Feb 2014 Archive, part a

Well, I dunno if this counts, but I'm currently beta-reading a fic that started out with some very Sue-y characters, but they've since become more logical and well-written, I think.

Her name was Jacqueline Lantern and she was a Rise of the Guardians Sue. She was Spirit of Halloween. She was an angsty!Sue until I looked back and realized how much fun writing psychopaths is.

I was working on a story like that. It's not for my Agents, which I will eventually submit...
It's about a Sue who gains self-awareness about what she is doing and the whole hierarchy of Suvians...

I could really use a beta, is anyone willing to help me out?

Of course, the things that were wrong with my Mary Sue were all the added things (like cool stuff TM) that were taking away from having an actual plot and characterization, so once I dumped the merchandise and worked with her a few more years, I got a character who turned up under different names in five different unfinished stories. She's the mother of one of my main characters in this year's mystery novel, actually. (And although he's nearly unrecognizable now compared to when I was twelve, her elf prince boyfriend stuck with her all this time and is her husband & the MC's father.)

I've had those two since I was twelve or so, and I'm turning twenty two on the seventeenth, so it's safe to say that they've changed a lot. I also learned quite a bit in the intervening years.

(For bonus points, Sierra started as an Abhorsen-but-not because I didn't know fan-fiction existed at the time. At some point she returned to her origins and became a benevolent necromanceress who gives lost souls a voice so they can pass on. She also did some time as Gandalf the Grey's apprentice, under the name Yara Greencloak, and has been transplanted to at least three original worlds. :D)

A few years ago, when I was just starting out with writing, I made a horrid little God-Modder Stu. After a while, I forgot about him. A while after that, I realized exactly what I'd been writing, and in horror, annihilated the story from every database I could find it on.

Then, after I discovered the PPC, the idea of that Stu resurfaced, and I was tempted to bring him back just to kill him. But instead I decided to give his character a complete overhaul, and turned him into Agent Legacy, who has permission, but hasn't been written yet.

So. Er… Yeah, I suppose that counts. :)

Because most Sues tend to be surprisingly powerless. Unless it helps them get their "hott man".

Or, you know, maybe it's because I work in the BBC Sherlock verse pretty often. Sues there have a very common 'power' termed superdeduction, which, as we all know, is honed through observation and is most definitely not genetic.

Anyway. Most of my Agents are reformed Sues in a meta sense. Lori Starrett even had her own fic that almost got published disguised as a goodfic that was getting debunked by more blatant Sues, but only Trojie and Pads were aware of it since they looked it over and caught me before I published. And then from there it's a simple matter of just completely rewriting her backstory so that she doesn't originate from Middle-earth like previously, but from Earth with a keen interest in Tolkien, etc.

And Agent Eledhwen used to be way more Suvian as well. She was more or less a one-sided drama queen (or as I termed it, 'emo') and a cardboard foil to an Agent Lily who was, putting it nicely, hyperactive. A bit of that remains to this day in the form of Eledhwen's clone Lilith from the Mary Sue Factories, who got killed in IAHF1.

He was a Gary Stu. Now his reaction to one is "kill him".

Most were humans of various departments, ages, sexes and genders, others were all number of alien creatures, and one was a vending machine. It, surprisingly, only used the word "meatbag" once when congratulating Nume.

One particular standout was a dark-skinned Sicilian man who looked to be somewhere near his early thirties, in a plush, comfortable-looking but formal suit, certainly not usual attire for a PPC agent at all, let alone one trying to relax. Basilico Andretti was grudgingly willing to admit that that might have been due to a lack of practise; if Nasira - and just where had she gone? - hadn't dragged him over here, the mass-email that came to his office's console might have gone read but ignored. It wouldn't have been out of dislike for anybody involved in this situation; it's hard to dislike people when you frankly have barely any idea who they are beyond what's in their files. No, it was more that few people really understood just how much paperwork went into keeping the DIA's Patrol Division running and effectively policing such a cheerfully anarchic community.

But here he was all the same, the weight of his gifts under one arm, his free hand covering one ear thanks to the sudden commotion from somebody's player piano. It sounded like it needed to be tuned up... with a sledgehammer. Eventually he made his way through the throng and to Nume's table, politely waiting until he wasn't engaged with anyone else before moving ahead.

"A decade's service is no small thing, Agent Supernumerary," he said, slowing down so the name wouldn't send his tongue tripping and rolling down a hill. "Please accept my congratulations, and these gifts."

After speaking, he gently placed his offerings on the table, a leather-bound hardcover book with no visible title atop a rosewood writing box with fluid brass inlay that ran over the wood in floral patterns. Gifts received, he gave Jenni and Ilraen a small nod as well.

"Nurse Robinson and Agent Ilraen-Aroline-Fothergill, I presume? I hope you're both well today."

Where there is Convenient Cake, there will also be Convenient Moochers. Agent Diocletian might have forcibly divorced herself from her Sue days--mainly by avoiding singing, shapewear, using the word 'pathetic' or allowing herself to be described as anything much beyond "oh, that one"--but she hadn't quite been able to conquer her need for sugar. The minute the cake appeared, she noticed it.

Then she noticed what was being celebrated, and it killed her mood somewhat. "Ai Elbereth," she muttered to Agent Suicide, who was sitting beside her eating a cheesy goat burrito. "Ten years. And he's from the Real World, too. I've never even seen the Real World."

"It's not all it's cracked up to be," Suicide said with his mouth full. "Colder and grayer. And there's no Universal Laws there, unless you count gravity."

"No wonder he's so twitchy, then." This from Diocletian, who looked like--"Hey! What did I say?"--nothing in particular, and certainly nothing beautiful or notable. Although there was a hint of chipmunk in her features. "Better. Anyway, he doesn't look too happy about it. That looks like good cake, but . . . maybe we should leave him alone."

"Nah. Got to give him his present, don't we?"

She shot a glance at Suicide. "You knew this was happening?"

"Jenni told me."

"Of course."

"And she sent a mass e-mail. What, you don't check your messages?"

"Not recently. Anyway, I thought you hated e-mail. How would you know about the message she sent?"

"I do hate e-mail, but I still check it. I kinda like watching Nigerian princes beg for my help." He finished his burrito and stood, pulling a little fabric-wrapped bundle out of his pocket. "C'mon, let's go say hi."

"Wait a second." Dio put a hand on his arm, less friendly and more restraining. "What did you get him?"

Suicide never blinked. "Ethnic spices."

"Ethnic spices."

"Yep."

"It's hemp, isn't it."

"May have a certain hemp-like quality, yeah."

With a sigh, she stood and followed Suicide over to where Nume was sitting. Scythians of his time had considered smoking hemp a religious duty--a way of communing with the dead, especially at royal funerals. She wasn't sure how Nume would react to that kind of present, though, considering that he a) wasn't Scythian, b) didn't like Suicide and c) seemed to be in some kind of personal hell. With cake.

"Happy anniversary," Su said cheerfully as he put down the packet on the table. "May your enemies fall before you, their fields be sown with salt and their women lament for your mercy."

"Okay, so, um... Cindy, can you tell us exactly what it is we're doing here?"

Cindy shot a glance at Anneli as the two of them walked in. "Well, since it's Supernumerary's tenth anniversary, I just thought... well, you know."

Anneli grunted again, and then wiped her forehead. "So that's why you had us shove a player piano all the way here from... from... that weirdo's house in Paris?"

"Hey, it was the most authentic thing I could think of for the occasion," said Cindy. "Ever since Xanthus told me about it, I figured it'd make a good gift somehow."

"I totally don't think this is gonna work, but whatever," she said. "Besides, I think we both know you just wanna see your boyfriend again."

Cindy blushed furiously as Anneli said this. "Ilraen is not my boyfriend!" she replied snappily.

"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that," Anneli replied, clearly unconvinced. She then looked past the player piano, and suddenly composed herself. "Oh hey, I think it's him!"

Cindy immediately jumped up, glancing at where the andalite was in the room before bowing in front of Nume. "Um... hi," she said. "You probably don't know me, but I've met your partner Ilraen a couple of times. And... well, here I am, presenting you with a gift of a player piano."

Anneli sighed. "Like, we had to travel to early 20th Century France for this one," she said. She then glanced down at Cindy. "Don't ask her how she even heard of that Ballet Mécanique or whatever."

Cindy then nodded, starting the contraption on the player piano.

Three seconds later, complete chaos began to ring out from the strings of the player piano.

(( BTW, if you want a sense of Cindy's gift... well, just listen to the first minute of this video, and imagine it without any of the percussion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_4fqNL1aAM Yeah, George Antheil can be a bit crazy like that. ))

"Wow. Okay. So this can be a learning experience. 'Never send Doc to get any kind of present ever.' Lesson learned."

"I don't even know the man, Vania. You asked me to go get a present for some guy named 'Supernumerary'. I thought a high-end graphing calculator sounded like it would be appreciated."

Vania huffed and put her forehead into one hand. "Generic presents for people you don't know would generally be candy, Bleepstuff, maybe a card. Not a calculator."

Doc looked away. "Sorry I don't know your social people customs."

"Well, we're almost to Nume. And since you're the one who picked out the present, you can be the one to embarrass yourself." Vania shoved Doc forward towards Supernumerary.

Doc's eyes widened, and he clutched the present to his chest. "Um. Hi. Hi! Well, we . . . I . . . we got you a . . . something." He stiffly thrust the bow-bedecked calculator out to Nume.

A young Asian-looking woman with a pixie cut and lightning bolt tattoos on her midriff cut her way through the crowd on her way up to Nume. Somewhere between the door to the Cafeteria and the center table she'd acquired a rather festive party hat.

"Sup, old timer?" she said with a nod. "Name's Gremlin. We haven't met, but apparently you know my partner Xericka from somewhere. Or she knows you, anyway. She wanted me to give you this."

She handed over a rather sizable bottle of what appeared to be Bleeprum. There was a simple black ribbon tied in a bow around the bottle's neck.

"Happy anniversary, dude." Gremlin gave Jenni a nod. "Lookin' fine as always, Robinson. See you when you next swing by the Nursery." She then ducked back into the rambling masses with a final cry of "Somebody point me in the direction of something to drink!"

~~~~~

James Pittman gave a awed whistle as he took in the Cafeteria crowd from the relative safety of the door. "This Supernumerary fella must be something to get a reception like this," he said.

"Ten years of solid service," Laura Dukes replied. "I'd say that qualifies as being something."

"And how do you know him again?"

"Reputation only. What, you haven't heard anything about him?"

James gave his partner an appraising look. "I'm still new round here, darlin', in case you forgot," he said. "Haven't yet gotten to know enough folks well enough to start swappin' gossip."

"Well, here's your chance. Go! Mingle! I'm gonna go grab a slice of cake before they all vanish." Laura paused. "And if you see any aliens, don't stare. Or shoot them."

"I'm not that new, Lar. I know the general sort of weirdness that goes on 'round here."

"Just making sure," Laura said before pushing her way towards the cake.

((OOC: How does Xericka know Nume? Well, they technically did have very brief cameos in this story. Who's to say they didn't meet then? Either that, or at a bar somewhere. And Gremlin knows Jenni the same way Xericka did in the Halloween RP: they met at the Nursery.))

((No, they can’t. But if Androia and Hieronymus had been around, they would have noticed that Supernumerary was “starting at a fixed point in the middle distance”, and they could have tried to tell him that it might be more comfortable to be “staring” at this point.))

((Congratulations to Nume, and my apologies for being such a spoilsport.))

HG

Ilraen continues to be rather adorable. And Nume's lies about his job are making me think about Men In Black.

Plothole cake sounds awesome, but probably tastes a little stale.

Everyone will always make up the words to songs that they don't know. Including the people who claim to know said songs but can't remember what word goes where...

Arthur Briggs held the Cafeteria door open for his intern. It wasn't for reasons of good manners (though he tried to maintain them), it was because Lynn Gillies was carrying a much larger present than he was.

"Congratulations, Agent Supernumerary!" Briggs held out a carved wooden box. "Reaching ten years here is quite an accomplishment. I don't think you've met my current intern, Lynn Gillies. Gillies, this is Agent Supernumerary from DIC."

Gillies smiled, and placed a neatly-folded mass of fabric on the table. "It's good to meet you." She glanced down at the fabric. "I wasn't sure what the appropriate present for these events would be, I hope you like this. It's a tapestry I snagged out of a badfic, the designs are supposed to be Arabic."

OOC: If Nume opens the box, Briggs got him a phaser pistol.

...revealing a short Chinese woman sporting a black bob cut and an enormous grin. She worked her way towards the DIC Agent and placed a shoebox in front of him.

"Agent Supernumerary, is it? A pleasure to meet you!" she chirped. "I'm Penny Chang, from Intelligence. I just wanted to say that it's really fantastic that you've managed to tough out ten years here! Now, I think that you'll appreciate this gift, it's handmade..."

Penny flipped the top of the shoebox with a thumb. A painted balsa wood model of an Excelsior-class starship silently rose from the container and started to hover around the table slightly above head height.

"A few friends of mine came together to make this. We know you really like Star Trek, so we thought you'd get a kick out of a model ship. It can avoid obstacles and curious minis on its own, so no need to keep it tied up or anything. If ever the floaty charm starts to fade on this, you can just take it down to RC 845 and ask for the resident wizard. He'll gladly re-work his spell on it for you."

She took a single step back from the table. "Well, I'll be seeing you, then. Don't work yourself too hard, 'cause we Spies love reading your mission reports. If you go mad or missing or something, we won't be getting any new ones! Cheers!" she said with a smile.

The crowd shifted again and the woman vanished from sight.

February 2013. Along the timeline of things that occurred in HQ in 2013, this was indeed one of those calms before the storm.

"How lovely," Agent Christianne Shieh remarked as the console lit up with a message. "Agent Supernumerary's tenth anniversary of being in the PPC."

"A remarkable achievement," agreed Agent Eledhwen Elerossiel.

"Especially given the high turnover rate." Christianne turned from the console. "There's a celebration in the Cafeteria. Want to go?"

"Will there be chocolate?"

Christianne groaned.

~~

The Disentangler and the Agent landed their TARDIS just inside the Cafeteria. Their TARDIS had taken on the look of a distasteful floral display.

"What a nice party. They have tea and everything," said the Agent cheerily as he looked around. The Disentangler rolled her eyes.

"Pretty high turnout. Surprising, given the venue," she said, grinning and waving at some of the other partygoers. "There's Jeeves and Rooney from DOI. What the hell are they carrying?"

"Looks like presents."

"Looks like a pile of socks to me."

"Why would Nume need more socks?"

The Disentangler rolled her eyes again. "I dunno, sock puppets?"

"Is he the sockpuppet sorta guy? Because he's a lot like... which one of me was it, again? No, wait, it was one of you. I swear, every other one of your regenerations is sarcastic."

The Disentangler rolled her eyes. "Hush," she said, waving at Nerys and Lisa who were standing by the food (which looked a bit meatloafy and way too glittery to be edible).

~~

"Happy anniversary!" declared Rooney as he and Jeeves presented their present to Nume.

"It is, I believe, an achievement to have come this far," agreed Jeeves, even if the only times the two DOI agents had ever seen Nume were usually from afar and rarely on Cluedo nights in the Cafeteria.

Rooney nodded. "The socks are all patterned for different days of the week. And there are lots of bright green patterns. To go with your glasses."

"We're just going to go have some Convenient Cake," added Jeeves, tugging his friend by the arm towards the table of slightly more edible-looking refreshments.

~~

"I put an experiment on hold for this," Scientist Lori Starrett groused as her husband Bill presented a set of ever-changing coloured pens to Nume.

"Yeah, well, try reaching your tenth anniversary in this madhouse. I think it's worth a stab at celebration," her husband muttered.

Lori rolled her eyes before smiling at Nume. "Happy anniversary," she said in a much nicer tone.

~~

"Pretty good party, isn't it?" wondered Christianne as she and Eledhwen entered the Cafeteria. "Ooh, there's Lori. She looks well."

"Is she not supposed to be?" wondered Eledhwen.

"Pregnancy rumours," Christianne replied quickly before hefting s colourfully-wrapped bag of Bleep-candies (Gummyblees, Bleepolate, the works). Eledhwen has suggested a pocket watch, but Christianne had shot the idea down. After all, in some cultures (like hers), it was rude to send people clocks. It was a subtle way of telling them their time was running out.

Eledhwen frowned. "I was not aware there were rumours," she said as they stepped over to where Nume was, after Lori and Bill wandered off into the crowd.

"Yeah, well." Christianne shrugged. "You hear things at the pub during game nights. Moreso at the poker table, though.

"Speaking of which, you have yet to show me how to count --"

"Not mentioning that here," snapped Christianne before grinning over at Nume and tossing him the candies. "Happy anniversary!"

(Note: That turned out longer than expected.)

Wobbles joined proceedings the only way she knew how; bursting in at pace with a party hat perched atop her massive rainbow-striped wig. "Whooooooooooo's the birthday lifeform? Come on, don't be shy! You're in the Cafeteria, you can't be that shy of... a... wha?"

"Human," said the Notary with withering scorn as she trudged behind her partner, "it is a tenth anniversary party. It is commemorating the extremely long service of a respected agent, who is also a human. I was under the impression that all your people knew each other."

"Oh. Okay, so, we can still do the balloons, right? Hiya mister Nume! Congrats on ten years of doing the strangest job in the known multiverse! You get a llama!" With that, she wobbled over to Nume and tied a large, surprisingly detailed balloon llama to his right wrist. "YAY!"

"I'm sorry about her, agent Supernumerary. She's... excitable. Human, you're in breach of several health and safety regulations."

"Uh, meaning?"

"Meaning get off of that ridiculous unicycle."

"Grouch."

"Well spotted." The Notary walked over to Nume and fished around in her robe pockets, eventually pulling out a hardback tome that made War And Peace look like a Mr. Men book. "This is for you. It's a beginner's guide to easy requisition of necessary items. Nobody fills out the order forms correctly these days and it makes life hell." Her voice got louder. "If anyone else at this gathering desires one, they are for sale in RC 1875 at a reasonable and competitive price. Follow the sound of human circus marches. I do not accept favours, payments in kind, or painted rocks. Thank you for listening."

"D'you really think they were?"

"Yes, and I told you to dismount."

"I know," said Wobbles as she trundled off in search of some cake.

From what I read, Rose Potter is being sporked already.

You've been here for only four days now. This is the first time you've brought up PPC business at all, aside from that section a few threads down when you revealed that you plan to open a hole in HQ to the Halo universe that no one would keep an eye on for some reason, and now you're intending to claim a Legendary Badfic? Slow down. Those things are nasty enough as it is, and normally are only dealt with by writers who have proven themselves capable of sporking a few less-horrendous fics first, and regardless, I don't know if you're in the correct place right now to claim anything. I mean, it's not unheard of for someone to encounter a personally hateful abomination from a badfic thread here and say "Oooh, no. Nobody else take this, please. Once I get Permission, this sucker's mine!", but posting a claim on a Legendary Badfic less than a week after you introduce yourself is like a newbie showing up and then, the day after their debut, posting his or her Permission Request in the same thread that they introduced themselves in.

Postscript: What is with this thread title? At first I'd thought it was referring to one of the Rose Potter stories, but nope, they're all named after the British editions of the original books.

As one who enjoys solitude, but also wants friends IRL, I can relate to Penchant. I would be interested in reading how Penchant and Akishime interact.

One question, though: Which is Penchant's true form, pony or human? And if pony, how did she end up in human form? DORKS accident a la Cyba Zero? Plothole? And does she look like Unicorn!Twilight or Alicorn!Twilight?

Exhibit A:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10076581/1/Epilogue-Part-2

Character bashing for everyone (intentionally or not) in this fic!

The sad thing is, it's not even a spelling and/or grammatical mess. The OOC is despite the author having a modicum of intelligence. Ugh. I feel unclean.

Araeph

But from what I read, my take is that she regrets pairing them up not because there's any specifically better ship, but that she feels that how she paired characters up towards the end of the series doesn't reflect how she feels about them now and how they could have grown.

... Which is perfectly valid, I think everyone who has written original fiction and gotten characters together has at least one pair where they look back and are like "You know what, that doesn't work as well as I thought it would."

I also think that it might be part of the backlash that she's occasionally gotten for having so many characters paired up by their late teens and presumably married only a few years after that. Although it happens in real life (and seems to have been common in the UK in the late eighties and early nineties, if the amount which stories from that time mention couples that young is any indication,) it's very different from the reality known by the fanbase, which is people who were being born in the late eighties and early nineties.

Personally, I saw the Ron/Hermione ship coming as early as second year (I was also a fan of Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain, so I was no stranger to shipping the people who bicker the most,) but wasn't 100% sold on it after the bird incident in sixth year. Hermione's temper and developing ruthlessness, especially with her magic, didn't sit well with Ron's blunders. She's got a tendency to lash out at Ron far more than she does anyone else, and I didn't think that was going to make a great marriage.

Harry and Hermione always seemed like family to me, so I don't think it was actually necessary to have a marriage within the Golden Trio. Actually, I was on the fence about most of the student pairings in the last two books because 1) I felt that everyone involved was too young for the pairings to be permanent, 2) Many characters who were paired weren't given equal screentime and so pairings came off as very uneven, since we didn't know enough about one of the parties, and 3) I think Rowling is much better at writing mystery plots and children than she is at writing teens, and she fell into the trap of thinking that romances are absolutely necessary to writing teens or marketing to them. (Or just into the writing trap of wanting all her literary creations to pair off and settle down.)

I'm not a shipper - particularly when it comes to Harry Potter if only because that sort of thing can go right off the end of the lunacy scale - so have no real comment on H/G vs H/H, but I do agree that we're in for a rough time on the badfic front.

I can almost hear the cries of 'I knew their love was the OTP all along' from here...

Honestly, I never even liked the idea of any of the trio being together. They just seem too much compatible as friends for a romantic relationship to work.

On the other hand, Ginny-Harry always seemed like Ginny's one-sided school crush. From my perspective, she always seemed more compatible with Neville.

To be honest, for the main trio, I don't remember ever shipping them with any of the characters presented in the book, and all of their romantic interactions with pretty much anyone seemed a bit forced.

First: Where did you hear that?

Second: Call me one of those weirdos, but I'm a Ron/Hermione shipper. I'm not 100% sure why JKR would say that (I mean, she was dropping hints since GoF, maybe even PoA if you really look), but it might have something to do with them falling in love over the course of a war... I love Ron and Hermione together.

To be honest, though, I'm mostly worried about this news being true because if it is, it's going to spawn even more Ron the Death Eater fics, which I despise. Ron is awesome. Yeah, he has flaws and isn't the best person all the time... but who is?

I should probably stop writing; I can't form a coherent thought when I get something like this dropped on me.

I mean, the two of them have had way too many disputes in the books prior to Deathly Hallows, where all of a sudden they're all mushy-gushy because Ron read a book on how to charm witches. Once they're together... well, I really can't see it lasting, and it's remarkable that they've gotten at least enough years of marriage under their belt to raise two children.

Ooh, the plotbunnies are rolling around for a post-Epilogue, domestic-bliss-isn't-suiting-them sorta thing. I mean, I'm a Harry/Hermione shipper (back in my day we called it the Pumpkin Pie) too, and I'm not entirely sure how Harry and Ginny are soulmates (Agent Eledhwen's saying something along the lines of "I work in BBC Sherlock and Star Trek; I know what soulmates look like" right about... now). I can definitely see Hermione and Ron having shouting matches, Hermione telling Rose not to settle for a man like Ron, Hermione throwing herself into her work so thoroughly that she's never home --

(yes, this is speaking from personal experience, shh.)

Isn't it the position of an author to decide which characters to pair off, when, and to whom? If J.K. Rowling didn't think Ron and Hermione would fit one another, why did she have them get married and make several children? I mean, from a certain perspective, going with the Ron-Hermione relationship when she doesn't think it could be altogether viable would be good from a Pair the Spares standpoint, since if Harry and Hermione paired up, there wouldn't be all that many main characters or central supporting characters for Ron to have flash-forward babies with that hadn't already been paired off, aside from Luna. (Now that would be an interesting story.) But she'd have been able to make it work if she really thought a big name should've been paired with someone less recognizable. It didn't entirely seem as though J.K. Rowling was aiming for name recognition in the final choices anyway, as evidenced by the fact that she already settled, and I use the term loosely, for having fan-favorite Draco Malfoy paired off with(gasp) a minor character!
And of course, leaving any main characters unmarried would be absolutely out of the question, since their referential offspring would be required to interact with one another on the eve of their first day of wizard school, making some form of final pairing an absolute necessity. How else would we know that Voldemort hadn't destroyed any chance to create a new generation of magic users?

Wow, I am a lot more invested in this than I thought I was. I don't even really like Harry Potter!

Honestly, I'm not a shipper.

My reaction to R/Hr? "Meh, OK."
My reaction to H/Hr? "Meh, whatever."
My reaction to H/G? "Eh, if that's what you want."

I ship friendship. :)

But what I CAN think about, and little else, is the tidal wave of fics that are going to be coming in! Hideous Ron-bashing fics, OOC Hermiones and Harrys running around, and the Ron/Hermione shippers hitting back with Harry-bashing...ugh. Better batten down the hatches, PPCers. It's gonna get ugly.

*dusts off the Red Pen files*

It may be time to return to duty.

—Araeph

C'mon, this is awful and I don't have permission yet. Does no one want to kill Kali?

tl;dr: I don't think so.

In Tolkien's work, we see a huge distinction being drawn between the magic of the elves (and good, in general) and that of Sauron - in fact, the hobbits get called out on using the same word for both. The elves use their gifts for creation and sub-creation, producing new things to enrich the world. On the other hand, Sauron uses his power to control and corrupt. It's very telling that one of the first signs we get that the Numenorians are slipping under his influence is their thirst for immortality - desiring control of their own destinies by staving off death.

Of the Great Rings (the one, the three, the seven, and the nine), it's pretty clear that the ones Sauron had a hand in (the seven and the nine) exist to serve Sauron's power. The seven, perhaps not as much - although I'd be inclined to give that credit more to the dwarves, who were built to withstand the worst of Morgoth's evil, than to the rings themselves. I haven't seen anything regarding what happened to the smiths of those rings, but the size of the numbers and the similarities of the end result make me suspect that each of them definitely do not represent a fraction of the spirit of their crafters. They were made with the direct assistance of Sauron, which probably helped significantly.

The One Ring, on the other hand, pretty obviously represents a sizable piece of Sauron. It is arguably the most Powerful magical artifact to ever show up in Middle-Earth, and unquestionably heads that list if we remove artifacts made by the Valar themselves.

All but three of the Great Rings were produced by, or with the direct assistance of, Sauron. Much as I hate to say it, I doubt that our hypothetical human ring-smiths come close to his abilities or potential to produce power.

The three were, as I'm sure you are aware, not forged with Sauron's help. Celebrimbor, the second-greatest crafts-elf ever, made them on his own. As tends to be the case with Tolkien, his parents are important - he's the grandson of Feanor by way of Curufin, who was the most like his father. Celbrimbor's journeyman piece was a dragon's hoard of jewels, produced over the span of forty years in Nargothrond. Sadly, Glaurung showed up to provide the dragon for the aforementioned hoard, and we all know how that ended.

It's pretty clearly stated that the elves of Eregion during the second age were only outclassed in creative ability by Feanor himself, and Celebrimbor was the leading light of that group. He was very much his grandfather's grandson (even down to creating a set of three artifacts that Evil would go to great lengths to claim). Given that the three are distinct artifacts, made by the same smith, I rather doubt that any of them cost him part of his spirit, beyond what any artist puts into their masterwork.

As an aside - it's interesting to note that of the three bearers of the Three, they had three very different uses for their rings, and three different reactions to being offered the One Ring. Elrond, who did not use his ring overtly, was not hugely tempted by the One. Gandalf, who used his ring for Good (the creation of passion and inspiration) had more trouble resisting, but was able to use that to motivate Frodo. Galadriel, however, who had used her ring for the preservation of Lorien (see earlier notes on Numenor and the slide from preservation to control to corruption), had a significant struggle when offered the Ring, and spelled out in no uncertain terms what would happen if she claimed it. Anyways, back to the story.

The Great Rings were all either made with the direct assistance of a Maia, or by the greatest ring-smith of the age (and the second-greatest craftsman of all time). In comparison... humans really don't match up very well. There are some impressive feats of construction in human history (Orthanc and Minas Tirith, for example), but nothing that comes close to the artifacts created by the elves.

Thematically, great works of Creation aren't really a human thing - the Valar and Elves create great works, but to the humans are given the nebulous "other gifts" that aren't really explained beyond dying. We never see humans create even the most minor of artifacts of power, let alone something deserving a capitalized title or a place among the Great Rings.

So, no. I don't think that a human could make a Ring of Power, or even a ring of power. We never see humans using magic directly in LoTR (or the additional volumes, to my understanding), and even if one could, I doubt that any ring created by one would serve as more than a focusing device for their innate power.

While it certainly is possible, you'd better have a good explanation for why it exists. You should also make sure it isn't the equal of the canon rings. Here's the wiki article on it.

http://ppc.wikia.com/wiki/Extra_Rings_of_Power

Leaving aside for a moment that Mickey Bricks'd eat this lot for breakfast on his tod, why are these things even crossed over? I mean, I get that they're both shows about conmen (insofar as the wretched meat-propelled haircuts in Swindle's cast can be called men), but this serves no purpose at all. It insults both sets of characters and bashes them together without any real thought put into it. Someone who gives a toss about Leverage, if you're reading this, please make it die.

As an aside, Leverage is a show that exists because the network that set it up didn't want to pay the BBC for the rights to Hustle, which you should watch because it's a much better show. It's a similar origin to noted blob of gull vomit Elementary, though in that case CBS tried and failed to get the license to the BBC's Sherlock and announced Elementary three weeks later. This is, of course, a complete coincidence. Obviously.

I couldn't make heads or tails of this thing.

*crawls in a hole and dies*

...I just wanted to point out that you've created a badfic thread just below this one. You might want to hold off on creating new report threads if there's already an active one on the main page of the Board...

After reading 'Dipper Goes to Taco Bell', I don't think I'm brave enough to try that link...

A pony and a lizard. Interesting combination. It is nice to see some more non-human agents, though your unicorn seems to like looking human. I like the "no nonsense" vs "rules are meant to be ignored" personalities. No real complaints here.

Your writing sample looks pretty good, if a little bit on the melodramatic side. The SPaG is in good working order. You do have a tendency to repeat information that you just told us, though (the public persona bits in the first few paragraphs, for instance). Keep an eye on that as you continue to write.

As far as your choice of badfic, I applaud the choice to have your Floaters taking on a non-Sue story right out of the gate. Also, did the author forget that these two hold the Crests of Friendship and Courage? Those are supposed to be their strengths, and this author has turned that on its head.


So, final verdict: Permission Granted and happy hunting.

-Phobos

In other news, though, let me just say: I love your agents. They're perfectly mismatched, and play off each other so well, and I think I can sense some character arcs in their futures, maybe?

The mission was wonderful, as well, and you have Coyote so very perfectly. My one quibble was that, since I haven't seen the badfic, and you didn't put many quotes in, I didn't really get a sense of some parts and it occasionally felt rushed. But really, I understand completely why you censored. I think I prefer it that way, actually.

All in all, amazing first mission!

-Aila

the personalities of your agents really shined through here, which was especially useful on this mission, since the necessity to censor the most problematic content left the agents' actions and dialogue to carry the story. For this first mission, you managed to both get across the basic characteristics of both agents, but also to show the types of situations that make their usual attitudes falter (Wobbles' overprotectiveness towards children, the Notary's inability to keep up her prim exterior around warped reality).

I would have liked a bit more description at the exorcism scene. Due to not knowing the canons, I had difficulty understanding who was getting exorcised first, and found it a little weird that the other canons seemed to be showing no reaction to the sudden appearance of the agents in the room, especially since one of those canons is later revealed to be a replacement.

Also, one spelling error:
“'Ah, Ysengrin. Feeling alright? Not too stressed, not too bitter?'”
"alright" should be "all right."

I have never even heard of this canon, so I had some problems to imagine what was going on, but I do understand that this is for my best. You did a good job making this clear.

Alas, I have to do my usual nitpicking:

Wobbles just curled up in a ball and continuing her doodle of a happy kitten, which was now almost a still life.
I’ll just accept that wobbles is able to doodle while she is curled up in a ball, but I feel this should either be continued or maybe the and should be dropped? But I’m not a native speaker and my grammar may be wrong.

I became confused by the following section:

Wobbles turned to face her, letting Annie slump to the ground. “Notary, shut up. I only want to know one thing. That thing would be that you got the canon to a nurse, and if I find out that you belittled her or were short with her then I swear to God I’ll kill you.”

“Ha. Ha. Haaaaa.” (Is this the Notary laughing about Wobbles empty threads? Or a third person / the wraith?)

“I - this is important, you stupid clown—” (This cannot be Wobbles insulting the Notary, right?)

“I’m not stupid!” Wobbles screamed. “And don’t you dare laugh at me!”


Also, there seem to be too many words here:
The Notary ignored her, instead digging through her robe’s pockets a out again and pulling out a long, black device with an array of old-fashioned dials on the front.

HG

...I just wanted to say that I utterly adore Gunnerkrigg Court (Thread was the most adorable chapter ever, admit it), and I am utterly horrified that such a badfic could reside in the fandom. Not surprised, merely horrified. I'll have something more gushy and constructive once I actually read your thing.

-Aila

By the standards of the PPC, of course, which means "create maximum shennanigans within the confines of the job."

I think there may be something wrong with this sentence, however: "The Bad Things that tended to happen to agents in the field (of which, according to the ) could get a hell of a lot worse if a wraith wasn’t properly exorcised from the canon it was possessing."

I have no idea what's going on in the parenthases, and there is no object to that parenthetical aside... maybe it got deleted?

The Notary is actually pretty scary if you stay in one place for long enough... Though, this one is comedy gold.

"It reminded the Notary of her old job on Gallifrey, and Wobbles of the Notary."

Of course, little is scarier than Coyote if you hold still long enough...

What does the Notary look like? I don't think you've ever described her, or perchance I missed the piece.
(I typed this post while holding a Petit-beurre in my mouth. Heh heh.)

Over Wobbles, that is, not the fic.

Which is to say, I almost feel sorry for her over Wobbles, but don't, because I know her too well. I do feel sorry for her over the fic.

I thought you kept your characters, er, in-character very well, and I liked some of the nuances - the idea that the Notary does paperwork to calm her nerves, for instance. You also got Coyote scarily in-character, so that's... good? I guess? I'm not sure I'd want to be able to write Coyote, but...

Ehm, probably the only negative, which isn't really a negative, is that killing a 'fic which is that squicky makes it hard to actually show what's going on. I glanced over the original before reading, so I'm not sure how well people who haven't will know what the fic is doing. Maybe someone will say.

Also: you left Coyote with knowledge of the PPC. That's... scary, again. If the Notary's doing paperwork, she miiiight want to send a message to Building Maintenance and get them to isolate any sections of HQ in the GC universe; that's one PPC-aware canon you don't want to share a 'verse with.

hS

I seem to be doing this a lot lately.
Having read this and been thinking about one of the missions I've got lined up, would it be possible for in the Harry Potter continua to charge Mary Sues by Howler, allowing Agents to be at a safe distance to then take out said Sues from range, potentially even using the Howler as a distraction (this is of course assuming the Sue hasn't already 'found' a way of getting rid of Howlers)

Storme Hawk

I actually thought that the idea of agents copying sections of canon on to pieces of paper and wrapping them around a bullet was a good bonding experience for the characters. I also think that the same could apply to arrowheads, knives,what have you.

I actually thought that the idea of agents copying sections of canon on to pieces of paper and wrapping them around a bullet was a good bonding experience for the characters. I also think that the same could apply to arrowheads, kniv

I don't know if everybody knows of them, but they were very popular with Laburnum and Foxglove and their friends Stormsong and Skyfire, especially for dealing with author-wraiths.

Essentially, they got a plaster cast of Brian Jacques' signature, and Makes-Things then moulded it onto slingshot pellets for them - for a quick burst of canon. Just launch the signature-infused pellets at your target, and wham! All the power of a book/DVD/etc, no need to get close enough to risk possession!

And one other Agent - Fritz Sorgebrunnen - took the signature idea to slight extremes and got his aluminium baseball bat covered in the signatures of a dozen or so authors/show creators/what have you.

I'm sure you could modify the idea to be used with bullets. Just one thing - I wouldn't suggest the canon "burning" them to death, because if the bullet's embedded in them that could be a slow and agonising way to go, and the PPC doesn't condone torturing.

They're called bullets. Besides, there's a slew of fandoms for which they would be useless since guns are not a thing in them.

However, the idea is not entirely without merit; I can see an agent of Japanese origin (or Japanophilic bent) having a strip of canonical script for use as ofuda. These are the strips of paper with writing on them used all the damn time in Japanese exorcisms; you inscribe the canon words on some paper (wood, cloth and metal are also apparently acceptable), recite nine words, and throw it at the possession victim while bellowing "akuryō taisan", which I believe is Japanese for "evil spirit begone" or some such thing. In circumstances where time is of the essence, such a thing would definitely be quicker and safer than trying to hit an angry wraith-powered canon with a copy of The Hobbit or whatever.

...with an actual badfic!

So I found a bad Assassin's Creed II self-insert here:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10005861/2/Sucked-into-Assassins-Creed-2

Aside from numerous crimes against the space bar and general bad formatting ideas (seriously, the author puts stuff in Italian and then provides a parenthesized English translation instead of, you know, footnoting the translation so it doesn't get in the way of the narrative flow), I encountered this conversation soon after a pair of Sues get warped to their destination:

"E quello che sembra essere il problema? (And what seems to be the problem?)"A male voice asks.

"Il mio amico, ha una ferita alla testa. (My friend has a head injury.)"Becca responds.

"You seem to have trouble responding in Italiano. You are Americano, no?"The male voice responds.

For those of you uninitiated in the Assassin's Creed continuum, these two Sues have just been warped to Italy in friggin' 1470.

If I have to tell the PPC why this fic completely fails at world history, then I'm going to have a conniption.

You've said that her personality is consistent with her backstory, and that she doesn't drive the canons (one 'n', by the way) OOC; that her dynamic with the 'male hero' (I'm assuming a canonical protagonist?) is realistic; you've implied, though not stated, that she doesn't have powers, abilities, or other elements explicitly contrary to canon.

So why do you call her a Mary-Sue? That's not a label that should be applied lightly - otherwise we just feed into the people who occasionally post essays about how we just call every female OC a Mary-Sue, and that's sexist. Which it would be, if that were what we did.

The only things you've listed to justify applying the label are:

-Her appearance (pretty).
-A tragic backstory.
-A fluctuating personality - but you attribute that to her backstory, so that can't be included.
-Physical(?) strength.
-Loved by her people (one assumes she's a ruler or related to one)
-Loved by a hero.

So, er... that'd be Eowyn, then.

Yes, it's sexist that every female character in fiction seems to be unbelievably good-looking - but it's not in any way specific to this character. Take that away, and what have you got? A beloved warrior-princess/queen with a sad history. That's really not a Mary-Sue you're describing.

In summary: OC =/= Mary-Sue. Self-insert =/= Mary-Sue. 1D character who throws the canon out of whack to serve her own ends == Mary-Sue.

hS

A well-written 'Sue' is not a Sue.

I like these guys. They're very minimalist wallpapers of all the Pokémon.
http://pldh.net/gallery/the493
http://pldh.net/gallery/unovacollection
http://pldh.net/gallery/xyarchives

A few years back, I also had a Haunted Mansion wallpaper I liked: the pattern from the actual wallpaper of the rides. There are a whole bunch of those available.
https://www.google.com/search?q=haunted+mansion+wallpaper&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=b5b1UpOeIcGyrgHnjYGYBg&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1042&bih=670

Pokemon: Yveltal

I like some of those. Xerneas is gorgeous and the Master Sword is classic.

Now for one of my own: WeLcOmE tO tHe DaRk CaRnIvAl BrO :o)

-Phobos, honk HONK honk HONK



All right, all right. Something way less creepy: Democracy!

and I didn’t take any notes. So, either I was too tired to spot any errors, or all the nitpicking is already done :-)

I liked Nicky’s reaction to being in a live action world. Not knowing her home continuum, I had never realized that she is a big-eyed anime character.

Apparently something more sinister than Mary Sues is at work here. Are “they” the maleficent force behind the Mary Sue factories, or did “they” just buy a special offer of Defectives to do the dirty work? Going off topic (or maybe not?) I never quite understood the economic reasoning for Mary Sue factories. Do they sell Mary Sues to writers who are too lazy to make up their own original character? Or do the factories create all these Mary Sues just for the fun of being evil?

I’m looking forward to the next chapter.

HG

"None of the windows was facing towards the two Agents" That should be "were", not "was", since there had been multiple windows.

"[I can’t open the portal directly from the console, either,] Corolla added, [I’m afraid there’s a plothole near you.]" The comma after "added" should be a period.

"Ben, do you think we’re going to get back the car still in one piece?" The words "the" and "back" should be switched, and the word "still" may not be needed. It's not grammatically incorrect to include it, but it's a little awkward.

"it’s the tech that isn’t working. Also, calling a taxi would’ve took more time," Again, not strictly grammatically incorrect, but swapping "that" and "tech" would make the phrasing a little less awkward. What is grammatically incorrect is the use of "took" instead of "taken", though I'll admit the misuse of "took" does occasionally occur in spoken English. Sergio hasn't shown proclivity to use dialect, though, so I'm pretty sure it's just a grammar mixup.

"we’re on an highway," That should be "a highway".

"changed lane to let a Porsche go past, “see? He’s doing at least two hundred," There should be a period after "past", not a comma, and "see" should be capitalized.

"A different art style doesn’t change who you are, though," Sergio said, "or who I am, for that matters." The last word should be "matter", unless the meaning would be synonymous with "because that matters", which would be a bit strange in that sentence.

“I would’ve asked to the dock workers, but this place looks pretty empty,” That should either be "asked" or "talked to".

"Sergio explained, “besides, the container was to be loaded today," "Explained" should be followed by a period, and "besides" should be capitalized.

“I think I have an idea,” Nikki said, “the CAD should be able to find Madoka and Sakura". "Said" should be followed by a period, and "the" should be capitalized.

“I hope this isn’t going to become another six-”
[Bestest Shipping Co. container holding character Madoka Kaname. Uncanon. Suggested action: Open container and liberate the canon character.]
“Sometimes I have the weird feeling these things are mocking me,” Nikki deadpanned.
“Only sometimes?” Sergio asked while stopping the car next to a black container, “this one?” Other than the period-capitalization replacement again(for "container," and "this" this time), I think there might be a step missing here, unless Nikki's CAD states its readings out loud, and even then it's a bit of an issue. Nikki is about to say "six-hour search", sees the reading, stops after "six" because she sees the CAD readout, and then Sergio suddenly knows which crate has Madoka in it? If it was just a readout, she'd need to tell him and indicate which crate the CAD had been scanning when the readout came up, and if it was read out loud, which is atypical and a little impractical for CADs but within the realm of possibility, she'd at least need to nudge him and point or something. Sergio's shown no signs of being telepathic, and the readout didn't exactly say specifics to the level of "in the little brownish-gray one, second from the left of the north wall" that would have led him to just be able to pick it out.

"Yes. Let’s get her out, I don’t think it’s very comfortable in there." That should be two sentences, divided by what is currently a comma. If you would prefer it stay in one sentence, you can substitute with a semicolon. There's another comma splice at "We were lucky, ours is on the ground," which can be fixed by either making that into two short sentences or rewording the phrase as "We're lucky that ours is on the ground." Using a semicolon in that case would create a mid-sentence tense confusion.

"Sergio muttered as he inspected the padlock keeping the container locked." A little redundancy here. A suggested rephrase might be "Sergio muttered as he inspected the container's securely fastened padlock." I was going to say "sealed padlock" to spare a word and keep a little more ambiguity, but I'm not sure if closing a lock can be referred to as "sealing" it.

"[Hm, I wonder where Sakura is.]" This should be "[Hm. I wonder where Sakura is?]", since periods at the end of questions tend to usually evoke disinterest or at the least a flat tone of voice.

"I know who you are,” Madoka interrupted him, “you’re Sergio Turbo and Nikki Cherryflower from the PPC, right?" Capitalize "You're", and replace the comma after "him" with a period.

"Sergio continued, “until we catch the one who kidnapped you and Sakura" Capitalize "until", and replace the comma after "continued" with a period.

"Corolla confirmed, [I'm afraid" That comma should be replaced with a period.

Sergio said, "In the meanwhile" Comma-period switch again, and you should replace the word "meanwhile" with "meantime". Alternatively, you could delete "In the" and just leave the "Meanwhile", but that doesn't work quite as well in this context.

"Nikki agreed, “If they" Comma-period switch again

"Both of you,” Madoka said" Comma-period switch again.

"… We are being shipped by canons?" That first "a" shouldn't be italicized.

"but none of them was this suicidal" The "was" here should be "had been".

"habits, that would be the Goddess of Hope due to the fact that she was everywhere and everywhen. Well, she used to." The "that" should be an "it", there should be a comma after "Hope", and "used to" should be followed by "be". Also, though this might be personal preference, it might look better if "due to the fact" was replaced with "since". It's more concise.

"barely wide enough as the car" "Enough" should be followed by a comma.

"conceded, “but for" Follow "conceded" with a period, and capitalize "but".

“Those things are Porsche Cayenne Turbos, they’ve got sport suspensions and twice the horsepower we have!” Another comma splice here. Replace that comma with either a semicolon, a period, or most appropriately in this case, an exclamation mark.

"Nikki cast a worried glance behind." It looks as though there's a word missing here, probably either "her" or "them".

"I’m going to take care of them,” Nikki said while getting up from her seat," The second comma should definitely be replaced with a period, and since there are two separate thoughts being punctuated, the first comma could be replaced as well, but that one could be considered correct either way for different reasons. I'd prefer switching it out, though.

"At the joint between the two there were" Add a comma after "two".

"summoned four Barret Shoot projectiles" According to the Lyrical Nanoha wiki, the attack is called Shoot Barrett in English.

"went way off too due to Sergio" Add a comma after "too". Personally, I'd replace "too" with "as well", since "too" seems to me more of a conversational word than a descriptive or active word, but that's mostly just my stylistic choice.

"knocking it out of the chase too" My stylistic preferences from earlier would suggest that you delete the "too" here, making "chase" the last word in the sentence.

"mirror, “how did you do that?" Replace the comma after "mirror" with a period, and capitalize "how".

"over the guardrail as the car chase had a nasty effect on her stomach." To get the simple issue out of the way, there should be a comma after "guardrail". For the second, you might need to rephrase that second part. It's not bad, it's just that, due to an odd mix of definitions and helping verbs, using "had" there would make the grammatically correct phrase in that instance "car chase had had a nasty effect on her stomach", and putting two "had"s next to each other isn't very aesthetically pleasing, at least not to me.

"We’ll try,” Sergio said as he got up and walked towards Nikki and Madoka, “how do you feel?" There should be a period after "Madoka", the "how" should be capitalized, and "How do you feel?" should be followed with an indicator like "he asked the girls." so it's clear that he isn't still talking to Corolla.

Now that those are dealt with, I quite liked this. You don't need to know any of the continua involved to enjoy mysterious and seemingly impossible abductions, magical girls shooting energy blasts from the top of a moving vehicle, and the shipping preferences of omniscient deities. The car chase action scene could have stood to be more dynamic, since at times it didn't feel quite as exciting as a car chase by rights should, but I loved the way you established everything. Not only the setup for the story elements themselves, but how you gave just enough information to show what was going on and why without it seeming like exposition. The only time it seemed a little exposition-y was when Sergio and Nikki were talking about speed limits, but when I looked at that scene again after having read the rest of the chapter, I realized that it was a way of explaining the sort of conditions that would be necessary for a road to contain a high-speed chase, so that passes as well. That said, if this is going to involve enough Madoka Magica material to be considered a "crossover", I might need to get to watching more of the series. I'm going to need to find that Youtube channel that hosted the full season again.

You've done quite the job with Blank Sprite. Even having no knowledge of the Cobra 11 fandom, I did not get lost. Nice work.

A few nitpicks:

Excuse me, I have the last document you requested,” a voice behind them said.
Sergio turned around and recognized the woman as Suzanne König, the chief’s secretary. “The one with the list of their shipments? That was fast, thank you very much.”
Sergio took a quick glance at the document while the secretary walked away. “Well, isn’t that odd. There’s only one shipment on this list, and it’s still at Cologne’s docks. It’s going to be loaded on the ship today.”

In that passage, adding a paragraph break after "secretary" and deleting the break before "Sergio" might make it clearer that Agent Turbo said the "The one with the list" line:
Excuse me, I have the last document you requested,” a voice behind them said.
Sergio turned around and recognized the woman as Suzanne König, the chief’s secretary. [paragraph break]
“The one with the list of their shipments? That was fast, thank you very much.” Sergio took a quick glance at the document while the secretary walked away. “Well, isn’t that odd? There’s only one shipment on this list, and it’s still at Cologne’s docks. It’s going to be loaded on the ship today.”

Also, a few SPaG errors:
The specialized projectile made of wax and powdered iron, despide disintegrating on impact... That should be "despite."

[Then I’m surprised you aren’t going any faster,] Corolla said, [Isn’t that car a BMW?] Should be a period, not a comma, after "said."
This line has a similar problem: [Question: How do we find our container?] Corolla sent out from the RC, [Should we look for a pink and sparkly one?] That should be a period after "RC."

In fact, this type of period-comma substitution happens quite a lot in this story. Please allow me to explain the difference between those lines and this one, where the comma is merited: “A different art style doesn’t change who you are, though,” Sergio said, “or who I am, for that matters.”

In the first two lines, there are two separate sentences separated by the "[character] said" tag. In the third, it's still one continuous sentence; the tag simply went into a space in the sentence. (Without the tag, it would have read, "A different art style doesn't change who you are though, or who I am, for that matter.")

One more thing: you might want to consider hyphenating "less than eager" in the last sentence of the mission.

That said, however, good work overall. I'll be awaiting Chapter 3.

The Original Series didn't expand much on what happened when Jay (I think) said she accidentally invoked George Lucas during an exorcism for a different fandom. All they said was that they needed some Detanglers to clear it up.

So, if I were to yell 'Riordan' when I meant to say 'Rowling'... Would that somehow spawn a Percy Jackson/Harry Potter crossover? Actually... Riordan wrote the Kane Chronicles (same world as PJ, but still...) and mystery novels for adults, as well as the first 39 Clues book. If an author has written multiple series and you invoke them accidentally, would that create a massive crossover outbreak or what?

...This is what happens when I overthink things. Pie, anybody?

You can read my take on it here.

Consider this me claiming "Suicidal Nightmare". Not only is this fic an appalling waste of effort (insofar as there was any put in), but Celestia is a platonic Lust Object (Worship Object? idk) for one of my agents.

Yup, you guessed it, she's one of the Notary's. =]

I looked at claiming that one when I got my permission.

I've been informed that a certain page, Teena and Wyldehorse's first mission, was found to be in violation of Tripod's terms of service. I don't know how yet—I've asked, and of course I'm going to go over the TOS myself—but in the meantime, they asked me to take down the page, so I did. The rest of the site should be accessible again, though, and hopefully I'll be able to put "Captured by the Breeze" back soon. If not, I guess it'll have to go on Gdocs. Bleh. Could be worse, but bleh.

~Neshomeh

I don't know how much I can do this weekend, since I'm away from home and basically won't be available from tomorrow afternoon until Tuesday, but I DO have backups of all the content that was on the site. Don't panic.

~Neshomeh

Well, TOS and the original DoI stories are still hosted on Miss Cam's site here and here, so they're safe.

What else was on the Tripod? I think the A/V stories were there too.

1) Grammar that doesn't make sense. Example: Present Perfect Tense being in the same time frame as the Past Tense. My English tuition teacher told us that if we ever got to ride on a time machine, "go and smack whoever who invented that."

2) Grammar (at least in the past). While my English has improved by a significant amount, I usually speak broken English, and as a result, I used to screw up in Grammar. A lot.

3) Vocabulary taken from other languages. Example: confetti/coriandoli. ??????? I'm confused over that. So now I just avoid using "confetti".

~Autumn

Alas, I do not... but I can leave you with this entertaining and useful link, which covers a lot of what we may have to say:

Common Errors in English Usage by Paul Brians.

~Neshomeh

But a lot of people I know use 'Now in a minute' to describe something they are going to do in a minute.

Also, out of curiousity (and the amount of times I use it) is it OK, Ok, ok or okay to say that you're alright (or is it all right :P)

I am curious to know how it would work for those of us with no agents to speak of. Mostly I am mostly talking about myself since I probably won't have an agent for a long time coming.

They are usually specifically written to be capable of dealing with the problems inherent to traveling between worlds repairing the injuries to reality, whether that's simply in their personality or whether they're part of an advanced species or have access to magic or some such, while the Boarders, being normal humans who have no experience hunting down and killing super-powerful creatures, blowing up planets, or untangling timelines, would be considerable less able to deal with the Agents' problems, especially if it's a sudden switch that leaves them replaced with the characters they write. I'm not saying that everyone would be absolutely incompetent, and in fact there may be a few of us who could do their jobs decently or even well if they were lucky enough to land in positions where they could best use their existing skills, but there would be many that wouldn't or couldn't be acclimated to the job, and our performance as plot protectors would suffer for it.

Plus, keep in mind that PPC Boarders who have any Agents tend to make at least two or three of them. If the writers and Agents swap places, not only would we be less capable of dealing with the job, but the number of PPC employees would drop by at least half. Considering that the PPC is already constantly understaffed, that would definitely not be a good thing, especially since practically nobody writes for Infrastructure or Security any more. SeaTurtle would be all alone in the Intel offices, and Huinesoron would be the only person working on Building Maintenance while also running double-duty with DOGA. And who would be the Department of External Security? All of its employees seen so far are either free-to-use or haven't yet been defined, but without them, the nebulous threats on HQ that the DES Agents spend so much time fighting that they are barely even shown would have full freedom in HQ, and all that could stop them would be a small contingent of Internet people who are still getting a handle on their new duties.

I realize that this is a very cynical interpretation. For a bit of levity, feel free to imagine the flip side of this, with the Agents being sent to Earth and having to live "normal" lives. Think of all of the elves that would suddenly need to learn how to drive cars to keep from getting fired from their new jobs, or the numerous anthropomorphic or otherwise humanized animals walking around the grocery store buying food while deliberately not making eye contact with the dozens of people who are staring at the strange creature in their midst and wondering if they should call security.

Well,have a box set of Scrubs.It should calm you down after badfic. It works for me!

Hello, have a bar of Bleepolate and a torch that shines ultra-urple light.

No, I don't think you can get Permission right now, as we need to get to know you first. Additionally, you must have a few of your Agents' profiles and an excerpt from a mission ready to present. Also, you may also not be granted the Permission on your first request as some of our Permission Givers may find significant areas for you to improve on your Agents. Hope this answer helps! ;)

Enjoy the PPC!

~Autumn

Hello and greetings!

I gift to you now a lined Infinite Notebook, featuring, as always, urple covers and wilver binding. Welcome to the Board!

-Aila

Welcome! Have a PPC mug of infinite [insert your favorite drink here]!

*notices Accel World in the list*
Oh...my...God! Another Accel World fan! Finally! Do you watch the anime, or do you read the manga? If you only read the manga, don't spoil anything for me; I only watched the anime on Hulu. Man, that is an epic series, don't you think? Pity that there aren't any new episodes out yet. I wonder when the next season's ... coming ... out ...

*notices the blank stares all around SOH176*

Ahem.

Uh...

Enough fanboying. Yeah.

Uh, either way, I really liked that anime.

As for Star Trek, what particular series do you like? I'm partial to Voyager, myself.

And could you please give the URLs to any of your Wreck-it Ralph MSTs? I have not had the (mis)fortune of running across a Wreck-it Ralph Sue (then again, I never looked for them).

As for your newbie gift...
*rummages through bag of holding*
Aha!
Here, have a Porygon! Assuming that the Flowers let you use it in missions, it can come in handy for wrecking a god-moding Accel World Sue.

Hey! A Touhou Fan!
I'm not the only one anymore, I suppose.
Here, have a Dodger. Use it, and a urple light will surround you, temporality blinding enemies (and you).

Hi, have some fudge!

Go Star Trek and Wreck-It-Ralph! *High Fives*

Here, have some hilari-tea, guaranteed to make you laugh through even the worst fic, a pair of stainless steel chopsticks that double as knitting needles (or weapons,) and a shiny rock!

I see we share some of the same fandoms. Please accept my gifts of a potato cannon, a basket of potatoes, and an Official Fanfiction University of Doctor Who sweatshirt.

Have a Kyubey and a weapon of your choice to kill the alien furball from hell with.

*coughs* Anyways, happy to see another Madoka Magica fan here!

Oh, apparently I have a fan. Heh heh. Here, have a cup of Grand Jasmine Mao Feng tea - just don't let the leaves eat you.

Hooray! We have several shared fandoms! To celebrate two of them, have a Gust Jar and a Warhammer of Zillyhoo!

You'll need a while before you can request Permission, but there isn't any restriction on when you can put up your character ideas here to see what people think about them. I'd recommend not making new threads for each proposed idea, though, since that sort of thing quickly fills up the front page. If you were wanting to show us in the next few days or so, you could put the information in a new post on this thread, as a response to your initial post, and people would see it.

...but in the meantime, we still love newbies! So come on in, take your shoes off, leave your sanity at the door, and come on in!

And wait, is that another Puella Magi Madoka Magica/Mass Effect/Hunger Games fan I see there? Then come on in, we've got cookie!

As a welcome gift, have some music by Louis Andriessen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaATmagbYsw

I'm not sure whether you're familiar with the protocol, since you did only join up less than two hours ago, but since the Board can only hold twenty-five threads at a time before the older ones start getting bumped off of the front page and people stop checking them, Boarders usually put any badfics that they find onto a single thread to save space. That designated badfic thread then stays around for a while, is replied to by other Boarders after said Boarders find new badfics to report, and is usually replaced soon after the previous one is pushed onto the second page. Due to what I'm pretty sure was a series of misunderstandings, one person posted two badfic threads right next to each other on the same day at the same time that another one was still around, which is currently causing a surplus, and this new badfic thread only adds to that.

It's an honest mistake, but in the future, try to make sure that before you create a thread for a new topic, there isn't one that's already on the front page that your new post could fit into.

-(I've spent the past week obsessively reading The Dresden Files and that night was no exception), but what I did watch was really very lovely, although the fact that my brother called me over at only the best parts may have helped.

But I think they'd been watching Doctor Who when they designed those headdresses that the women with the name-signs for each country were wearing. They looked rather like some of the Big Stupid Collars the High Council of Gallifrey wears.

-Aila

It was lovely. Although the error with the rings was a bit awkward (I've heard there are T-shirts)
I really like how they incorporated the history of Russia. And the performance was beautiful, though not quite on Beijing's level. I think my favorite moment was the video with the Russian alphabet.
And I loved the music that played in the background when each country was introduced. I think it was a remix of classical music by Russian composers.

My personal favorite opening ceremony was the 2012 Summer Olympics.
What did you think of the outfits for each country.
The USA's were adorable and slightly dorky. They were adorkable.

...But it's hard to imagine that it contained a better moment than when dozens of Russian policemen took the stage to sing Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" on worldwide television. I have absolutely no idea what led the Russian Olympic planning committee to whatever deranged but ultimately genius decisions were responsible for that moment, but they were all worth it.

I don't have anything to say about your question that hasn't been answered by everyone else, so I'm just going to say hi! Here are your presents:

1) A fluffy white bunny (I suggest you never take it off its chain leash; it has great big teeth.)
2) One can of urple spray paint
And 3) A giant donut with chocolate sprinkles

Welcome to the Board!

I don't have anything to say about your question that hasn't been answered by everyone else, so I'm just going to say hi! Here are your presents:

1) A fluffy white bunny (I suggest you never take it off its chain leash; it has great big teeth.)
2) One can of urple spray paint
And 3) A giant donut with chocolate sprinkles

Welcome to the Board!

Because newbie is completely neutral. :D

First, your stuffs! You can have a muffin tin (slightly less melee damage than a frying pan,) one massive bag of almond bark, and a nifty space pen. (Guaranteed to look exactly like a regular pen except that you use it on things like Star Trek PADDs.)

As for your question, I'm going to throw in my two cents despite the fact that I don't actually have permission here. (Combination of school and the fact that I have trouble doing any fanfic longer than about a thousand words...)

Here's the thing: people aren't the best judges of their own work, mostly because their brains autocorrect a lot of their stuff to what they meant to say. When you find an author who does decent shorts, it's possible that the ideas that they had just didn't sustain a multi-chapter fic, that they grew too attached to an idea that didn't fully make sense, or simply that they don't have a good sense of timing yet and don't know when to end their stuff. On the other hand, they may have been trying too hard to drive up readership with a multi-chapter fic, or had a beta for the short ones... the list goes on and on. I can't quite make a judgement not having seen the actual fic.

My advice for dealing with that is to do what you appear to be suggesting: leave constructive criticism like "I liked x fic better than this one, I feel you kept character Y in character very well there. In this fic they were kind of OOC."

If the fic really sucks, feel free to spork it elsewhere, like here, so that those of us who are interested can learn where things went wrong, but don't tell them or link back: that cuts down on drama. :D

Personally, I think that when we select badfics to spork, we should consider the general quality of the author's work. If they appear to have produced multiple good works and a single spork-worthy story, giving the author constructive criticism should be our first response.

It could be the lack of beta-readers, it could just be how the idea somehow didn't translate too well on paper (word processor?), or it could just be a really off day for them. Regardless, telling the author-- any author in fact-- what we enjoyed about the story and what we feel could have been better executed should be the first course of action.

On the other hand, if said author continues to churn out some ridiculous and unintentionally silly fics and actively ignores polite constructive criticism, then I believe it is permissible to spork a story.

Just like Kittythekatty said below me, we're not here to bully authors into giving up writing, nor are we the fandom police. We're here to make light out of the very best of the very worst.




Oh, and welcome to the Board! We hope you enjoy your stay here.

Nice to meet you. To answer your prompt, I would have to say we all make mistakes. We all, at one point post a badfic. Good or Bad author, we should n't be rude to them.
I guess, at the PPC we deal with the fic, we don't bully the author.
I admit, I do get frustrated when tryinv to deal with someone who is unreasonable. But I guess, you treat the author as you would want to be treated.

You don't have to worry. So long as the whole monster isn't ripped word for word out of one of the books you should be fine.
ADVANCE WARNING: TVTROPES LINK AHEAD
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame
just look at how many different things use the exact same base model for a dwarf for instance.

Kill it with fire. NOW! Let the sod burn.

Good God man, that's terrible! And the author's other stories aren't much better.

The Emperor Protects!

There are a loooooot of badfic reporting threads on this front page already. Perhaps you could stick it there next time?

That was my reaction to seeing this post, and my emotions haven't changed one bit. This is perfect, both on the PPC side and the Night Vale side. It's a little scary how well they fit together, and you totally have Cecil's voice. You even included a Carlos!

(Also, what episode are you on? Have you gotten to Tamika Flynn yet? She is basically the definition of Crowning Moment of Awesome. As is this thing. No, make that Thing. It's definitely a Thing.)

-Aila

I've been listening to a lot of WTNV in the last couple of weeks as well (discovered the podcast very recently) and I think you captured it brilliantly.

I really like this. Perhaps you should back it up somewhere else before it's pushed off the page. Would be a shame to see this lost.

I'm a fan of WtNV myself, and highly appreciate this lovely little excerpt.

Probably the Time Lords empathically--you may have meant 'emphatically'?--not attempting to take over the PPC, Jacques and Luxury's musical, and the mention of Wobbles. Mainly, it was just all fantastic.

Personally, I think you caught Cecil's voice extremely clearly, considering that I started reading it in his voice (mentally) partway through. On the other hand, I'm only about halfway through the series myself, so you never know. I do love Cecil defending Carlos' hair, though; that was also fantastic.

As to whether or not this is a Thing...well, I look forward to finding out.

~DF

The best part about this is that it meshes so well with the PPC's brand of humour. Job well done! I especially like the references to the Notary's TARDIS and Wobbles squaring off against Omicron.

I'd better start listening to Welcome to Night Vale, everyone tells me it's really good... I hear things about glow clouds and dog parks and stuff.

...with a whopping two contributions to the Monitor in the past, I suggest that we follow the third option and only publish when something big happens. It's just better in terms of Real Life: that way, we only need to contribute stuff on an occasional business. Deadlines are my worst enemy.

I've been trained in design (that's where I had disappeared to after my MSTing days.) And if the output is PDF, I can typeset it like a magazine. I'm well versed in the bulk of Adobe programs (Ps, Ai, Id, Fl, Dw, Acrobat).

I'm not in fandoms much lately but I do love to typeset. (Wow, that sounded so nerdy. lol)

Give me a shout if you want my help. :)


Al's Waiter
(PS, we should have Ch 5 of Fellowship of the Urn out soon enough)

I've loved reading all the MM and personally, I would go for Option 1. But seeing that it needs a rather big amount of effort to compile one issue, I'd say, go for Option 2. Like Lily said below, you could publish an issue of the establishment of the Time Lord Continuity Council. I'd love to read that. :)

~Autumn

...but I don't think I can. I don't know Photoshop (I can work with GIMP a little, but I'm not a design mage in any way), and I don't think I could write for the MM, seeing as I don't have permission (not that I'm complaining).
I'd still love to help though.
I generally love the idea though.

I haven't Permission, nor am I likely to get it anytime in the near future, so I probably won't be of any use, but I definitely support the rejuvenation of the MM.

-Aila

. . . just compile entries from various people over time, and put them together when there are enough. That way the timing isn't so demanding. We could still do dedicated issues for big events.

The drawback is that the span of time between stories might not make sense in a single monthly issue, but I don't think we need to be that strict, anyway. Perhaps these versions are digests that collect articles from past years' MMs, being red by agents in the future?

...the MM got huge issues (that is, the regular size) after newsworthy events, or else a set number of times per year, and became more of a newsletter in other months? As in, it could have one or two articles, plus ads and the rumors/complaints/etc sections--or, y'know, it could be something completely different?

...it occurs to me that I'm actually kind of suggesting that the Multiverse Monitor gets some sort of sub-publication, wherein it becomes more of, well, a rumor mill or tabloid...more than it already is, I mean. It could run brief interviews with new agents, report on the rarely-seen weather of HQ, and talk about upcoming (or ancient) attractions in New Caledonia...I don't know. Feel free to either develop or ignore this, I'm not entirely sure of this idea--especially as-is. Mainly, what I'm trying to suggest is that the MM gets both its full-size issues and a smaller, more limited edition...hm.

What do you think? Is there anything to this, or did I just ramble for two paragraphs without coming up with anything useful? (If it's the latter, I won't be offended; it's a half-baked idea, and I know it! Just wanted to get it out there in case there's something helpful in it...)

~DF

The establishment of the Time Lord Continuity Council, for instance, is newsworthy and I've been meaning to do something about it.

However, given my style for extreme attention to detail I am not certain if I will have the time to do layout, design, and/or writing all the time, so I am also definitely supportive of the third option.

Regularly monthly options seems tiring on my end. College does that to you, and I'm looking at a writing position on my college's satirical news show, so I wouldn't have much time for MM anyway if I get in.

What if we made it a bi-monthly thing instead of a monthly thing? It would be a lot of work to make it happen on a monthly basis, and I think if we spaced it across two months that would be easier on everyone. But I don't know. If push comes to shove, the third option doesn't sound too bad, and it could actually help to flesh out the PPC's universe a bit.

Either way, I would love the Monitor to return, so whatever it takes to bring it back would be awesome!