimens when I was breeding Solosis. They say it's gotten easier in Gen IV, though, with the new Destiny Knot mechanics.), you should give it back to him. He's probably going to want to use it for something else.
By the way, you're probably going to want to revise your dramatic declarations before you go charging out to the fringe of space-time. "The end of an era is the dawn of a new age." is a little redundant when you think about it. I mean, it's a new age by default. The people writing the history books like making names for things, and just saying "the time period that we are now in" will make them look unacademic once the new age ends and they'll need to revise all of the texts in the even-newer age.
The part about desolating a tiny planet with a giant dragon to regain all of the sound you lost at the edge of the universe works a bit better, though. But before you destroy it, keep in mind that you might just not be hearing anything because there isn't any sound in space. There's no air or water for it to travel through, you see. Dragons are powerful and proud creatures, and they'll probably turn on you if they find out that they were ridden out into battle over a silly misunderstanding.
Don't you know who I am? I am the inevitable, I am Chaos, I answer to none but myself, You can never stop me! DEATH IS ONLY THE BEGINNING!
My time is coming. It is inevitable, Mr. Anderson.
What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets! But enough expository banter! For Gilgamesh, it is morphing time!
Mu time is coming. I am one who looks out of the abyss.
With all seriousness, though, I'm really enjoying the mental image I have now of a demigod Sumerian king driving around in a Megazord. Unless you were referring to the Final Fantasy character Gilgamesh there, in which case it is less entertaining, but still somewhat amusing.
The line is straight from Final Fantasy V. Here's the full line: "Enough expository banter! Now we fight like men! And ladies! And ladies who dress like men! For Gilgamesh...it is morphing time!"
Of course, that line does refer to Power Rangers.
The Imperium stares back into it.
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Imperium
The Emperor Protects!
You know you keep going on about the Imperium and seem a bit 40k obsessed, so I'm wondering, just who do you play as?
And if you don't play, well
*BLAM*
HERESY!!!
*BLAM*
the second blam was just to make sure you got the message.
Storme Hawk
The T'au and Eldar and Dark Angels and Raven Guard guy.
My favorite race is the Tau because they aren't completely grimdark like the other factions. Second favorite, the Imperium because reasons. And 40k obsessed? Me? The guy who signs off with a prayer to the God-Emperor? The guy who greets newbies as Battle-Bruva and gives out 40k related stuff? Never!
The Emperor Protects!
I do mean 'a Nuzlocke Challenge' when I say Nuzlocke, so if you'er worried about it then can you explain why, please.
I mean, can I not have a side thing with my characters in a Nuzlocke adventure while still being able to go on missions, because if so please tell me so I can scrap the idea and just have the three just as agents with refs to the whole Pokemon thing.
Also I feel I should say that my sis actually owns the magical girl, and she plans to help me with sporking and keeping track of the characters, she just wanted me to ask if she CAN have a magical girl as an agent in the first place, she is also a combo of busy and shy which is why I asked for her :).
Being a Pokemon fan, I get what the Nuzlocke Challenge is. What I don't get is what any of that has to do with writing a PPC story. How does an optional rule-set from a video game affect your potential agents? It is not that we necessarily have concerns about it or rules against it. We just have no idea what you are even talking about.
The question you need to answer is: What, specifically, are you planning to do?
-Phobos
Really my whole idea hinges on the agents actually living in their continuums.
With my poke girl wanting to go on her Pokemon journey with her friends/partners and the Flowers allowing them too (as long as it doesn't interfere with their jobs, and if it dose to stop immediately) and from there, they basically go on a Pokemon journey (with nuzlocke rules) and sometimes get called in for missions, this also needing them to have access to portals a lot.
So, my plan has a few ways of getting itself done so far the best one I have in mind is doing the Nuzlocke in comic form and the missions in writing form, with my sister helping me keep track.
This is basically the shortest and quickest explanation for what I have planed, but I hope this clears any problems that you had with it, also I should mention that I don't really have the permission to do any of this right now.
What I am doing right now is basically just getting acquainted with a few people and getting the idea out there for some pre-critiquing, if you have any tips or problems with this please tell me and I will fix this.
The main problem I can see with your plan is the one thing it hinges on, that being your agents living in their continuums. The problem is that it wouldn't work, there are very few reason why an Agent goes back to their home continuum after joining the PPC, the two I know of are to do a mission or retirement (the latter being rarer than the former). For your agents to live in their continuums would also create a stupidly huge amount of problems, there's a reason why each set of Agents is given an RC, it's their home whilst their at the PPC, and if you want to find someone well all you need to know is their RC number, rather than having to run into a continuum to grab an Agent to come back out of said continuum to do a mission in another continuum. Plus what happens to social interaction, not just with other Agents from the PPC but the trio themselves, they'd each be in a separate place all the time.
Another problem I can see is that Nuzlocke only really works in the games, if you were trying to write a Nuzlock challenge into a story or a RP it'd be effectively you driving your Pokemon to the death, something that is, really, rather grim and not something I'd want to read.
I'd say that it probably wouldn't work as you intend it to now. However if you keep your three agents and have them work within the normal parameters of the PPC, beyond poor characterization and obviously not making them too OP, it should work.
Also you don't need to keep telling us you don't have permission, we know. You generally post a Permission thread, and have to be accepted by the PG's before you have Permission, plus you're still a newbie (no offence) it'd be way too soon for you to have gained permission by now.
Storme Hawk
So if the can't live in their continuums then simple, they can preform the journey during their breaks.
Sure they would very much need to use portals to get back to the PPC and communication devices to know when their needed, but they will be living in the RC and will be close together when on the journey.
Personally, I think this sounds alright but if this still doesn't make sense, please tell me so I can change and try to make it work or just scrap it.
You only have a shift-based schedule if you're working in the Infrastructure Departments. huehuehue not-so-subtle DOI recruitment drive
Otherwise...
[BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE--]
Then if you can help me out here that would be INCREDIBLY helpful, because i'm stumped and don't really want to have the idea die just yet.
To be honest, I'm not sure your idea would work with the PPC at all, or at least I don't think you could do it at the same time as being a PPC Agent. The best feasible way I could see you including it, is to have the Pokemon journey be part of the backstory, maybe being what caused them to appear in the PPC in the first place.
That's the best I can think of.
Storme Hawk
Sorry if i'm bothering you, but I really like bouncing off ideas with you, so please tell me, so I can stop.
My last idea, so I can have the three agents going and doing battles with Pokemon and Mary sues, is basically have it when they have free time (at all) going to the poke girl's continuum and just catching, training, and battling gyms with Pokemon.
So they just live in the RC, go on missions, and if they have the time go and battle with Pokemon.
This is my last idea for this, if this can't work then i'll just have the Pokemon stuff happen in her back story and just stick to missions with the characters.
I mean, it isn't as though vacations don't exist, but they're usually only awarded after something traumatizing(moreso than usual, anyway) happens to the agent team in question, or if the Flowers want the Agents out of their trichomes for whatever reason. Would the three of them just leave HQ during downtime and head to the Pokémon continuum? Because there are rules against trans-continuum travel that restrict legal use of same mostly to PPC business(missions, scouting, collecting stuff for the Cafeteria, etcetera) or disposal of problems, unless returning to a native continuum regularly is necessary for an Agent to not die or something. Or were you talking about a slightly different scenario?
Also, the Homestuck cherub is going to be not only in your agent team, but also within the Pokémon continuum? That... doesn't really fit. I have no idea how the magical girl operates, since I don't know the Mew Mew continuum, so she might be able to suppress her abilities or something of the sort, but the cherub would not only be obviously non-human, since the disguises can only alter physical appearance and do not change attitudes or behavior, but would have no real reason to go on a Pokémon journey. Cherubs are solitary creatures by nature, most of the time, and usually only interact with others when they need to mate or in desperate cases like Calliope's. Interacting with the other agents would probably be just about all one could handle without getting tetchy and withdrawn, and having a horde of animals bursting from small spheres in one's belt and interacting with your cherub agent would probably freak him out. Pokémon trainers go on their journeys to fulfill specific goals, many of them involving growing closer to one's Pokémon and allowing those Pokémon to grow stronger. A cherub would not treat it like that, which would in a decent-case scenario leave him constantly uncomfortable but unwilling to say anything, in a worse-than-that-case scenario increase his apparent non-humanness to the others in the continuum as well as turning the whole Pokémon-training business into an absolute chore, and in a worst-case scenario, lead to him snapping, fleeing from the established dwelling places of sapient beings, and needing to be brought in by the DIA to prevent contamination of the continuum when the Ironic Overpower inevitably cracks its knuckles and short-circuits the cherub's D.O.R.K.S., dispelling the disguise or altering it to something non-native.
So, yeah, all in all, it wouldn't be the best of ideas to involve him in this.
there are rules against trans-continuum travel that restrict legal use of same mostly to PPC business(missions, scouting, collecting stuff for the Cafeteria, etcetera) or disposal of problems, unless returning to a native continuum regularly is necessary for an Agent to not die or something.
I've honestly never heard of such a 'rule'. They don't have the time for it, certainly. They'd probably get told off if they wandered off when they had a mission, definitely. But an actual rule?
As a suggestion for how to make this a viable concept, rather than just saying 'no', how about putting the agents in a department which tends to send in specialists, rather than agent pairs? Something like SIELU (the Special Interdepartmental Elven Linguistics Unit) will usually just send a single agent off on a mission with someone from another department. That means their agents have significantly more downtime, and could conceivably carry some form of communicator with them. They'd be constantly 'on call', but could spend their time doing other things (like pit-fighting with disturbingly intelligent small animals, for instance).
hS
I'm not actually sure if there are many hard-and-fast prewritten rules, per se, other than the basic ones necessary for doing one's job, the ones that keep the Departments running and functional, and whatever system the DIA uses to keep order in HQ, but from what I've seen, it's generally frowned upon by the Flowers when Agents squander PPC resources, which would most likely include the portal technology, on what they would consider personal matters. I imagine this may be due to the proclivity of agents to cause unnecessary complications wherever they go, the PPC tech's proclivity for sudden detonation, malfunction or related issues, and the cost that it takes to replace or repair damaged devices, whether they were broken during PPC business or not, and at least if they were broken in connection to PPC business, those problems can be deemed less connected to one's personal failings and more to acceptable risk for the Duty. And "frowned upon by the Flowers" usually translates into "more or less a rule, and if you consider it to be an optional guideline rather than a rule, you're going to be getting a very stern talking-to from your Department Head within the next few weeks".
As for the later part, where are you getting the information about SIELU being "specialists" who will usually go on missions connected to other departments and have lots of downtime in-between? The only Agent that is linked with SIELU reports is Lambda, and she only has two missions, neither of which imply that. She did team up with someone from the DI in one of them, but in the other, she seemed to just operate like a particularly neurotic DMS Agent who was working solo for whatever reason, and neither said anything about her having lots more downtime than the average Agent.
Just since I've been playing around with them a lot lately, but I don't want to be stepping on toes.
Have you got a source for that? The only thing that springs to mind - other than J&A not being allowed to use portals in-mission, which obviously is no longer the case - is Vemi's Tale, in which she goes home on a vacation. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you - just asking.
SIELU: well, partly it's in the name. ;) The 'Special' implies something is different about them, and the 'Interdepartmental' suggests - to me - that they (mostly) operate as specialists, moving between departments.
Then, there's Lambda's website. Specifically, the Lambda's Office section is described on the homepage with 'When not on a mission, Agent Lambda sorts papers in her office, and sometimes writes'. That's already suggesting the 'more downtime than you'd expect' part.
Then, there's the missions themselves. I realise we have a sample size of two, but her first assignment (and it is her first) is the one which she tackles by herself. Her second recorded mission (it does seem to be her second), she gets sent to the DI, with no suggestion that this is unusual. I like to imagine the Poison Ivy expected her to just know she was supposed to wait for a partner the first time, only to discover that no, she needs outright telling.
(Her second mission tells us there's a Sunflower in the Weeds. Fascinating)
Finally, in one of my in-progress missions, Agent Huinesoron - who's filling the 'specialist' role with DOGA right now - gets to work with someone who has a habit of asking for specialist partners. She mentions DMFF, DTE, DOGA, DOOCH (heh), SIELU, DTO... of course, she also (used to) call for help from DMS, DBS and the like, but they stopped listening. ;) I picture a lot of the smaller, specialised departments having specialists on staff - un-partnered agents who get farmed out when needed. Whether they're specifically employed for that purpose (like Lambda), or just perpetually between partners (Huinesoron) depends on the agent and department.
hS
Wait, what exactly were you asking me to source for there? I had thought you were asking for references for why I don't think the Flowers would look fondly on frivolous use of plotholes and other PPC technology, but the story you linked seems to instead be concerned with Vemi being plucked from World One and temporarily turned into a Mary Sue, which was, judging by her summary on the wiki, due to partially-conscious reality-warping Maia powers and not due to plotholes or the Bridge. Also, it spawned several pop-up ads, which are unrelated to the story but were not pleasant. Did you mean to link something else?
I think the SIELU name may have been a holdover from when they were first introduced, which was back in the early years before the system and of Departments and Divisions to those Departments was fully stabilized. I can't say so for certain, because I wasn't around then, but it seems to imply in the first mission's text that they exist outside the usual Department framework, simply existing to sort out elf-related issues, which possibly means that "Interdepartmental" references their ability to take on missions that would otherwise be covered by any number of other Departments, as long as elven culture is being messed with during the offending badfic. Since, to my knowledge, Floaters was not officially a department yet at the time of SIELU's creation, and only existed in the lowercase form as the subject of occasional references, i.e. Since Upstairs couldn't really assign Alice to any one Department because of her limitations, they made her a "floater" instead. from the third Architeuthis mission, the "Interdepartmental" label existed to cover what "Floaters" would come to mean later. On that note, this explanation also justifies why SIELU would be labelled as part of Floaters in the wiki's List of Departments(though I can't recall any written works explicitly confirming or denying that).
Also, this line: The whole new unit consisted of Unit Head, The Poison Ivy in bright pink dress, and herself. in the first mission seems to indicate that Alec may have been assigned as Lambda's partner in the second mission simply because there were no other SIELU members. Maybe the Poison Ivy wanted to either prepare her for a multiple-agent model for when someone else takes a SIELU job or to keep her from responding to the misplaced flora and fauna of her second mission with a flamethrower, but with exactly one mission with one partner and one mission solo, neither of our deductions have a lot of examples to draw from.
Also, on an unrelated note, that SIELU Mission 1 quote had some shoddy phrasing; unless the Poison Ivy wasn't actually the Head, and the real Plant in charge was never seen, that sentence should have been structured differently. It's things like that and the distracting black-and-red alternating text in the second mission that made me not enjoy reading the SIELU missions. They were entertaining, to some extent, but I just didn't enjoy reading them.
The DOOCH? How long has Agent Huinesoron's new partner been around? The last time I heard of anything involving the DOOCH was a 2006 edition of the Multiverse Monitor, and even then it only involved someone wearing a DOOCH green uniform and not actually showing any agent activity.
Speaking of inactive Departments, in the Vemi story you linked, a character named Bjam appeared, occasionally uncapitalized in a manner consistent enough that it may or may not have been a typo. She was only ever referred to as "a morale officer" and seemed to indicate in dialogue that there was more than one person filling that role, but the wiki has practically no information on her. Since she appears in one of your interludes, you might have more information on what she did. Namely, what is a morale officer? What's the difference between what a morale officer would do and what FicPsych would do? Does the PPC have them any more after FicPsych absorbed all of the subsidiary psychological services back when the Manual was being written?
The part of Vemi's tale I was talking about was her travelling home for no clearly defined reason, not the random teleportation part. The story isn't on my site - it's Nesh's Lost Tales archive, which, yes, has a lot of popups, but is possibly the most valuable site we have.
Yes, in an out-of-universe perspective, SIELU predates the department/division thing (and the existence of the DF); however, internally, that's not the case, although the DF still didn't exist. That means 'Interdepartmental' has to actually mean something; I think my explanation is as good as any.
I'm sure if Hellga were still around, she'd love the criticism you're offering; since she isn't, there's not a lot anyone can do about it. ;) The black-and-red text, I believe, is to separate the two authors; it doesn't bother me much, probably because my colour vision when it comes to red isn't so hot.
The DOOCH has always been around; the Yellow Roses who work there appeared in the 2008 Anniversary Party. The fact that no-one talks about them is that they're ridiculous and exist solely (from an external POV) as a joke.
Morale Officer bjam does... exactly what she does in that story. It wasn't exactly an official position - she just stood around in HQ with cheerful signs, trying to keep people's morale up. Background colour, basically (is she in one of my interludes? I did not know that)
hS
Did you get my emails? I know that I sent three, but I hope that it's clear enough which one I'm waiting on at this point.
I sent a combined reply to two of the three a while ago. I can send it again, if you didn't receive it.
You should have received an e-mail from me. As for a reply to the things you've raised in your e-mail, I'm actually taking some time to adjust my story given what you've brought upm so you should expect a reply either tomorrow night or the day after.
Meant to type a comma after "up," not an "m."
For those of you who have been lurking around Tumblr, particularly in the BBC Sherlock fandom; you might have heard some news about Caitlin Moran, fanfiction, and a whole lot of anger.
For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, here is a link. It is spoiler free.http://urawinchesternotalosechester.tumblr.com/post/70182923432/sherlockisthebest-boite-a-tresors
This has been a point of discussion between several of my friends and people on the Internet. I was wondering if anyone had heard.
Um, if you do care about my opinion, I thought it was extremely unprofessional. This was a screening of a show that people have waited 2 years for and have been so passionate in their works. Taking an author's works without permission (This author has beem gracious in her response to the debacle), making actors read a scene that some would interpret as controversial just because you thought a line was clumsy? That is crossing the line.
I would like to hear your opinion,but please do be civil.
I generally stay away from fandoms because more often than not, other people take the obsession a bit too far for my liking. I love the Sherlock series, don't get me wrong, but some of the speculation in regards to "head canon" and other theories is beyond me.
Fangirls scare me. Especially the ones on tumblr.
With that said, I didn't watch the video, because frankly, I don't care that much. Was it a slash fic?
~AW~
(I doubt this post will be answered because it's so far down on the page.)
...but that seems like a stupid thing to do. Imagine how the author feels that someone who's part of their favorite show doesn't like their fanfiction about it. Badfic authors take it /very/ badly.
The Emperor Protects!
Making actors read stuff about their characters that is probably going to make them uncomfortable: you do not get a gold star from miss manners.
Sporkings stay on the internet for a reason: that way people who are interested can see them, and the people who aren't don't.
While sporkings and dramatic readings of anything published (that includes internet fanfiction, it's been released for public consumption) are fair play, taking up the issue in a public gathering and forcing the actors to participate is not in good taste.
It also shows disrespect for the show and the actors, because this event was supposed to be about them and the new season coming out.
I'm just baffled, honestly. How was this allowed to happen? Doesn't anyone go through the itinerary for events like this, especially for something well-known like Sherlock? Was there honestly an organizer that looked at the schedule, saw "from [times to be announced] we're reading a selected fanfiction in public because one of the featured guests doesn't like it, but we're not going to share it with any of the other featured guests beforehand to see if they're okay with doing so" and said, "Yep, looks like that checks out."
The video wouldn't load for me past the first twenty seconds or so, but judging by the longer of the Tumblr responses you linked to, everyone involved was confused or uncomfortable during it, which supports that either they had no idea what was going to happen or were misinformed, which again, is not something that should have been allowed to happen. If it was an informed and planned occurrence, and they got everything approved by the author of the fanfic, the featured guests, and whoever's in charge of the event, that's one thing, but from what I've been able to find, it wasn't even close to any of that. Shameful.
I first read about it on the facebook page for the Baker Street Babes *cough*shamelessplugofafavouritepodcast*cough*
I do take some issue with the argument that Moran took the work without the author's permission. (It was posted openly on the web, Moran didn't steal a flashdrive with it on and I doubt the author got permission from anyone at the BBC before she wrote the fic.) I am, however, also able to tell the difference between, say, doing a PPC mission and posting about it on a small message board in a corner of the internet or doing a dramatic reading on one's youtube channel and what Moran did, which was taking a not-that-good-fic (haven't read it myself, but none of the reports point to it being truly horrible) and mocking it in front of a large audience.
I suppose that for me, the biggest crime was making the actors read it. I'm going to make an educated guess and say that they are already aware of what's out there. Maybe they hate it, maybe they read some of it in private and giggle at it. Most likely they don't care, they just don't want it shoved into their faces.
Ms. Moran could have asked. Though I do suppose asking someone if they could use their fanfic to have the actors read it is something most people might not say yes to.
There are badfics authors out there who genuinely think that their stories are brilliant and would love to have their work read by these two actors.
Moran could have asked Cumberbatch or Freeman if they have had any weird fics sent to them (they probably have) and then picked one of those. But then Cumberbatch and Freeman would most likely have said no.
Hey kitty! it's the returnbie with the similar username that has now changed to a different username! My opinion is pretty much that I agree with you, keep your fanfics away from the actual cast, because that shit is impolite.
I went around the sun today.
Happy birthday to meeeeeee -blows noisemaker-
Ha-ppy bi-rthday,
Happy birthday,
People dy-ing everywhere,
People li-ving in despair,
Happy bi-rthday,
Happy bi-rthday…
Mwahahaha.
But-but-but... I never had a chance to make cookies.
...
...
I know what I must do. I shall create a devise('s' intentional) that turns back time and carves a message into Past Me's Time Machine that my bosses at the TINCC forbid me from using!
My time is coming. And soon it already shall.
Have a dimensional transponder, in case you ever need to contact your mirror universe self for some reason! Since it's the mirror universe, she'll know how to solve the majority of problems that you're encountering, since you don't know how, and vice versa! Or, I think it works like that. Maybe she'd just be having similar problems to yours, but she'd be a Suethor and the majority of the population would be left-handed.
Only one way to find out! (puts on goggles and grabs the prototype transponder) FOR SCIENCE!
And yes, it is time for another Fandom Pinkie Pie Party giveaway!
What exactly is a Fanon Pinkie Pie Party, you ask? Well, I'll tell you! Due to the My Little Pony brand being made primarily for little girls, Hasbro has forced the canon to restrain Pinkie's partying abilities to those for a five year old little girl. While this is all well and good for said five year olds, those older then that can only find so much enjoyment from them that is not based on nostalgia.
Enter the Fanon Package, where fanfics do right by semi-ignoring canon to break the shackles enforced by corporate onto our favorite Party Pony. Now she can use that cutiemark and throw you what is quite simply the BEST PARTY EVER! Music, drinks, snacks, party games, and quite simply the most delicious cake you will ever taste!
Due to being a member of the PPC, extended bonuses are given to you! Pinkie Pie uses a mixture of her fourth-wall breaking abilities and an RA she managed to get her hooves on to bring in ANY CANONS YOU WANT! Indeed, even the party can be set wherever you so wish, and no canon will question it for this day! Get drunk with the Doctor, solve puzzles with Sherlok, and play darts with Dr. McCoy. All this, and more, will be had!
By the end of the party, specially programed robots with Neuralyzers will sort out all of the canon mess left behind, so worries about any damage to the continua. They will even neuralyze you, making the party seem like it never happened and that all you were doing was sitting at a computer screen reading about this fantastic, though clearly fictional, package deal. The robots even have time travel abilities, due to being based off of the T-1000, so you won't even notice the time difference! This is quite simply the best party you will never remember!
Then again, Lily runs the Adoption Center for the Sherlock continuum's minis, so little Sherlok might just turn up there after the party's over.
Dang it, of all the times for my C key to sick. Ah well, happens to the best of us. I bet that little guy is one of the most popular mini-Hounds out there. I can't be sure, but I would imagine he'd be rather large.
He made it back to the mini-Hound Kennels just fine. You can see his name about halfway down the list of Sherlock-born minis. Nobody's adopted him yet, but after showing up at a high-profile event like Lily's party, I imagine someone might show some interest in him soon.
Or was it birthday... I do tend to forget.
Here's wishing you many successful solar orbits.
In the meantime, here is an alpaca.
Have some peppermint bark. So, what fandoms have you joined in your most recent year on Sol-3?
Happy Birthday! Thanks so much for beta'ing my work. Please accept my gift of a Mini-reaper whistle. When you blow through it, a swarm of Mini -Reapers comes to your aid. You know, when you need a swarm of Mini-reapers. They won't eat you.
(Please forgive me if the Chinese is off; I got it off of Google.)
Happy birthday to you, Lily! Here, have a Delibird! Just be careful that you don't get blown up by its presents; they have an 80% chance of exploding!
That's actually quite accurate for Google Translate.
~Autumn
Found some more variations after all! Here you go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-Uga3ocyeI
*throws confetti* Have a Birthday party jellybean cheesecake!
Have this shiny sonic pen!
Have some of that generic cake left over from last time.
May The Emperor Protect you on this day and For Evermore!
Many happy returns!\
-Opens that bottle of Ferrari Spumante Sergio left around from the last time-
*brings out the Bleepka*
Here, have a replica of the Phial of Galadriel.
"May it be a light for you in badfics, when all other goodfics go out."
~Autumn
Here, have a candy cane and a Dalek necklace.
Many happy returns! (Whatever that means. I still can't quite puzzle it out.)
-Aila
Here, take this 3D Maneuver Gear!
Hold onto your lunch.
Because if I don't start it now, there won't be any time left. ^_^;
If you're new to filking, what you do is take an existing tune and fit it with original new lyrics. In this case, the tune should be your choice of seasonal holiday music, and the words should be PPC-themed. Please use good taste, but aside from that there are no rules. You don't need Permission. You can use any tune you want, even if it's been done before. You can also use any PPC-related topic you want, though as usual, I encourage everyone to pick something other than Sue-slaying. There are LOTS about that.
Your contribution(s) will eventually be archived in the PPC Holiday Songbook. I say "eventually" because (as usual) I still haven't added last year's set yet, and unless a miracle occurs you can bet I won't get to this year's set until next year. Think of it as a rite of passage: if you're still around by the time I add your filk to the songbook, you've been here over a year! Good job! {= D
Sadly, I don't know how much I'll be able to participate directly, since I'm busy getting ready for the trip Phobos and I are going to be taking to visit his family all of next week, and we're going almost directly from that to a friend's house for an extended New Year's event. But please, carry on without me and have fun!
~Neshomeh
To the tune of "I Have A Little Dreidel":
I have a mini-Balrog
It was spawned by a Sue
My partner gave it to me--
Oh, that day I would rue!
Chorus:
Oh, mini, mini, mini
What will I do with you?
You burnt up all my arrows
And even my new shoe.
Its name is Caradaras
Like the pass, don't you know
(The Sue that spawned it didn't
So my partner told her so!)
Chorus
Now when I'm on a mission
And freezing in the snow
I wish I had my mini
To make everything glow!
Chorus
--
I think that's all I've got for now...enjoy, I guess :)
~DF
Sung to the tune of "White Christmas". If I'm singing it, sung badly to the tune of "White Christmas".
Probably.
---
I'm stuck inside a beige Christmas,
Full to the brim with leaden prose,
Where the Words inspire
Ennui and ire,
And my hatred for canon abuse grows
I'm stuck inside a beige Christmas,
And praying I can last the night...
Characters are insipid and trite,
It's their faces I wish to ignite...
I'm stuck inside a beige Christmas,
And praying neuralysers might
Just end these poor abused canons' plight,
Let's get started. Look into the light...
Set to the tune of 'Baby, it's cold outside'.
The badfic in the song is probably C*l*br**n or another, equally bad, legendary badfic. Poor agents.
We really can't stay
(But, partner, a Sue's out there)
We got to go way
(But, partner, there's squick out there)
The console has made
(And look, wouldn't you just hate)
That awful BEEP!
(If I saw things that made me weep)
The SO will start to worry
(Commas falling down in a flurry)
The Big Thorn will be pacing the floor
(Listen to the Author's note roar)
So really we'd better scurry
(The tenses has all gone blurry)
But maybe just half a drink more
(Got some Bleepka here; let me pour)
Upstairs might think
(Partner, it's bad out there)
Say, what's in this drink
(No plot to be had out there)
I wish you would see
(Listen to my fervent plea)
That we can't stay
(That Sue will make us all her prey)
We do have a duty, partner
(Could be our death to charge her)
At least we ought to say that we tried
(But we could both end up fried)
We really can't stay
(Partner, just stay here)
Ahh, but a Sue's out there
We simply must go
(But, partner, there's angst out there)
The answer is no
(Torture and rape out there)
Though our RC is
(Better lay low through this)
So nice and warm
(Look at that punctuation storm)
Upstairs will be suspicious
(But this Sue is so malicious)
They'll know if we don't go in
(With purple eyes and ivory skin)
They'll punish us for delaying
(How, they're not even paying)
Well maybe just half a drink more
(Never such a badfic before)
We've got to start now
(But, partner, there's smut out there)
Say, lend me a bow
(It's up to your butt out there)
I hear what you say
(And she is to hard to slay)
But don't you see
(How can we do this, you and me)
Sanction will be forthcoming
(The plotline is truly mind-numbing)
Vacationdays will be revoked
(Vacationdays are just a cruel joke)
We really can't stay
(Get over that holdout)
Aah, but a Sue's out there
Lo, how the Flow'rs ere looming,
From tender stems hath sprung,
From Origin World they cometh,
As hS' tales have sung.
They came a beacon bright,
Amid a badfic winter,
In the dark of a Suvian night.
I'm planning to eventually record this with my band, The Social Outcasts, but until then, here it is.
[To Daft Punkby Pentatonix]
Find it, click it, read it, dump it,
Get a new one, look- review it,
Comment, favorite, flame it, check it,
Scroll it, follow, add- unadd it,
Spork it, laugh at it now, Snark it,
Write it, read it, quick- erase it,
Copy, upload, click that button,
Leave it, wait now,
Fanfic logic,
One more time,
[Oooh, oooh, oh]
One more time
[Oooh oh oh oh]
It's like the legend of the goodfic,
There's no end, just a beginning,
What keeps the website working,
The fandoms, alway quirking,
We've wrote too far,
To give up what we are,
So lets raise the bar,
And our ships to the stars,
We're all online to have fun,
We're up all night to get some,
We're up all night to the sun,
We're up all night to get writing,
(x2)
We're up all night to get writing,
We're up all night to get- up all night to get get
writing.
Last night, I wrote a fic about you,
In this fic, I'm shipping right besides you,
There's nothing wrong, with just a little slash,
We were shipping all night long,
Oh,
I don't know what to do,
About this fic and you,
I hope this fic is true,
One more time,
Hey, we're gonna canonate,
Oh yeah, don't stop the writing,
Write it harder, make it better,
Do it faster, make it longer,
Always ever hour after,
Our fics are never over,
(x3)
FanFics got me feeling so free,
celebrate with PPC,
One more time,
Fanfics got me feeling so free, we're gonna celebrate and write,
Tonight,
Yeah, feeling,
So good,
our fics to the stars,
(chorus)
Our fics are never over.
...how does it relate to the Holiday season?
The Sue’s Head Carol [Song: The Boar’s Head Carol]
The Sue’s head in hand bear I,
Bedeck’d with gems so glittery
And I pray Eru, Valar, merry be
Blennum molestum prehendō. (I catch the annoying blockhead)
Caput Suei defero (The Sue’s head I offer)
Redens laudes Canonico.(Giving praises to the Canon)
The Sue’s head, as I understand
Is the commonest in Fanficland
Which thus is dreck and so very bland
Pero también ridículo. (But also ridiculous)
Caput Suei defero
Redens laudes Canonico.
The Stewardship she did dismiss
To elope with Faramir in bliss
He tells us, post-neuralysis:
Ai, hantanyel órenyallo! (Oh, I thank you from the bottom of my heart)
Caput Suei defero
Redens laudes Canonico!
Original song lyrics here. Latin wasn't quite flexible enough, so I added in some Spanish and Quenya for good measure.
______
I'll try for a non-Sueslaying carol next year, I promise!
Araeph
I really love your filk! Very funny. And I never heard of the Boar's Head Carol before, so I've learned something new in the process! Good work.
One nitpick, though:
Having read the original chorus, I can tell what you are trying to do with the chorus of your filk. However, with Latin, it's not as easy as replacing one word with another and keeping the endings. Apri (of the boar) is the genitive form of the word aper, a second-declension noun. However, whichever way you translate "Sue" into Latin, you won't get a second-declension noun. In other words, "Suei" won't do as a Latin word.
If you wanted to use the word "Sue" as a loanword, then it would make more sense to decline it as a third declension noun rather than a second declension noun:
Caput Suis deferō...
You could also try using the full name "Susanna":
Caput Susannae deferō
(a few extra syllables, yes, but it would still fit the tune.)
Or you could follow the ACMSES's lead and translate all the way to "Rose" (Rosa in Latin):
Caput Rosae deferō
In any other context, I would also focus on your misuse of canonicus as the word for "canon" (canonicus is the adjective "canonical"), but since it works in context ("giving praises to the canonical one"), and since using the correct word would break the rhyme scheme (the last line would become Redens laudes canoni), I won't pester you on that.
Once again, a funny filk that should be in the PPC Songbook as soon as possible (once fixed, of course!)
On a different note, are you planning on making any more DTE missions anytime soon?
...but I wanted the word "Sue" to be distinct from any real Latin word (intentionally and somewhat jarringly so), and suis is the plural dative/ablative form of suus, so that might get confusing. The same is true for a real name such as Susanna--it just isn't quite as funny as the out-of-place Suei is. Another way to edit it would to be go the humor route entirely and use Suey.
I also used "canonico" for the exact reason you pointed out--it would break the rhyme scheme to use a declension of canon. The translation needs to be updated, though...thanks for catching that!
Yes, I am planning to make more DTE missions. They should come out in January. :)
Araeph
Currently writing one to the tune of Happy Xmas (war is over), although from the looks of it I'm taking a slightly different twist to usual.
Storme Hawk
Based on... well, apparently it's titled 'The Christmas Song', but you know it as 'Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire'.
Chipmunks roasting on an open fire
It's just as twisted as it sounds
Poor old canons being thrown in the briar
Or being run down by the hounds
Everybody knows some violence, and some horror goes
A bit too far, won't sleep tonight
Being tortured, under flu-or-escent glow
Takes some doing to set right
It isn't Christmas - not this way
If we've to deal with stories of death and decay
Give us a break, they don't have to die!
Or all the other things we ever decry
So DAVD is offering this simple plea
To fanfic writers old or new
This Christmas time
Just this one day this year
Stop the violence - we beg you.
(The second half may be a little off - I can't conjure up the tune for some of those lines in my head, so I've had to guess it based on the words)
hS
I don't think I'll contribute...even if I do, I think I'll ruin it. I'm not good at this!
~Autumn
I can't sing. Unless you want me to imitate a death metal vocalist while I play Mario party with my friends.
I'm serious.
Also, you're going to one of Mars'/Mar's/Mars's/*&$@$! moons? Are you a wizard/mutant/astronaut/batman?
My time is coming. Ring the bells.
Sorry if I wasn't clear, but you just write new words for this game. Check out the Songbook for previous years' examples. Singing is an option for those who want to give it a go, but not necessary.
Either Mars' or Mars's would be correct (I prefer the first; two Ss looks clumsy to me), but as Hedgehog pointed out, Phobos in this case is simply the username of my husband and fellow-Boarder. However, I am not denying being a wizard/mutant/astronaut/batman. After all, you should always be yourself—unless you can be Batman. Then you should always be Batman.
~Neshomeh
Well, if people really want to hear it, I've got Audacity, so I could always give people's filks a whirl and upload 'em somewhere for y'all. :P
No one could be a wizard, an astronaut, and Batman simultaneously! The wizard-astronaut-Batman would cause an imbalance in the fabric of awesomeness, temporarily gravitating all things that are awesome toward himself/herself, and since space is awesome, all of space would bend toward the amalgamated being! It could implode the entirety of reality!
Someone could be a mutant while simultaneously being any of those three things, though. Unless it's the X-Men kind of mutant where you get heat vision and the ability to phase through solid matter. Then you risk collapsing the impressiveness spectrum again, but the risk isn't nearly as high.
So here goes!
So this is to the tune of "White Christmas", and it's a little ditty called "Sue Christmas"
I'm dreaming of a Sue Christmas
Just like the ones I used to fear
Where the minis hustled
And agents bustled
To stand and perhaps to jeer.
I'm dreaming of a Sue Christmas
Between the many shots of booze
May your missions go very slow
And may all your Christmases have Sues
And that's all I've got now. But hey, have a fun trip!
I probably won't do this challenge though, verse isn't my thing. I prefer prose.
The Emperor Protects!
I shall try to participate, I suppose, though Christmas carols and I don't exactly get along.
-Aila
Anyhow, I might actually participate in this, unlike me completely forgetting to do... well, anything at all with the Hallowe'en thing. Or co-writes we've tried to do. Whoops. ._.
That aside, as soon as I think of and make a good filk I'll send in a reply. :P
Know some of you (all of you) will be mad about this... thing.
http://marysuefacepalm.tumblr.com/tagged/worst+of+the+worst/page/3
The Emperor PURGES!
now a Kuroko SUE?! What...the...?
BTW, I would have liked it if you linked to the first chapter. This is apparently the third.
I thought I linked something else entirely...
The Emperor Protects!
We haven't had one of these in awhile.
And now for the fic. Purity, a DW/HP crossover by apple2011, to be precise. It's... well, Harry is turned into a Dalek and completely embraces it, there's allusions to all sorts of Evil!Manipulative!Dumbledore tropes including Ginny and Harry haveing been married at 8 without either of their knowlege, and all sorts of other horrors. Not to mention the defective grammar and spelling. Completely shudder-worthy.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9907774/1/Purity
A genuine work of art, a true masterpiece! And I love the ravingly positive reviews. Well-deserved, every one of them.
I'm not sure whether to envy or mourn whoever ultimately sporks this.
And I thought "Star Class" was bad.
That's pretty bad. Really. You claiming this bruva?
The Emperor Protects!
I feel like Transformers should have multiple minis—one for each continuity family. After all, Ick-Yaks have only ever been mentioned in G1-related stories.
I think it should go something like this:
G1 family (includes BW and BM)= mini-Ick-Yaks
RID = ?
Unicron Trilogy (A/E/C) = mini-Scrapmetals
Live action film continuity = mini-Frenzys?
Animated continuity = mini-Lugnuts?
Aligned continuity = mini-Vehicons
Does this sound like a good idea? I am open to suggestions.
I am writing a mission in Forgotten Realms, and the badfic in question has more minis than a dog has fleas. So I ask the PPC hivemind: what should the Forgotten Realms mini be? A mini-Elminster? A mini-Drizzt? A mini-Guenhwyvar?
I don't think mini-Drizzt would work. What about a mini-Drider?
-Phobos
He's an iconic character from the specific setting, as opposed to just being generic DnD (and yeah, I agree with you that the different settings should probably have unique minis). I also think it'd be quite amusing to have the minis be based on Drizzt, given how popular he was for people to copy.
He is, as you say, a character. Minis should not be based on a main character, but rather on an iconic monster.
-Phobos
However, that does seem to be just a guideline, rather than an actual rule.
For example, NCIS has mini-LEOs (Law Enforcement Officers). Now, it's a little bit different from normal because that continuum doesn't have any monsters, let alone iconic ones, so you can't really use one as the mini. But I'm not sure that the Forgotten Realms setting has any monsters iconic to it specifcally, instead of just being iconic to DnD.
My understanding of the different campaign settings is that they are all sperate worlds in their own right - they have distinct geography, history, mythology, etc. The main thing that they share, the game mechanics, doesn't actually feature in the stories. I personally agree with Des that the different settings deserve their own mini, and Drizzt does at least have the benefit of being particular to the Forgotten Realms.
If we are just talking about assigning an iconic DnD monster to the setting, then your suggestion of driders is a good one. Other possibilities include: dragons (although probably have to rule these out as they'd be so similiar to the Narnis ones), gelatinous cubes, mind flayers, owlbears, purple worms and the tarrasque.
However, I'm not sure how much any of them actually feature in the Forgotten Realms, or even if they feature at all.
Law Enforcement Officers, or at least, un-capitalized law enforcement officers, appear in lots of canons, but NCIS is a show absolutely filled with them, so it fits as a mini there.
As long as there's some kind of beastie that affects Forgotten Realms' plot, it would suffice as a mini, even if that creature also happens to appear in main D&D settings as well.
(But please, no more mini-dragons. We've already got the "regular" variety for Narnia, mini-fire dragons as part of Airbender's cadre of minis, mini-time dragons for Wicked, and mini-ogre-dragon hybrids for Ella Enchanted. (Apparently, EE fanfic was a terrifying place back when the original OFUers were writing?) Also, hello Narnis the mini-dragon!)
I'm going to put in my non-vote right now for mini-Gelatinous Cubes, because that sounds simultaneously adorable, disturbing, and terrifying.
Anyway. The issue with Drizzt is that, for a lot of people, he's actually the main character of the Forgotten Realms stories. Imagine how... well, uninteresting things would be if Miss Cam had started off with 'mini-Frodos', and Meir Brin had followed with 'mini-Harrys'... everyone would have a horde of small copies of canon characters running after them. Compare that to the miniature flame-demons and talking spiders we got instead - which universe do you prefer?
Then there's the question of sentience... the vast majority of minis are not copies of intelligent creatures. Mini-Aragogs are, but they don't act like copies of Aragog - they act like small acrowhatevers. Mini-Drizzt? You'd be making small copies of a specific person, who then proceeds to be shipped off to a university (if such exists) to be forced into being a security guard, forced to attack fangirls - and, generally, treated as a slave. Um... isn't there something in Drizzt's backstory about slavery, and how he ain't a fan of it...?
I'm not a fan of character-derived minis in general. Mini-Nick Furys disturb me (and I've cowritten a story with one in, so yes, I have experience); the idea that there are mini-Cadfaels out there disturbs me even more. There are a lot of words for people who treat other people as property - and not many of them are nice.
So they make me, personally, uncomfortable. I would vastly prefer people to stick with minor, powerful, and iconic monsters - not miniature pet adult human beings. But, like the no-one said (yet), it ain't up to me.
hS
Is it bad that I find myself wanting to write a thing where people-minis (mini-Cadfaels, LEOs, Nick Furies, etc.) start protesting being treated as, well, minis, and/or begin petitioning for agent status?
And hS's arguments against character-derived minis are pretty convincing, I looked at the Monsters of Faerûn splatbook and found the Eyeball Beholderkin - which, fittingly enough, is a subtype of Beholder found only in Forgotten Realms. Since those are already small and most certainly not sentient, I'll use those as minis.
PS: Aragog is an Arcomantula.
Arcomantula is a mini-Aragog.
ARAGOGCEPTION
Mini-Roots, from Artemis Fowl, mini-Cadfaels, from the Cadfael Chronicles, mini-Schrödingers from Hellsing, mini-Nick Furys from the Avengers movies, and mini-Roderick Deckers from A-Team, just to name a few examples. Heck, mini-Aragogs could be construed as a character-derived mini if you take the interpretation that they are small versions of Aragog rather than simply small acromantulas, and they were one of the first minis out there.
I agree with you that minis should be based on a species rather than an individual in the majority of cases, but Drizzt is one of the most well-known and iconic entities from the Forgotten Realms, and shouldn't be discounted solely because he's an individual being.
Most of the continua that you've mentioned don't have beasties in them. So they really don't bear any relevance to this discussion.
The onea that do have beasties are anofher matter. To answer those examples I would say this: Just because it has been done, doesn't mean it should be done again or even that it should have been done the first time. Not all precedent is good precedent.
-Phobos
Driders aren't quite that iconic. A dragon might do, or perchance a Phaerimm. What do you think?
They're the Narnia mini, confusingly enough. Narnia had, what, two dragons in all seven books? Maybe three, if you count Eustace's temporary transformation? In a way, though, it's a good thing, because it keeps any continua with dragons from automatically defaulting to said dragons as the most distinct native creature and means that the mini species can be more diverse.
As for the Phaerimm... well, no other continuum is going to have anything similar, I'm betting, so they're certainly unique. We should probably pick a mini that wouldn't provoke in the majority of agents the instinctive reaction to smash its horrendous pate in with any nearby blunt object, though. Minis can be menacing, but they normally don't go as far as "blood-drooling flying polyp/lamprey with almost-humanoid hands".
I note that Forgotten Realms is technically part of Dungeons and Dragons, and that hasn't got a mini set forth. Mini-Beholders, perhaps?
However, it's like saying two games that run on the Unreal Engine need to share a mini. Other words, FR uses D&D rules, but it is separate from the default campaign setting (Greyhawk). Unless you count stuff like Spelljammer as canon, 'default' D&D and FR have very little to do with each other aside from the crunch.
Why don't we just take a noteworthy creature/historical figure from Points of Light or Greyhawk and use that for all DnD?
Suggesting that all of D&D's campaign settings will use the same mini is like suggesting that Bioshock Infinite and Borderlands 2 will use the same mini because they both run on Unreal Engine 3.
A mini-Guenhwyvar sounds tempting, but Elminster is an original part of the setting so a mini-Elminster might work better.
Minis get decided by the continuum's OFU. If there's no OFU in that continuum, whoever writes the first mission in which a mini is mentioned chooses what sort of mini it is, just like how I decided that Teletubbies' mini is the mini-Noo-Noo in my first mission because there's no mention of it and no Teletubbies OFU.
I'm guessing Anjilly has/had a Transformers mission in the works, then, as she added mini-Ick-Yaks to the Mini page on the wiki.
Guess that means this discussion is moot.
Mostly anyway:
http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?disc=199610;article=179193;title=PPC%20Posting%20Board
The mini rules were faster and looser back then, and they just kind of got made up and thrown on the wiki at the drop of a hat.
Since this mini wasn't created the official way, and since there's still no OFU, the mini type (or types) for all of Transformers is still technically up to the first OFU or mission writer. I'll make a note on that entry saying such.
(Personally, I don't feel like the different Transformers canons are different enough from each other to warrant having all separate minis, but I'll leave that question up to those who have watched more than just Beast Wars, I guess.)
The thing is, sometimes characters can be portrayed very differently between continuities. For instance, "Wheeljack" from G1 is very different from both the Transformers Armada "Wheeljack" character and the Transformers Prime "Wheeljack".
One of the badfics I was planning to mission has characters from the Unicron Trilogy and G1 continuities tossed into it at random, with poor enough spelling to create a new mini just about every few paragraphs. If there's a mini of a character that could be in either, such Cyclonus or Jetfire(and the fic doesn't distinguish between continuities, before you ask, which is one of its many major charges, so the overlapping characters mentioned there could easily be from either reality), what would the mini be? Would it be a crossover mini, like the ones briefly seen in the OFUA, and contain aspects of both the Scrapmetals and the Ick-Yak, or would mini determination gravitate toward one continuity somehow?
They could possibly flicker between being mini-Ick-Yaks and mini-Scrapmetals for a moment, and then stabilize into being, say, mini-Ick-Yaks with Scrapmetal cannons growing out of their backs, or something. It's your choice, really.
Couldn't we just have the minis for all of Transformers be mini-Unicrons? Even though Unicron looks slightly different between continuity families, he's present in almost all of them, and behaves more or less the same way, since most to all of the Unicrons are supposed to be extensions of the same being. Maybe there could be slight variances of individual minis based on the character that was misspelled and their continuity of origin, but it would be relatively simple compared to keeping up with yet another continuum featuring multiple mini species.
It would mean removing the mini-Ick-Yaks, of course, but they never had an official PPC appearance, and only showed up canonically in a single episode of the original cartoon, so I don't think they'd be distinctive enough to be minis for the entirety of the G1 family regardless.
That...actually works really, really well. I like it!
Heck, the actual existence of Ick-Yaks in-series is questionable, as they're only ever seen in flashbacks, and the only character to recall them is the notoriously senile Kup.
This would, of course, refer to the home continuity of the character whose name was misspelled; a misspelled Dinobot (from Beast Wars) would create a mini-Ick-Yak, while a misspelled Airachnid (from Transformers Prime) would create a mini-Vehicon, and so forth.
