Apr 2014 Archive, part b

1. There're some of Sergio Turbo and Firemagic's missions.
   2. PMMM minis are mini-Charlottes.
   Also, here, have this cup of Elysian Tea. It won't try to eat you, I promise!

Welcome back! I was wondering where you had gone off to!

And wait, bad SI PMMM fanfiction?

*checks link*

...

I might just make an MST of it elsewhere on the internet. Lemme at it!

(wheels out the welcome-back pastry table) It's been a while since I had the opportunity to bring this out. Take anything you like!

Wow, I haven't seen a character claiming to be one-third something in a while. How does the fic rationalize the inclusion of dragons? Or does it even try?

Puella Magi Madoka Magica minis are mini-Charlottes, and unless either I'm missing something or the wiki doesn't have all of the links that it should, we've only had two missions in that continuum.

is for the Agent's partner to hide behind them every time there's a combat situation, let them soak up the fire, and then kill the Sue? It's a win-win situation.

That's what Amanda reminds me of, though as far as I know, Jack's immortality allows him to still age- so he'll eventually look like a wrinkly little old man (or a giant face).

Don't think I'm saying you're copying his character, because I'm not. That's just what I'm reminded of.

The curse could make for some rather hilarious situations (like Amanda getting killed almost immediately on her first mission and her partner freaking out- and then freaking out even more when Amanda starts breathing again)

How would it affect her, personally? The first few times she died, especially, probably left some pretty big emotional impact on her. How does Amanda react to her deaths now? I'm assuming she's used to them at this point in her life, but it's probably still weird to die so often and come back. How long does she take to regenerate? Does it depend on the wounds (like being stabbed would take less time to heal than going ka-splat off a cliff)? Is she ever disoriented when she comes back to life? What happens if she gets vaporized?

The collateral damage bit I'm not too sure on... What if she burns down Hogwarts castle? What if she blows up the Millenium Falcon or the Enterprise?

Anyway, I'm most definitely not a PG, but I think Amanda could work as an agent. ;)

You at least didn't create stu agents.

overall,Amanda is pretty cool. the curse could use some work,though.

so,she fights dirty,huh. that's not uncommon for an agent.

I wonder,she might become one of my favorite agents.

I think it will really come down to who her partner is and how they interact. Other than that, I don't have anything to say that hasn't already been said.

The curse sounds sort of like the Japanese variety, where the character gets amazing superpowers, but is still suffers from being, y'know, cursed and all. (See: Princess Mononoke, Naruto- Curse Seals) The only difference is that the downside of those curses comes from unstoppable rage and desire to kill, not never being able to die, no matter how much you're hurt.

That being said, have a nice day.
Boonzayah.

Like Pretzel says, the nature of her immortality will take a bit of tweaking, but other than that, she sounds interesting. Her age--fortyish? fiftyish? makes her somewhat unique among agents, who are mostly young. Playing with somebody who's had half a lifetime of experiences will add to the story.

I agree with Pretzel that her immortality and bad luck doesn't sound like a chaos curse. To me, it sounds more like a wish twisted by a particularly sadistic or incompetent genie--perhaps worded something like, "I wish I could recover quickly from anything but old age."--a wish for a full lifespan, a relatively sensible one from a sensible person who knows that living forever isn't all it's cracked up to be, but who still wants to live long enough to raise their children, see their grandchildren, and finish what they're doing before they pass on. Perhaps she had a terminal illness or severe injury that would otherwise have killed her.

With her being, say, fiftyish, she is old enough to have a grown child. Maybe the child was why she made that wish to begin with--she wanted to live to raise the child, and now that they're grown flown the nest, she wants something useful to do.

Anyway, that's just one of many possibilities. Essentially, you want to have her curse/power be an intrinsic part of her character, something that tells the reader more about her rather than a power stuck on for her to use.

I suppose my first question is this: why such a specific curse? It seems more like something a vengeful sorcerer would put on someone than a chaos god. Usually chaos deities are all about the instant gratification: they want panic and disorder as soon as possible. What would said deity be getting out of such a prolonged curse on someone? Also, depending on what canon you use for a human's life span, that's anywhere from around 120 years old (the common max lifespan for a World One human, IIRC, but which is very, very rare). I'm not sure if there are any continua that have long-living humans, but I'm sure someone else knows.

To me she almost seems like an expy of Jack Harkness thanks to her basic immortality, but with a dash of Highlander Immortals. Actually, that gives me an idea. You could still have a similar character, but get rid of the whole curse thing. The Highlander-style Immortals, for example, can't die unless their heads are cut off. It's a firmly established fact within the Highlander universe. You could still have her be immortal and go through wacky hijinks, but without the onus of a time limit or a curse.

Everything else looks good to me, however, and not OP. Take my advice as you will, but in her current form, she'd definitely need to be nerfed heavily to be acceptable.

I was in Florida with sporadic Wi-Fi.

It was absolutely fantastic, though I have to admit I didn't think about the PPC at all. My thoughts about the conspiracy were mostly 'I knew it!'. Not that there was a specific conspiracy with Hydra, but that SHIELD wasn't all great. I'm not exactly sure where I got that, but my sister pointed out to me that in Thor, SHIELD are kind of the bad guys because they took Jane Foster's equipment and (mistakenly, but still) tried to kill Thor. Basically, trying to suppress knowledge of anything fantastical. Which was sort of justified but also a tiny bit shady. And the movie where I really started to get into the Avengers fandom was Thor.

Plus, there was the bit with the weapons in the Avengers movie, and now we see that that was a precursor for the helicarriers. And I wasn't thrilled with the ethical decisions made in the first episode of Agents of SHIELD.

I also gained much more appreciation for Cap, I want Falcon to get his own movie, and am glad Black Widow is going to get her own movie.

So yes, I loved it.

I loved how the whole thing really shook up the universe and changed what we thought was the status quo.
And the realization that SHIELD thought they had been fighting for good and might just have been making things worse, because their resources were being diverted. That was just ... wow!

This may very well be my favourite of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies so far. And the funny thing is, that I'm not much into Captain America (thought he was a bit dull) so I would probably have skipped this one and caught it later on bluray, except that I had a couple of vouchers for free tickets that I needed to use. And boy, was I glad I did!

And I have to add that it was nice to see some diversity in the cast and female characters that actually do stuff and are there for other reasons than just to be female. It's not perfect, no, but it's good to see that maybe screenwriters are starting to climb down from Hetronormative White Dude Mountain.

Out of respect for those who have not yet seen the film, spoilers will be concealed.

It was funny when (SPOILERS), and then when they (SPOILERS). And the fight when (SPOILERS) were in (SPOILERS) and (SPOILERS) was awesome. And then the reveal that (SPOILERS) was pretty shocking, too.

All humor aside: My favorite part was the tech who Rumlow pulled a gun on. In a world of superheroes, the normal people who stand up to the monsters are always more amazing than their costumed counterparts.

"Sorry. Cap's orders."

I don't care what you say: THAT was the best line in the movie.

He's awesome. And Buck- the Winter Soldier is awesome too.

As for the whole spoiler level stuff- that was awesome too. Never saw it coming.

It was funny, because when I leaned over and told my mom, "Oh my god, it's just like the Black Cats in the PPC!" she just gave a 'what on earth are you talking about?' look.

It was the Reorganization that involved the Flowers running a Sue factory. After the factory was shut down, jobs for agents were suddenly much fewer, and wages had to be slashed.

Ahem.

Anyway, I thought the movie was excellent, though I really do have to question why Iron Man, at least, didn't show up to help. Yes, it makes sense from a movie called Captain America, but considering it takes place in the Marvel Universe where the Avengers are in contact with one another, you'd think a few of them would have shown up to help take down the giant airships.

Also, trying to convince the audience Nick Fury was dead won't work. I was a bit surprised for a moment, but then I was all 'pfft, there's no way they'll kill him off.' And nobody was shocked when oh, by the way, he only faked his death.

DAT ENDING, though! I'm excited for the next movie!

It was awesome! The whole conspiracy was interesting, the interaction between Bucky and the Cap was really sad, the introduction of Falcon was AWESOME (love the new design), the special effects were really good, the action was really well done and felt like the heroes could lose any moment now, the fact that we FINALLY got to see under Nick's patch...

The Emperor Protects!

...are stories about an eponymous university where badfic writers learn to be goodfic writers, taught by the canon characters. The story usually revolves around one badfic writer's journey to goodfic writer and the important lessons they learn along the way. The first one ever written was Miss Cam's Official Fanfiction University of Middle-Earth.If you're at all in the LOTR fandom, I highly recommend it. The Hetalia one is the International Academy of Hetalia Fanfiction, written by our very own Lily Winterwood. I haven't read it, but I know Lily is a fantastic writer.

OFUM is here: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/644826/1/The-Official-Fanfiction-University-of-Middleearth

IAHF is here: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/6746784/1/The-International-Academy-of-Hetalia-Fanfiction

Hope that answers your questions!

So, I use the life force of the universe to improve myself, eh? Wobbles confirmed for Lung

I reevaluated myself with the canon-compliant test, and I wound up with Seer of Space. I actually think that fits me a lot better than Knight of "Keys"/Mind, since regardless of how awesome psionic powers would be, I would work much better in a passive class. Plus, the Space aspect combined with Seer would mean that my primary ability would be observation and analysis of the Medium, and processing the information that I collect for mutual benefit of the rest of the session. It would be equally useful in combat, detecting and assessing enemy encampments from far away, determining spawn patterns, and figuring out the layout of dungeons or other areas to prevent, ambush and find good places to hide. In between battles, I could locate plot-important areas and other zones of sweet loot for myself and various fellow Sburb players, which would help everyone with the all-important "completely breaking the game" aspect of any worthwhile Sburb session. Also, since I'm the Space player, you know what that means! Come on, everybody! Frog hunt on my planet!

Discussion time: let's see... let's start with the basics. Plot twists corner. Which did you like the best, and which did you dislike? For new Homestuck readers, these plot twists contain spoilers, surprisingly enough. My opinions will be a little influenced by the fact that I've been reading Homestuck for so long that most of the pre-Act Five elements don't really seem like plot twists any more, since they've been entwined in the story for so long I can't remember them not being important. So, all of these will come from Act Five or Act Six.

Favorites: I have two, which might be cheating a little, but they both cover similar ground, so I'm saying they both count. First, Becquerel's prototyping. With one quick action, not only were several theories about the stuff lying around Jade's house entirely debunked, the stakes were raised for the rest of the session. If there were any doubts that things just got escalated, the low-level enemy who sent Jade on a wild teleportation chase across all of the Medium cemented that yeah, their entire session is like this now. I almost wish we'd seen a dog-eared teleporting Giclops at some point, but we can't have everything.
I will willingly admit that I was part of the group that thought that the Becquerel-enhanced Jack Noir would eventually become Lord English, because if anyone was likely to become a multiverse-terrorizing monster of horrific might and ferocity, there's a good chance that it'd be the noted psychopath who has suddenly been gifted with the power to rend reality into tiny little chunks. But hey, him becoming the monster who blew up the trolls' session was a pretty awesome consolation prize. Wait, is that a third plot twist? I'd better move on to my other pick before I start describing entire character pathways.

Two: Aranea's sudden reveal as a villain. I have a hunch that this isn't a lot of people's favorite, but I absolutely loved it. Not only was it a culmination of several minor plot threads that gave numerous characters their own reasons to interact with her, and not only did it give an alternate-universe ancestor troll some role in the main story, but I just love Aranea's brand of villainy. Most of the other Homestuck villains were either near-mindless monsters, world-wrecking maniacs, or people who turned maniac due to something in their environment, but Aranea is just this incredibly cold and direct character, wrapped up in a case of warm friendliness. And the thing is, it's completely genuine. The helpful and somewhat desperate-seeming exposition fairy from half the act ago wasn't putting up a facade, and wasn't driven crazy by moral isolation or being taken off her sopor. I really like when a character doesn't go suddenly adopt the shape of the typical looming and overdramatic archlord when they go evil, and Aranea's outbreak of antagonism is a great improvement on the type. She's completely calm and even occasionally cheerful, even as she bursts in after millions of years of inactivity with a plan to rebuild time and stop a reality-threatening godling by literally cutting him off from his past. After all, being more traditionally antagonistic would be out of character. Also, her method of fulfilling her plan by mind-warping Jake and Gamzee(and maybe testing her mind-altering powers on Terezi, but that'd probably just be wishful thinking on my part to justify Terezi's angst) to act as facilitators both allows for her plan to start out surprisingly subtly(that bit falls apart after she mind-warps Jake, but that's mainly because nothing is subtle when it involves a sixty-foot orb of light hovering in the sky and screaming "Gadzooks!") and to distinguish her from her counterpart, Vriska, showing how far the other Mindfang's developed from her earlier callous self. Also, as I mentioned, all of those minor plot threads villain-Aranea brings together. Just the best. It's like she was driving the story specifically in her direction for half the act, and didn't want to show it because getting too directly involved would prevent things from getting where they needed to go.

Not favorite: The secret treasure, a.k.a. that house-logo-shaped weapon and/or portal that John stuck his hand into. I have always loved how Homestuck can introduce a plot element, leave it somewhere in the background for years on end, and then bring it back into the main fold. It's been an extremely entertaining and very effective way of telling an intertwined story, especially one of Homestuck's complexity. The portal-house-weapon's effects retconned the image of John's arm, not only in that montage of arm-panels, but directly into the past scenes, and given how great Homestuck had been in the past with their story elements, just retconning in another plot thread and pushing it to a major position in a story already full of dozens of them just seems like cheating.
Also, in slightly pettier terms, I'd been working off of a primary image of how Homestuck's world works for a while, and managed to squeeze a measure of consistency out of its inner workings, but the portal-house-weapon immediately circumvents one of the few core rules of the setting, the time travel mechanic. That's petty largely because Homestuck has never been averse to defining some new elements of its universe because of or for the sake of a joke.
It did make for some entertaining scenes, but now the constant threat of "that thing you just saw never actually happened" is looming over the story. It was bad enough when Doc Scratch was doing it, and at least that guy was both established beforehand as unreliable and drawing from canonical-but-unimportant doomed timelines. Now I'm just concerned that John is going to go and redefine something important at the last second or something.

...In other news, I appear to have regained my sovereignty in the field of Typing A Whole Lot Of Words. Hooray! Maybe if I pull all of my walls of text together, I can build a mighty castle on my Incipisphere planet! Now, where did I put my towing cables?

... I'm basically Professor X, it would seem.

Basically, I'm one of the Galadhrim.

Or something like that.

Hoo hoo.

Since firemagic already called Maid of Light, I'll go with Page of Light. God help us all if I ever realize the full potential of my aspect... but I probably won't. Too much procrastination, too much distraction, not enough ambition. I'll just stick to muddling through my projects as slowly as possible and editing the wiki for obscure little details that nobody else really cares about. {= )

~Neshomeh

I think your interpretation is a little off. It isn't "one who guides themselves with nothing/lack of knowledge". Instead, I would think about it aa "one who guides themselves with knowledge of things that are hidden or that don't exist."

You would probably be able to read the book that Gamzee redacted with Equius' blood (using his inherent Void powers). You could probably find Callie pretty easily. You function very much like an Heir of Light (something called a Secondary/Complementary Role). You intrinsically change what is known by knowing that which is hidden.

That seems very useful, indeed.

-Phobos, Homestuck Theorist

Incidentally, the primary reason I haven't been around is Homestuck. Read the entire thing, then started again at the beginning, drew fan art, scouted out the internet communities related to it, wrote fanfic, drew fan art, scouted out the fanfic for it, drew fan art, looked at fan art, checked out fan vids, made a study of Rose's clothing for possible cosplaying, drew fan art, got a friend into it. Drew fan art.

Anyway, I got a Spark of Time by a test, but the first time I took it I tied for something, but didn't remember what. Took the test again and got a Rouge of Time. I'm not sure what exactly I would do, but hey, it sounds cool. It sounds like we have most of the players we'd need for a viable session.

And I've felt the need to throw this out there ever since I thought of it: When the kids first got in the game, the whole goal was to beat the game, maybe defeat the denizens. Then the black king and queen raised the scene, then Jack made his appearance. For a while I was wondering if Doc Scratch was going to turn out to be the demon mentioned in one of Sollux's viruses. Then Lord English and the Condese showed up. This whole thing keeps on getting bigger and bigger, and it seems at the moment that Lord English is going to be the "final boss" so to speak. But there seems to be something similar to the Ironic Overpower and the Narrative Laws of Comedy at work in the Homestuck continuum, and at one point Vriska went on at length about how Lord English was definitely the final boss. Personally, I'm expecting a sudden twist in which he is in fact working for or being manipulated by someone else.

I think it's probably Gamzee.

Homestuck has made a shipper out of me. Here's a cool song about Rose while she was fighting Jack Noir. :)

The class and aspect combination that I usually get is Thief of Mind. Depending on the test I might get Bard, but it is usually Thief.

What would that be like? One who steals the choices and memories of others, to use for their own use? That could be fun.

-Phobos

Was obsessed with this and then got my computer taken, so I lost my place. Will start back up tonight
THANK YOU FOR REMINDING ME

One of the most joyous occasions. I spent a good portion of it re-watching a bunch of the flashes. I nearly forgot how fantastic Homestuck's music is.

I'm a Mage of Heart, which basically translates into the manipulation of feelings and motivations. I'm not quite sure what to make of that, really.

The title that I use most often is Maid of Light - one who protects or utilizes knowledge (which is, IIRC, one of the valid non-luck ways to see Light.)

Hussie has started a new webcomic: http://www.paradoxspace.com/you-have-a-feeling-it-s-going-to-be-a-long-day/1

Read his comment near the bottom to learn what it's going to be about (i'll give you a hint: its awesome)

also my title is Maid of Heart

If you use Safari, then you can still copy things off the browser's reader. Alternately, you can view the page source and copy the html containing the story (although all the paragraphs will be denoted with "p" tags, so some reformatting will be required. Still easier than copying the whole thing by hand.)

I was NOT looking forward to trying to type out the nonsense of The Lost Land. That's actually partially why I've been delaying working on that mission. (Sorry, World-Jumper!)

I've discovered that on the Mac, you can just hit Command+A and select the whole webpage to copy it, and then paste the whole thing on to a Word document. Then you can cut out all the adds and unwanted stuff, and viola!

Just a helpful tip! :)

Dammit, I wish I knew about this earlier!

Well, I've gotten into the routine of going through the fanfiction.net downloader that you can get from a third party, but I guess this is nice to know too. Thanks, Lily!

It should be added to the Wiki page (I'd do it myself but I have other things on my plate, such as the Forgotten Realms mini page...).

Thanks for sharing; do you know when they made the change and why?

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/9397468/1/Junior-year-Modern-day-Julius-Caesar-fic

It's Bad Slash starring Cassius and Brutus in a high school AU of melodrama and really awful makeout scenes. It's a bit nsfw, too.

I ship Brutus/Cassius because my school's production of JC made it explicitly canon and stuff but this is just... sad. Now I'm going to need to write my own modern AU to make up for it.

I'm kidding. But Free! is pretty ridiculous. I saw more or less the last half of the show at a con, because I had nothing better to do at the time. It doesn't have subtext so much as bright neon lights flashing THIS IS A METAPHOR! THIS IS A METAPHOR!

Personally, I think this fic is on-target and pretty funny. {X D

~Neshomeh

Can anyone point me to any Skyrim goodfic? Please?

-Aila

Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire is a quarantined continuum, which means that the creator (George R R Martin, in this case) has requested that no fanfic be written of the series. The PPC policy is to respect that wish, so there are no missions, much to the disappointment of some of us.

Don't know about finding other fics, though.

-Phobos

Well there could always be stachoos - statues with a sneezing problem.

I could also imagine, in a neighbourhood like that, that certain canonical and non-mispelled things might like to move in - e.g. Weeping Angels (didn't somebody find a Weeping Angle once?), gargoyles, Blockers etc. Perhaps they'd be the only residents to dare live in such buildings...

On a related note: how about the Witch Wall from OFUM?

There's the wherehouse (which you can never find) and the werehouse (spoiler: That's not a shag carpet! Also, run)...

The Tower of Terror is a bit of a cliché at this point, but it's a classic for a reason. Its counterpart, the skyscreeper, is very stealthy. Sometimes, when you turn around, you see it there looming over you and hissing softly...

That's all I've got off the top of my head.

*Attempts to reach past you to nab the cake* …must …eat CAKE! *Regains control of hunger* Sorry about that. I wish you a very happy birthday.

…cake...

Bonne fete Tomash,
Bonne fete Tomash,
Bonne fete bonne fete,
bonne fete Tomash!

Happy 18th, no, you don't have to be responsible and mature. Three years until then, don't worry :D
(sorry that I don't have accents, the school computer won't do them)

I'll take a slice if there's any left. Did someone say it was red velvet?

As a gift, you can have a pretty good Wicked/Return to Oz fusion fic: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6357752/1/The-Shattering-of-Oz

I like red velvet with cream cheese frosting. Is there any of that?

Herpy birthderp, by the way.

Happy birthday! Have a happy dance!

('-') ('-')/ (/'-')/ ('-')/

Bah, who needs responsibility? Immaturity is so much more fun!

I'm 21. Y'all make me feel old. Damn kids, off mah lawn, etc. =]

A hundred happy returns to you. Who knows why people keep sending them back? They seem perfectly nice to me. Well, I suppose it just means you get them all to yourself.

I hope you have a fantastic year.

Happy birthday!

*hands large box of unidentifiable gooey sweets and showers with packing peanuts*

-Aila

with the exception of Iodin/Alagos (since they're boring smug marrieds, where's the fun in that).

I'm about to have 10 glorious days off and will try to write something during that time, but anyone who wants to have a go at the ESAS crowd is welcome to.

Elcalion

I'd love to see what you could make of Morgan/Notary. I know there aren't that many moments they share, but that's mostly because the Notary hasn't shared all that many moments with anyone except Wobbles, and shipping Wobbles with anyone at all... kinda makes me uncomfortable. =]

And another one in response to Lily... anyone got any comments on those? I know they're just PPC fanfic, not canon, but reviews are still appreciated.

hS

If anyone feels like taking a crack at Vania and Doc, go ahead. Considering I've set them up for an argument for their next interlude, it would probably be a bit of a challenge.

I have some ideas that could work for this. I should have a few stories for viewing shortly-ish. That said though, I will note that SPOILERS Xericka/Gremlin will eventually become canon, as suggested by the final story in "Five Stages." I just haven't written through the process yet./SPOILERS So don't get your hopes up for that just yet.

I'd be all right with people writing non-canon yet still "canon-friendly" stories about my agents, be those stories with each other or different agents. I'm honestly curious to see other people's takes on them. :)

The only ones I could do this to would be Agents Mal and Orion, since Ian and Lee are emphatically together, and Grace and Alex are as well.

Cali isn't eligible, because he and Cadmar are actively dating.

Kelok and Unger could be interesting, so long as it was only a romantic, not sexual relationship. Kelok is emphatically asexual, but he does like (even crave) some elements of snuggling. Though he doesn't like to admit it.

Caddy-shack says that a Mark and Agent Miah pairing would be okay with him. They have scenes together, mostly in the Interludes we wrote. Just keep in mind that Mark cannot make skin-to-skin contact.

All of my agents (with the exception of Kur'nak, who has a child's mental development for much of his existence) are open for shipping, if anyone can make any of them work. For reference, here is a list of my characters:

Barid
Brightbeard (Has taken a vow of Celibacy, but that just means no sex. Still leaves plenty of room for other forms of shipping.)
Phobos
Durotar
Decima
Voltarmi (Likes blue men. Do with that what you will.)
Monath Clokka (Homestuck Yellow-blooded Troll. Has one, barely explored, appearance.)
Tuff (Discworld Troll. Has one, barely explored, appearance.)
Oopart (Catastrophe Theory future)

I don't know if anyone thinks any of these guys are legitimately shippable, but I'd be interested to find out.

-Phobos

Ooh, ooh, I know! Morgan/Agent. Because I give permission for basically all of my agents to be used in endeavours such as these, and the Agent did at one point like Morgan (because she looked like Romana).

As for my own, of course Agent/Disentangler would be feasible since they have their crazy suicide pact thing and they've know each other for so long, but they aren't in a relationship (as far as I know anyway).

And for shipping, I feel like it's fun to have Agents speculate on other Agents' relationships in-universe, and in the Badfic Game to write shipping goodfic because I would honestly love to see other people take on my own characters. I'm amused at the badfics, but goodfics? They might even influence how I write them if they're feasible enough.

That is, only people who've explicitly said here it's okay - maybe that's stating the obvious, I dunno, but I don't really feel comfortable with the idea otherwise. As for the challenge... well, I need to start writing people again for anyone to apply. :P

How did you run across the PPC?

I won't even try to type that out!

So, an anime fan, eh? Do you happen to like Pokemon? Bakugan: Battle Brawlers? If you like either (or both), please check out the crossover that I am writing on fanfiction.net.

As for your newbie gift, have your choice of Starter Pokemon!

I'm 99Hedgehog, but feel free to call me 99. Here, have an authentic English Longsword!

The Emperor Protects!

Green is good. I like green.

Your present: a green mini-hippopotamus!

Since you gave us a Hub Document, your newbie gift is the Hub. That's right you are now the owner* of Hasbro's TV channel! Congratulations, and welcome to the Board.


* Note: sjosten holds no affiliation with Hasbro, and therefore cannot actually give you the channel. Side effects of false channel giving include, but are not limited to: headaches, nausea, swelling, intense disappointment, death, and mild aggravation. Contact your doctor if symptoms worsen while taking false channel gifts.

Have a red-framed graphite drawing of your favorite fictional character and a magical step stool.

I'd read your thing, except I have far too much homework this time of year and recently got sucked into a new fandom which is taking far more than its fair share of my attention. Maybe in a month or so I will.

In the meantime, welcome to the PPC! This place is a real blast: please buckle your seatbelt and be careful when opening the overhead compartments, as things might shift during flight and hit you in the head very hard when you're least expecting it.

Welcome to the PPC! We love newbies here, so take your shoes off, leave your sanity at the door, and come on in!

As a welcome gift, I'll go ahead and gift you some music by one Elliott Carter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV0bLIMUvWs

man,there seem to be a lot of new people these days!

The Hub Doc thing sounds pretty impressive. Tell me more about Hobby Class R/C, it sounds pretty cool.

Good on you for reading the Original Series. Have some popcorn and a Mario plushie. :)

Here, take this X-men jacket and Nightcrawler Plushie

Have any of you wonderful people checked out the links? I would LOVE to hear your opinions. Keep in mind the owner isn't me, but a Mr. Rowsey.

Beware of the floating cat. She's mean. But yeah, RWBY? Ummm… not sure what to think of it since my brother watches it whenever he can and plays the soundtrack day in and day out. Heh.

Otherwise, enjoy this fluffy velociraptor as a welcome gift!

You like RWBY too? I'm pretty sure I've got some dust around here somewhere… Ah, found it! Careful--don't sneeze.

Hello and welcome!

I hereby have given to you a lined Infinite Notebook, complete with urple covers and wilver binding. Don't look at it straight on!

-Aila

Did I mention I'm Canadian?

From what I've read so far, the consensus seems to be that I am overreacting. That's comforting to hear. And as for those of you that have said "write for yourself, not the reviews," don't worry. As I mentioned, there are still chapters on the way, and goodness knows that I have big plans down the line for the Vexos Chronicles. But if any of you are fans of either Pokemon or Bakugan and have the time, please give my story a read. Concrit never goes out of style.

Bakugan has always been a really small fandom to begin with. And their might be some people who haven't seen season 2, or just didn't like Volt.

PS Did you get that email I sent you?

The first one is sheer luck. You can have the best fic in your fandom, but if by pure chance nobody looks at it it won't be successful.

The second one is the crossoverability (is that even a word?) of the two series. If the two series share nothing with each other, chance are that people who like one don't follow the other and so ignore it. Or maybe they know both series, but think their themes are too different to work together.
For example, my own fic is a crossover between Madoka Magica and Lyrical Nanoha, and is doing very well. The two series are both in the same genre (Magical Girl series with a serious plot) and, while their main themes do clash, it's the kind of clash that actually makes the plot instead of distracting from it.

And the third one... wait, I can't think of a third one...

I would think that it being a crossover doesn't help it gain hits. I tend to avoid even looking at crossovers unless the summary makes me really believe that there is a reason I would like to see those characters together. And of course, that is subjective to me. For some reason someone has decided that a Battle Star Galatica charatcer needs to appear in Haven. Honestly, I despise BSG and will probably never click on that fic no matter how much I like Haven. There is a fic that has Tony Stark land in Haven, and I might someday get bored enough to read that one, since Tony really doesn't like magic, and the Troubles tend to ignore the laws of physics. But I haven't read it yet, because I prefer not to think of Haven as being in the same setting as the Marvel movieverse.

So, yeah, crossovers in particular are hard sales. Then there are all those people who click on it, read a paragraph or two and decide this isn't for them, and the people that go back to your story, hit chapter one and then bounce up to the newly posted chapter. It is kind of neat that ffnet tracks the hits on each chapter, but I would expect chapter 1 to always drastically outstrip the rest.

The point about WIP's is very true, also. There is nothing worse than getting into a story, then the author not finishing it. Most of the time, I won't pay much attention to one that isn't finished, unless that author already has a sterling reputation when it comes to story completion.

I hear you on the wishing for more reviews and likes. Those things are addicting! Mine, I know people are still clicking on it. The number of hits keeps creeping up, but I haven't gotten a comment or kudo from the last 150 hits or so. Every time I check my dashboard, I'm like, 'Come oooon, new comment! Darn. Oh well, at least got another hit.' Considering how very tiny the Haven fandom is on AO3, I'm really not sure where this continuing trickle of hits is coming from, really, but I do like seeing them. :D

Still, you really have to write the story because it makes you happy to do so, not because of the accolades it can bring you. Seeing the hits, likes, and reviews is awesome, but if their numbers are going to bother you so much, you may need to take a few deep breaths and refocus on why you started writing this story in the first place. (Unless it was purely to get hits, then ignore that last bit and go write short shipfics of the two most popular characters)

most of us are never going to write a fic that gains a huge following and becomes well known. That doesn't mean that it's a bad story, just that it doesn't have the exposure. There isn't really any way to advertise fanfiction, so we basically just have to rely on Pit users searching for stuff they like, and coming across our story--and that still doesn't guarantee they'll read it through to the end.

Out of curiosity, let me peek at my old fic's stats . . . wow, they've made this a lot harder to read than it used to be . . .

So, out of eighteen chapters, the first one has 504 views, and the second has 124. Three of the remaining chapters have more than fifty views, while all the rest have less than fifty. I've also received a total of seven reviews and three favorites, even after the story has been sitting on the Pit since 2008. Your story has already beaten mine, by those counts.

The Pit just isn't a reliable source of exposure or concrit, basically. That doesn't mean you should stop writing; just make it the best story you can, and maybe someday it will gain a bit more acclaim.

So far, it seems that no one else has answered. Did I respond too soon, or is everyone just agreeing with Lily that my only problem is that my fic isn't complete? I highly doubt that hers is the only possible answer...

And sometimes they'll just wait for there to be more developments so they can binge-read chapters, or wait until things are finished. A lot of people dislike WIPs and will just wait for it to be completed to read/review.

It's a natural thing, don't worry. Write for yourself, not the reviews.

OI, OI! Over here! Hello there, fellow n00b who stalked the crap out of the wiki! I'm TwisTed_R3V3NG3, but you can call me TwisTed (CAPITAL T'S OR YOU DIE)! I just joined a couple days (week?) ago, but welcome anyway. Something to remember is NEVER trust the tea leaves. Also... *Hugs the ever-loving HELL out of you* DEAR GOD, YOU LIKE R.A?!? YES! I HAVE WAITED SO LOOOOOOONG! I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE!!! People who also replied to my "Hello There World", I didn't know you liked it! Anyways, in addition to my new, original gift I just thought up now, (which is one coupon for a FREE gunblade of your choice, smithed by yours truly, along with some complimentary bleeprin) have a Ranger Cloak! Enjoy your stay!

...<. ...>.>...

Don't ask me where I got it...

Please.

I hope you enjoy your time here. Have a sentient adjective, grab a chair, and get settled in. Here is your very own Awake.

Welcome to the nuthouse! Here's a video of the utterly amazing Tony Swatton forging Sting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKFOEyDE-uY

So what other kinds of things do you like? Do you watch a lot of anime? =D

I have not read Ranger's Apprentice, but from what I see of it on Wikipedia, it sounds like a good story.

As for your newbie gift, have a snowglobe with a replica of your favorite fictional locale inside!

*takes saxe knife* awesome! *admires it*
Erm... *looks at the cup of tea* *tries to touch it* GASP my fingers!

I thought I was one of few. Anyways, I'm 99Hedgehog, but just call me 99. Here, have a... uh... a saxe! I nicked it off a Ranger, no you can't ask how.

The Emperor Protects!

-Waves-
People pointed you toward the stuff, so I'll just give you a cup of tea. Which is predatory and will try to eat you. So I'll also give you this Test Tiger to protect you.

… Then I became a manga fanatic. Welcome to the PPC, have a cookie.

Survive.

Please take this X-men jacket and Nightcrawler plushie

Hello and welcome!

I give to you a lined Infinite Notebook, complete with urple covers and wilver binding. Don't look at it straight on!

-Aila

Yes, I have :3
I love Cinder (Lunar Chronicles) but I don't think they are very well known... Yet.
Practically every series I love I have read every book that has come out so-far. I think it is necessary to say I am a very fast reader, can finish one Ranger's Apprentice book in an hour or two.
*noms on banana* also, I'm random.

*takes oakleaf* ahh! Mah eyes! *puts it around neck anyway*

What other fandoms do you have?

OHMIGOSH ANOTHER RANGER'S APPRENTICE FAN!

*glomps*

Here: your very own Urple Oakleaf!

Come right in, have some lemming repellent, and pull up something to sit on!

I trust you've also seen the Constitution? Because that's a good thing to look at outside the Wiki and the TOS. :D

Some digging around revealed that I have quite a few of those from about three years ago when I was in art class. These two are the best, I think.

...mostly title cards for my Youtube stuff. But this is probably the one I like the most:



It's admittedly only half a self-portrait, but I think it still works. Are you gonna argue with those glasses?

...mostly title cards for my Youtube stuff. But this is probably the one I like the most:



It's admittedly only half a self-portrait, but I think it still works. Are you gonna argue with those glasses?

Someone else drew it for me and it makes me look cute yet menacing. Therefore, fave.

Ever since I discovered the PPC, I've been obsessed with increasing my art capabilities so that I could draw my agents… But I haven't drawn myself.

Huh.

This is self portrait fanart of my (past, braces-equipped) self as one of the singing bust ghosts in the Haunted Mansion, surrounded by other things from the Haunted Mansion.



I apologize for all damage to vision sustained by observing this terrible, high school art class lineart. As though I've gotten any better since then, ha ha. Cake and grief counseling will be made available in FicPsych.

Ugh. Look at that chair. How did I screw up a chair so badly? You couldn't even sit in that; it would ruin your spine!

This is self portrait fanart of my (past, braces-equipped) self as one of the singing bust ghosts in the Haunted Mansion, surrounded by other things from the Haunted Mansion.



I apologize for all damage to vision sustained by observing this terrible, high school art class lineart. As though I've gotten any better since then, ha ha. Cake and grief counseling will be made available in FicPsych.

Ugh. Look at that chair. How did I screw up a chair so badly? You couldn't even sit in that; it would ruin your spine!

I show up in panels 3 and 6 of this memething, though my back is turned in 6. Also contains several of my agents and other OCs combined in random scenarios, which is what the meme is really about. {= )

~Neshomeh

Mostly all I've ever read in X-Men is some pretty awful Gambit/Wolverine, so nothing constructive to offer.

Most of the stories I like have been high fantasy. It can go just fine without a character from our world, as long as they feel like people we can relate to.

But if your world is to crazy you might need to have a character that is more normal, to ask questions for the audience

Congrats, Aila! Now you can join the 'we've been here at least a year' club! In honor of that, you get...um...I'm not sure what the standard gift is, actually. If there is one. Let's say you get an urple pen (for reasons) and a certificate and a whole lot of Swiss Bleepolate and Gummyblee Fireworks (yup, they exist. Don't worry, only some of them have the poprocks effect :))

Seriously, though...thanks to you for all the same things you mentioned :) It's good to have you here.

~DawnFire, blatantly ignoring the fact that I've only been a Boarder for about 3-4 months longer than you. :D

I'll be doing this, too, in about a year. *grins*
Aaaanyway, chocolate is delicious!

when he sees that everybody has left. He sighs to himself. "Why am I always late to this kind of thing? It's not like I've spent to much time running around some of those Naruto badfics where Kakashi is 3 days late to everything..." Shrugging his shoulders, he collects what is left of the chocolate and walks out.

The party was grand, and all had fun, but now it is clear that the festival has ended. The lights have dimmed, the snack bar is empty, and only a few boarders remain, passed out in various compromising positions. The jukebox is stuck playing a slow, instrumental song for the rest of the night.
Suddenly, a lone boarder bursts in through the door in a disheveled suit and a party hat.
"I'm here!" He announces to the sleeping boarders, "Where's the chocolate?"
Scanning the room, the boarder realizes a horrifying truth about the party, and about himself. He was tardy.
"But, but I brought bunny ears." He sniffles, holding up a headband with crudely made paper ears stapled to it.
Then, a light catches his eye. Tiptoeing over to the snack table, the late boarder finds a wilver egg nestled into a cooler. Inside are a half dozen bleeprin jellybeans.
"Well, good to see I didn't miss everything. Just most things." The boarder says, chuckling to himself.
He sets his homemade bunny ears on the table and strolls out into the rest of the board, egg in hand.

    A tall skinny fellow with purple eyes and crazy white hair stumbled into the vaguely described portion of the Board that was to serve as a ballroom. He wished for the fifty-third time in the last two minutes that he hadn’t looked at the giant invitation nailed to the Board as he tripped over his feet and landed with a smack on the floor.<br><br>   The accursed invitation had been written in urple ink of all things, and it had burned itself into his eyeballs. Still the words floated, transfixed in front of his vision wherever he looked:<br><br><br>…No Sues or Cute Animal Friends permitted,<br>Always expect the Spanish Inquisition!<br><br>…A spork of your choice,<br>Some sort of Easter item…<br>Chocolate will be served.<br><br>…Oh yeah. Beware the Llamas.<br><br><br>   Those words had plagued him for the last week- it had completely ruined reading for him.<br><br>    And now he was headed to this ball that had plagued his thoughts (and his poor eyeballs) for the past seven days, to see if, at last, the words would fade.<br><br> Agent Legacy (because that’s who he was) looked up from the floor in time to see an angry man in red vestments bustle past, muttering about… fluffy pillows.<br><br>    Legacy got to his feet and dusted off his white suit, looking about the room. There was a slow trickle of people entering the room, and already a small crowd had gathered at some sort of dance floor. A row of tables to the left of the dance floor bore a small army of snacks, almost all of them chocolate. Generic music played in the background. <br><br>  “…Quaint.” He said. <br><br>  “Brwaamph.” Said something behind Legacy. He whirled to see…<br><br>  …A llama.<br><br> (Dramatic music! Boy, do I LOVE this!)<br>

A mature woman, with short, spiky white hair and black clothes peeked into the room. The celebration was wild, but nothing dangerous... yet.

"Okay, Justine, as I said earlier the coast is clear."

Of course, in accordance with the laws of narrative comedy, she was immediately trampled to death by the llama.

After she got better, she continued: "That was just me. Don't judge the party."

A younger blonde woman (Justine) with a ponytail wearing tight pink-and-white track clothing and running shoes cautiously creeped to the doorway. She gave her partner a worried look and nervously clasped her wizard hat necklace.

"Are you sure, Amanda?"

Amanda, the older woman, laughed, grabbed her partner's wrist, and spun her onto the dance floor.

...and a boy of 14 in a large green hooded coat and with no shoes staggered in, followed by some smoke. He looked at the scene and grinned.

"Sorry i'm late. Getting back to the past is quite difficult when you're being shot at."

An explosion is heard outside. He grimaces.

"Not my smoothest landing I can tell you that. OOH, BUNNIES! AND CHOCOLATE"

Iximaz glanced about the now-crowded ballroom, looking for someone she recognized. A familiar Boarder's voice caught her attention and she turned, looking for its owner.

"Hey! Hedgehog!" she called, hurrying over as fast as she could without bumping into any partygoers.

99Hedgehog gave her an odd look. "It's 99, mostly."

"Well, I like hedgehogs. They're so prickly and cute, and they're really friendly when you get to know them." Iximaz reached into a plothole and produced a mandola and a microphone. "So, do you want to sing, or do you want to play?"

"Say what?"

Iximaz sighed. "After I found out you're a Ranger's Apprentice fan, I've been hoping to run into you so we could perform Cabin in the Trees or maybe Sunshine Lady-"

99Hedgrhog's eyes widened. "Nope! Nope, nope, nope, no thank you. I don't sing and I certainly don't play the mandola."

"Me neither." Iximaz grinned. "Should be interesting." She held up the mandola and the mic. "Choose yer weepons."

hoping that she'd gotten the room right. One never knew in HQ. But, nope, there was a jukebox, and a table covered with edible lovelies, and someone throwing rabbits? Strange.

She scuttled over to the table, ignoring everyone else, and grabbed a handful of chocolate.

Seyche peeked into the party room. It was still pretty quiet, so hey hadn't arrived to late, like she feared. She still made sure to enter the room quietly, so not to make a fuss.

At least that was the plan, until her partner tackled her to the ground.

"What?" she began, before Murder raised a finger to his lips, signaling her to be quiet. He then pointed at a small furry animal that occupied the room.

"Ohnopleasethat'sjustabunny, SOMEBODY STOP HIM HE'S CRAZY!"

Agent-to-be Chris entered the room with a confused expression and a bag of jellybeans. "We can try to understand/The New York Times' effect on a man," the Bee Gees crooned from the jukebox. "Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother, you're staying alive, staying alive. Feel the city breaking and everybody shaking and we're staying alive, staying alive..."

It was a nice catchy song, but Chris wasn't much of a disco person. He walked over to it and nearly tripped over a three-foot-tall spider. "Ow! What the..."

On closer inspection, the spider bore a name tag reading "Jorden." "Be careful!" it hissed. "Nassty place for Mini-Aragog, yes precious. Clumssy folk all over. No fishes, no eggses."

"Uh...sorry about that. My name's Chris. Could you move out of the way, please?" Chris asked politely. "I'd like to change the music."

Jorden blinked all eight red eyes, then scuttled off to converse with some kind of fire demon. Chris chuckled over the strangeness of HQ, then finally made his way to the jukebox. Wow, I've never heard of half these bands, he thought as he flipped through the selection. One song by a group called "Soft Cell" caught his eye. He pressed play, filling the room with the iconic funky bassline of "Tainted Love."

And that was how a girl in a blue denim jacket and ratty jeans found him; standing in the corner with his Meganium, awkwardly grooving to "Tainted Love".

"Happy Easter!" she smiled. Chris looked up, surprised to see another person. "You're new, aren't you? My name's Rina Dives. I just joined last month. Ooo, jellybeans! Can I have some for my friend Randa?"

"OK," Chris said. He handed the bag over to her and she stuffed it in her jacket. "I'm Chris, by the way. Let's sit down so we can talk better."

Then someone yelled "BUNNY FIGHT!" and he got hit in the arm with something fluffy. Meganium picked the fluffy thing up with its head and brought it around to Chris. It turned out to be a cute brown rabbit with a sign around its neck: "Free to a good home."

"Awww, what a cutie-pie," Rina cooed. "Your Meganium looks super healthy! Is he your starter? How long have you had him?"

"Yeah, we've been a team for about nine years," Chris replied. "He's almost like my best friend."

He presses a button on the remote and a plothole appears. He reaches into the plothole to pull out more bunnies. "Bunny Fight!" he exclaims as he starts throw the bunnies at people with intent on giving them diabetes. (Better duck and cover if you're allergic to adorableness.)

...and a message is played;

"Hey Kitty, it's 99. Might be a bit late for the ball here, got to get back to the 21st Century from the 41st Millenium. Sorry about that. Gotta go, this Kestrel-class cruiser won't hold together forever under Lance-fire."

The message goes to static and the music resumes.

The Rule of Blarg was a little thing I discovered upon reading Cupcakes. The rule states that the lighter and fluffier the canon (like MLP:FIM), then the darker and more… horrible the fanon (Cupcakes, the Rainbow Factory, etc…).

Why do these authors continually prove the Rule of Blarg correct?

You know if a there are any replacements of canon charcters, then they might be worth collecting a couple of samples, For the Department of Expermetation and Research Of Mary Sues

I wouldn't dare send Agents in there.... The poor guys...

But I got the definite impression that it was supposed to be a happy little story about friends primarily aimed at young girls. This is just sad.

Why do people keep ruining the MLP fandom?!

*looks in fic*

...

Why would any troll want to do this!?

*runs to get the eyewash*

Do you mean a prereader and editor?
I ain't good at editing, but I can preread it if you'd like. ^_^