Jun 2014 Archive, part b

I have another question related to emergencies.

Say there is an invasion of HQ that is quickly quelled by a small handful of agents before news of the invasion even goes through the entire PPC. Is that possible to do?

An Emergency (note the capital E) is an event has consequences for the entire PPC. HQ being invaded by a large organized force? Deadly virus running though the halls? Makes-Things killed? All of these are examples of Emergencies that happened in the PPC's past.


Seven or so agents tackling a single fic is just calling for backup.

I'm not sure what you mean by "derivative work", but I once wrote a scathing four-paragraph review of some fool's Silver/Reader fic on deviantART because she explained literally nothing about where the hell this was taking place, messed up Silver's character, murdered the English language, and called Lyra a whore. (Don't bother looking for it, it's not worth PPCing and the so-called "author" hid my rant anyway.) So there's that.

I also hate when people fail to do the research.

My biggest peeve is fics aggressively shipping pairs that aren't established in canon. (Especially if it means breaking up or ignoring canon romances.)

Also, fics that contradict my personal interpretation of anything that's not been clearly established in canon. (Mostly because they usually tend to go for the most literal interpretations, while I like to think I go for the most interesting and unusual ones.)

Apart from that, just all the usual stuff like Mary Sues, squick, etc.

We know there's at least the Salem Witches' Institute and I'm sure there are others in America. But not only that, but they are almost always taken on a shopping trip in Diagon Alley, even though quite a few of their materials could probably be obtained in the American equivalent, and then they proceed to integrate themselves with the 'Golden Trio' or the Marauders and bleh.

Of course, since those creatures are almost always Sues, I'm okay with that. It means I'll never run out of missions. }:-)

Having reread your request, reread your other requests, and seen your response to Phobos, I would have to say my call on this is denied. Again - this isn't permanent, but I highly recommend you put this on hold for a while - longer than a few weeks - while you do some more reading and work on your writing, especially humor. hS pointed this out before, and it holds true; the most important thing about most missions is the humorous aspect. Most of what we write is satire, and that takes something of a deft touch, and it doesn't really come automatically to anyone.

Other than that, though, the issue is compounded by what appears to be a somewhat disingenuous move on your part. You were told - multiple times, IIRC - that Emergencies were discouraged and you should go for Agents without the big alternate-universe subplot. You resubmitted your agents twice, but now it looks like rather than decide to revamp the idea, you just, as Phobos has pointed out, threw a blanket over the parts that didn't jibe with a normal permission request. I hate to say it, but that says to me that you care more about getting your plot written than you do about being honest with the community about your intentions, and that worries me a lot. The whole reason the skepticism and issues with Emergencies came about was because people took big, game-changing ideas and ran with them without consulting the community who'd be effected.

I don't want to discourage you from writing these agents, or from writing for the PPC. But I do want to express how strongly I feel about the fact that you presented this in a different way than the direction in which your actual intentions lie. The thing is - again, as has been pointed out - there's nothing inherently wrong with Big Ideas! I really like the idea of doing something different! But... again, what you've got going on here is up several difficulty levels, and between that, and your writing sample (inconsistent dialogue, some clunky writing, some lack of humor, some ...off character interactions: despite now knowing where they came from, they still come off as a bit awkward), and the background, I'm going to have to say no this time around.

I want to be clear, I am not going to act as a permission giver for the remainder of this request, unless there is a split decision and we need a tie breaker.

I haven't really said much about your permission requests in the past, and there is a reason for that. I have some misgivings about your material, but it has always been too vague for me to put into words. I think it is becoming clearer, so let me ask some questions and try to explain my theory. Please, don't hold back in your reply, even if it means giving spoilers.


I note that there is a bit about a potential DIA Agent named Melvin Moore. I also recall that you talked, a long while ago, about a DIA Agent that seemed to have it in for your team. Are you still planning that storyline?

Why is it so important that Wells has super speed? This power has been a constant for the character, even through multiple re-writes of how she got it, so there must be some reason for the power to exist.

Plank is a villain, isn't he? The slow descent into madness. The "apparent" deaths and/or snapping of all of his previous partners. Drinking copious amounts of glitter. Forging documents to get assistants. The signs are all there.


What I am getting at is the shape of the story. You keep trying to be mysterious about it. It is kind of like you are throwing a blanket over a sofa. You can see the shape of the sofa (the plot points and important details) under the blanket (the few details you've given us). Here is where my concern comes in.

I don't think you have a sofa under that blanket. I think you're trying really hard to make it look like a sofa, when it is something else entirely. There are faint shapes under the blanket that worry me. You've got a character who you want me to think is one of your protagonists, but looks like a villain. You have powers that seem too important to you for how little attention you want to draw to them. You have characters who don't look to have any purpose except for a plot that people had issues with, and that you haven't brought up in your requests. It seems to me that you are hiding all the red flags under that blanket and hoping we don't notice.

You clearly have long, complicated stories planned. There is nothing inherently wrong with that; hS has written some of the longest, most complicated stories around, after all. What I have a problem with is if you are intentionally hiding story elements that you think we will have a problem with, just to get permission.


So, now comes your part. Prove to me that it's a sofa. No more mysteries. No more secrets. Just show me the shape of your story.

-Phobos

You're still presenting a big, complex mass of many agents, backstories, and inter-relationships all at once, to overwhelm the PGs. Probably not a good idea.

(And, it also has the side effect of looking like all the really exciting, interesting events in their PPC careers have already happened in the backstories, so whatever happens in the main stories could be an anticlimax compared to that!)

I've said it before, but IMHO it might be better if you started with just Wells and Plank. Over the course of writing their missions and stories, you introduce the other characters gradually, and allow us to see Plank's steady decline into madness taking place before our own eyes. Seeing things happen over several stories would also help us understand some of the more puzzling things about the backstory, such as:

Exactly how did Wells get superhuman speed on a South Park mission? Did it come from the temporal distortion she fell into? (i.e. When she runs, time flows differently for her, or something like that?) Or was that a different mission?

How could Plank join at the same time as Makes-Things? Makes-Things was the very first human ever to join, and IIRC the next two were female LARPers who became assassins. Even if Plank was the fourth human to join and this is a case of "Remember the New Guy", as that TV Tropes page points out: "More than one Mary Sue is introduced this way in fanfiction." Not something that's going to be too popular here!

Talking of Plank, what is he officially supposed to be doing now? He's been "relieved of his Duty in the DMS" and is unofficially working for Experimentation and Research, but what do the Flowers think he's doing? And why isn't anyone from DIA keeping an eye on him after all the trouble he's been in?

Having said that, I still love the characters of Ellis, Bessie, and Wells, despite their very confusing backstories. I hope you do get permission to write them someday.

(Sorry - though I've been reading fairly frequently, and have loosely followed* the permissions requests, classes and newspapering haven't left me much time to comment in the last several months, so I'd feel a little awkward jumping in with an Official Call.)

The first thing I'd say is, and I'm sure you're tired of hearing this, but... slow down. I also am sure you don't want to do this, but try to stop thinking about your 'verse and your agents for a little while and just be a part of the community. Seriously. If this is the point where one of the other PGs decides you've done it all and sundry and are granted... I'd still wait a while before you do a mission. Write with your agents, interact, read lots of goodfic. Read a lot of goodfic. Hey, just to keep the mind happy, right?

Anyway. I hate to say it, but to me, Wells' accent still comes off kinda awkward. Honestly, I'd scrap the whole "ya" for you thing and spend some time... h'm. Watching Firefly, I think, especially Jayne. Listen to the way characters like Wells - or like you want her to be - talk, and the way they phrase things, and spend some time writing like that. Oh! Granny Weatherwax, from Discworld, or Nanny Ogg - they'd be good sources, too. Dialogue is important, and hard - and characters' voices are important, and hard. I guess that's my biggest recommendation. Read a lot of the things you want to emulate.

With regards to your agent profiles... you don't seem to have addressed some of hS' critiques? You added a piece about unstable violence to Ellis, and a minor piece of lawyer context, but that's it on him. With Bessie, you changed more things, which is good! But... she's still a "powerhouse duelist" who is prone to foolhardy moves.

Wells - I'm confused about her. The relationship with Plank seems problematic - not in a "you shouldn't write this" way, in a "these characters are unhealthy and it could be interesting" way, but I think you definitely want to elaborate on that, rather than leave it ambiguous. Your last paragraph is a little confusing, for example. Is Plank actually insane? Does Wells know this? Does anyone acknowledge this, outside of Ellis' inner monologue?

Okay, you go a little more into Wells and Plank in Plank's bio, but it's still very disturbing between her bio and the 'fic sample, and I see that hS has flagged that as well. I'm also very, very, very sketchy about having him have joined at about the same time as Makes-Things. No, the PPC canon isn't sacred or anything, but... well... Makes-Things has been around basically forever. It would be kinda tough to write this character without doing quite a bit of background in the various PPC histories. Not that it couldn't be done, just that it would be up a couple levels of difficulty, basically.

All that said - have you run this through a beta? I don't see a credit here, and although I don't know what the deal is currently with Permission requests, it would probably be a good idea to work with someone on this, unless another PG has said otherwise.

*The other half of that is I honestly still don't know what the final call was on what does, and does not constitute a formal request.

"maybe we can get permission to renovated"

That's the only error I noticed without really looking for them.

Hey, three times the charm :3 I hope you get it this time.

Hm. You've fixed up the major problems pretty well... but (this might just be me) I think your explanations might be too broad now. What exactly happened in that South Park fic to make Wells so fast? (Honestly, I don't watch South Park... so if this is obvious, forgive me) Otherwise... I like them! :)

Here, have your choice of a Delibird (standard warnings apply) or since you are an Animorphs fan, an Aximili plushie!

Happy birthday, Neshomeh! Have this... Um... Uh... I'm coming up with a creative blank, so have this DQ ice cream cake, and a coupon for one free thing from my humble store.

Hope you have a wonderful time! :D

Have a pineapple upside-down cake!

Congratulations! Have fun on this vacation of yours. :)

Here's a link to a super cool podcast! http://commonplacebooks.com/welcome-to-night-vale/

Have this beautiful Kyubey plush toy. It's perfect to vent off stress or anger, and if you happen to destroy it it will regenerate on its own!

Just don't listen to it if it asks you to make a contract with it.

And this post has an awful lot of "it"s. Well, take them too as a present, I guess.

Have a lovely vacation and good luck with the new technological devices. If they start making [BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!] noises, we suggest that you defenestrate with extreme prejudice.

-- hS and Kaitlyn

And may your trip go well! Oh, and this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH469iDWLR0

Yeah, I'm not going to be here much for a month. (I'm going to Las Vegas! :D) But here, have some fudgy brownies!

*showers Nesh with packing peanuts*

And many happy returns! No, I will not wait to give you my well-wishes until next year! That would be silly.

I'd gladly give up the necessity of food, though only if it were possible to still eat. I would miss a lot of foods after a while. ^_^

Speaking of foods, have a cake!

Absolute Zero is normally defined by every atom in your sample being in its ground state. That's pretty much impossible to achieve, so in every real measurement, you'll have a few atoms in higher energy states. The more high-energy-state atoms you have, the higher the temperature. By that definition, it's impossible to go below Absolute Zero.

But they're not using that definition. What they've done is push more than half of the atoms into higher energy states - no, into the highest possible energy state - and claimed that's a negative temperature. They're using a definition whereby... well, this is the paragraph that explained it to me:

That a system at negative temperature is hotter than any system at positive temperature is paradoxical if absolute temperature is interpreted as an average kinetic energy of the system. The paradox is resolved by understanding temperature through its more rigorous definition as the tradeoff between energy and entropy, with the reciprocal of the temperature, thermodynamic beta, as the more fundamental quantity. Systems with a positive temperature will increase in entropy as one adds energy to the system. Systems with a negative temperature will decrease in entropy as one adds energy to the system.

Right, I think I've actually got it now:

---

In our normal view of atoms, the energy levels start from zero - the ground state - and head upwards into infinity. There are infinitely many energy states. But, it is possible to induce a situation with finite energy states.

Normal temperature is a measure of disorder. The 'most ordered' state - the state with the lowest entropy - is the one where everything is in the lowest energy state (ie, all identical). Adding more energy moves some of the atoms to higher energy states; a less ordered situation.

But this system has an upper limit as well. Once you get more than half of your atoms into that highest energy state, adding energy can only put more into that state - increasing the ordered nature of the system. You're into a fundamentally different kind of 'temperature', one where adding energy takes you closer to a perfectly ordered system, rather than away from it. Bam - negative temperature.

The key difference is that '-0K' - the perfectly ordered negative state - is not synonymous with '0K'. All your atoms are in the exact opposite state - the top limit, not the bottom.

But still, pretty cool - or hot!

hS

I found this fic for "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe. I've got an idea in my head to turn it into a mission, but I'm not sure it's really dumb enough to justify a mission, or if I'm letting my desire to do an unusual mission blind me to the actual quality of the fic. Please, uh, read and review? so I know if I'm on track or not.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10050109/1/The-Dove

(Also, eatpraylove, you aren't limited to doing missions from the unclaimed page. The page is mostly a place for people to throw fics that they can't or don't want to use themselves, so others have a chance to do something with them. But the whole, wide internet's worth of ruffage is yours to pick from!)

“... it handed to bottle back to Mittens ...” should probably be “the bottle”.

I do know near to nothing about Supernatural, but I can see that these were two terrible ‘fics. Well done. I like your agents, and I liked the reappearance of Miss MacKinnon.

HG

Thanks you for giving me things to surreptitiously read while working the stingray touch tank today!

"The Reannual:"
FANTASTIC characterization of the Reannual. Love it, love it, love it. Out of curiosity, is this an original interpretation, or did you find an old source featuring the Reannual? I only ask because we're short on links about it on the wiki.

"Ski Trip:"
I like this idea, of springing two separate but related fics on the agents, and I liked the descriptions you used in showing the transition between the two fics--virgin design space, I believe. These fics also had some hilarious errors, and you made great use of them through visual puns.

The personalities of the agents also shined through quite strongly in this mission; I liked seeing them get riled up about some of the trivialized horrors being misused as drama in the fics, as well as the biological idiocies going on. This also came through in their delicious assassination of Luis. I do think they used the word "charge" a little too frequently, though. You can discuss mistakes without always framing is as part of the charge list, especially when the fic makes errors as bald as the ones this pair did. It just gets repetitive to keep seeing the word "charge" over and over.

"The Nursery:"
Just a question and a small note, here. First, where did the name "Ammy" come from? I forget if this is someone in Mittens's past that I've read about already, or is it someone he hasn't mentioned yet? (I like "Moss" as the last name. It's cute!)

And I just wanted to point out that Miss MacKinnon isn't really elderly; she just looks that way from description. I reckon it's time I made her her own wiki page, considering she's shown up several times now. (Which makes me INORDINATELY PROUD AND BOASTFUL that I recruited her--but anyway.)


List o' mistakes (All in "Ski Trip"):
". . . a couple of disposable girlfriends of her were introduced . . ."

". . . went to the station to confront Detective's Benson and Stabler . . ." (no apostrophe)

"'It was Detective's Benson and Stabler . . .'" (same)

(Also, fun fact: this was a guest appearance by the main characters from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit! And I was weirdly happy to see them, too. It's actually a legitimate inclusion, as they would investigate a case involving an attempted rape. Although, SVU takes place in New York; I'm not sure where Supernatural takes place . . .)

Good job dealing with it!
And I look forward to Ammy Moss cameos. She sounds adorable. 8)

It should be this instead: http://rc170.wordpress.com/2014/06/12/epilogue-02-the-nusery/

Guess he thought his point was proven or something.

Too bad, 'cause he proved absolutely nothing at all. Right, guys?

I know it's bad form to rage against the author, but...mother of Kyuubi, that's stupid. (Is it OK to treat the tailed spirits as minor gods?) I will report that fool posthaste and sprinkle my computer with holy water, salt, and essential oils afterward. Carefully, of course; my laptop cost 800 dollars.

(OK, maybe not that last one, but still.)

You've heard my thoughts on this already, but I stand by what I said originally: Just ignore this guy. If he's actively harassing you despite your attempts to cease communications, that's different, but if all he's doing is attempting to PPC the PPC (and failing hard at it, I hasten to add), so what? He's free to spend his time and energy on it if he wants to. You don't have to let it be important enough to waste your own on him any more. Yes, he deceived you; yes, it's dumb; but really, how much of your life do you want to let him have over it?

~Neshomeh

P.S. The best line: "He punched Eusabius so fast and so many times, the friction set his fists ablaze." He set his own hands on fire. LOL. I'm not very familiar with Naruto; is this really a thing that can happen? {X D

Hmm, don't see any of his old stuff to see if he actually improved. (Haven't gone hunting for the mission.) I skimmed over it a bit since it had elements that bore me, but I think his fight scenes were a bit muddy.

Without Wozz's context, it's sorta funny. Hopefully that guy got it out of his system, goes to write some original stuff, and gets his stuff critted red in front of him.

But hey, the organization has been parodied beyond recognition in this. We can take better than we can dish. Depending on his popularity, we might get some trolls, but it should die down if we're level-headed. Maybe the wiki should get locked-down or a backup if that's possible.

Well, if you're don't even have the basic good manners to tell people when you've sporked their story, then you deserve everything you get.

Sorry, but sporking it behind the author's back is just plain rude! What were you thinking?

I do not want to see anyone trying the "Vigilante Justice" approach to this. It never ends well, and only serves to make the situation worse.

Do not post to this person.

Complain here on the Board, but for the love of all that is holy: Leave it alone. This isn't even the first time something like this has happened.


-Phobos, who is sick of people going off half-cocked and making a mess for everyone else to clean up.

Sorry this won't be a very long review. I read this during work yesterday, and haven't had time to respond until now.

As with the other parts of this story, you're a great hand at giving us odd and clever little details that hint at what's going on, without giving away what that is. (I still haven't figured it out, anyway.) You're making good use of the concept of the Defectives, and tying their presence into the mystery. I also want to mention the driving chase scene as an excellent action scene; it was very realistic and believable, and I was easily able to follow the action.

One thing I think needed a bit of expansion was the presence of the canon characters who appear here, Madoka and Homura. They don't speak very much in the scenes they appear in. I know the agents are the main characters, and this is a PPC story, but I still think the canons would have a bit more to say, given the situation.

Something confused me about the police officers who appear here, too. Are they supposed to be the same ones who appeared in part 2? Because if they are just generic police, it seems weird they wouldn't question the agents more, and especially give them a lift anywhere.

I could follow the action for the most part, and I have to say that I am really looking forward to Part 4.

However, there are quite a few issues still extant. Would you mind giving your e-mail address; I would not like to post a litany of errors here on the Board.

There is one error, though, that I do want to bring up here:

an unmarked dark gray Mercedes-Benz E-class coupè
The accent is the wrong way; the word is "coupé."

You make the same mistake later in the story: it's "cliché, not "clichè."

I'm guessing that I should chalk this up to the fact that Italian only uses the grave accent; am I right?

I'm mostly finding information on the Despatch page. http://ppc.wikia.com/wiki/Despatch

It looks like all Inserts that look like Self-Inserts are treated as real people and either taken or referred to legal for further action.

It looks like the Fern wouldn't be the judge of a full trial, more likely just reviewing the evidence after his staff interviews the accused, (if he gets involved at all.)

Basically I want to write the legal consultation as the recruitment, since it would make a more interesting story than her going out-of-character and telling her partner. (Her partner's story is boring.)

Even if it stays behind-the-black, PPC would have a file on the author's real self-insert/avatar as proof that the recruit is a fictional-insert.

I read intelligence's page, indicating that fics are sorted and then the iffy ones are checked by spies before being forwarded to departments. Is there a department, person, or flower that decides whose console it goes to and when?

Or is it like the internet? Basically the mission report goes to all consoles, and the one tied to a suitable team "claims" it.

Is there a such thing as missions being shoved backward in the queue because the most suitable agent is wounded, so their partner gets a temp and missions that they could handle? Is there even a database that is aware of such things?

Is there someone who can be bribed, either to keep a particular intel-report in the shuffle for a bit longer, or to put something through as a mission before checking to see if it's really a badfic?

Do floaters make copies of their mission reports for the departments that would have normally handled it if they had the staff?

Or is contacting other departments only for when something goes so wrong that they need a little help?

How are modern AU's handled? Basically taking someone from a medieval or fantastical story and portraying them as always living in our world, half the time they end up in High School. Like the setting of Equestria Girls.

Is there one department that happens to handle them more often than not? Should there be a department devoted to handling those?

Is there a procedure for songfic, or are those usually just meh?

I'm thinking of having the AV department foisting material onto one of my agents or both in the team.

Would this be at all normal, or considered selective interference possibly arranged by a Flower? (Basically expanding the knowledge base of an agent pair whose known cannons are not that prolific.)

I think I've seen agents volunteering to learn new canons. Perhaps there is a recommendation list?

That's exactly what disguises are for. SEP Field works wonders with canon characters - unless the Agents do something big to attract their attention it's like they aren't even there to canons - but Sues would see them right away in the situation you described.

However, the Sue usually wouldn't mind if they have a disguise that would reasonably be there - like Generic Students in a classroom.

To help you feel better, I'd like to give you a virtual Munna plushie. It's small, it's pink, and it's really adorable. ^_^

I hope everything turns out alright for you.

For my part, apology accepted—and I'm sorry I forgot that you did mention having mental health issues before.

When you come back, let's talk about how we can help each other get along in the future. You can e-mail me at neshomeh (dot) soul (at) gmail (dot) com if you like.

~Neshomeh

It's got kind of a cute, cut and paste early film style. But Slag the terrible? It's not really recognizable as the Hobbit anymore. Also, "monster lizard" is really unnecessary when it is CLEARLY A DRAGON. It's not like dragons were copyrighted or anything... Why they needed to change any names when Gandalf is clearly mentioned is befuddling to me, though.

"Thorin Oakensheild" has a really great Dali-style moustache, though. :D

-Some of the art. The opening shots of the Shire and Mirkwood, especially, reminded me very strongly of Tolkien's style.

-Gandalf's tower. Not the fact that he had one, but the design of it. It was cool. It had runes on the inside walls.

-The narration as they stepped into Mirkwood. Something about 'a sea of trees, with no chance to come up for air'? It was very good visual imagery.

-The Unexpected Party. I know, I know - but as a summary of the book, if you ignore Mika, it's actually pretty good. And good or not, it was hilarious.

-The animation on the faceted Arkenstone. That was really cleverly handled!

-... no, that's it.

What's interesting is that I read about this some time ago, in this article. Some choice excerpts:

We were well into The Hobbit screenplay when The Lord of The Rings came out in paperback editions. Having assumed there was only The Hobbit to contend with, and following Snyder's wish, we had taken some liberties with the story that a few years later would be grounds for burning at the stake. For example, I had introduced a series of songs, changed some of the characters' names, played loosely with the plot, and even created a girl character, a Princess no less, to go along on the quest, and to eventually overcome Bilbo Baggins' bachelorhood! I could Hollywoodize as well as the next man...

[...]

Before the time of CGI, I had proposed an impressive visual effect, combining cel-animated figures over elaborate 3D model backgrounds. I know that Max Fleisher had once tried something like it, but I intended to take the idea to greater heights and atmosphere. I even attached a special name to the technique: "ImagiMation!" I was thinking big!

By the time we arrived in New York, however, Snyder had already blown the deal by asking 20th for too much money. Tolkien's name hadn't yet reached them either. I had a fat script, but no other film companies were then interested. It was crushing. Even today, when I flip through my screenplay, and can almost see the fabulous scenes I had imagined, I feel a heavy regret.

[...]

The Tolkien estate had now been offered a fabulous sum for the rights, and Snyder's rights would expire in one month. They were already rubbing their hands together. But Snyder played his ace: to fulfill just the letter of the contract -- to deliver a " full-color film" of The Hobbit by June 30th. All he had to do was to order me to destroy my own screenplay -- all my previous year's work -- hoke up a super-condensed scenario on the order of a movie preview (but still tell the entire basic story from beginning to end), and all within 12 minutes running time -- one 35mm reel of film. Cheap. I had to get the artwork done, record voice and music, shoot it, edit it, and get it to a New York projection room on or before June 30, 1966!

I should have told him to shove it, but I was basically his slave at the time...and it suddenly became a sort of insane challenge.

I knew my screen story line by heart, so I just had to put it through a mind-shredder, and write a sort of synopsis, with a few key lines of dialog scattered throughout.

[...]

The final blow came some years later, when an animated feature version of The Hobbit appeared, starring the timid voice of Orson Bean. That film to my mind in no way approached the magnificence I had originally envisioned. I had obtained the greatest Czech artist of the time, illustrator, painter, sculptor, and director of the most famous Czech puppet films of all time, Jirí Trnka, to be the designer of my projected version. Sadly, we never got beyond his model sketches.

On the one hand, I feel really bad for him (him?); working that hard on something only to be ordered to rip it to shreds must be horrendous; not to mention that the art shown in that article is gorgeous. But on the other hand... yeah, that's... rather worse than the Jackson changes. :D

(I agree that someone should feed a Sue to poor Slag, though. Poor dragon gets no love)

hS

Although someone needs to feed a Sue to "the monster lizard Slag the Terrible."

I also love how the narration is all, "This is a story from before mankind was mighty. Now here's a human settlement and here's three human characters."

I actually legitimately like the princess character. (Can't understand her name for the life of me.) "Okay, fine, you guys just sit here bickering, I'mma head back and take my friggin' kingdom back. If we're changing the story this much anyway, I'm throwing some feminism up in here."

So groans are, um. They had one parent a troll, and one parent and Ent? Aaaaaaaaah'm not even bothered by this. I think I've officially read too much fanfiction.

"Magically, the One Ring of Power had found its true bearer." Oh man, you guys, Bilbo was Sauron all along, totally had me fooled, never saw that coming, Professor Tolkien is such a master.

"Hey guys, I got your Arkenstone back. Know what we should do now? We totally need to weaponize this priceless treasure and symbolic family heirloom/national heritage and throw it right back at the monster I just stole it from. Then we just need to fish around inside dragon guts for a week or so while the corpse slowly begins to rot around us, and we'll have your Arkenstone back. Sound like a plan?"

I've only watched the intro so far, but wow. Wow.

...

Gandalf has a tower? Is he a Belgariad-verse sorcerer now? Also, he can't see the future. That's Mandos's job, and he's not sharing.

They even messed up the opening line!

...okay, their interpretation of the lot of them barging into Bilbo's hole was pretty funny, I'll admit. But what is that random OFC doing there, anyways?

No. He's not a dragon-killer. He's hired to be a burglar, by Elbereth!

Also, that map is so wrong I can't even put it into words.

Well, at least Gandalf still knows how to manipulate a conversation. Also the Shire is preeeeeety.

How is Gandalf "watching them from a distance"? Does he have a palantir all of a sudden?

Wait. Are they calling Trolls "Groans"?

And NO. They don't slowly turn into trees. They instantly turn into stone.

....aaaaaaannd apparently the whole traveling party (which, by the way, apparently only consists of four people) are complete and utter idiots. Lovely. Well, apparently Bilbo isn't, but that's only because he's stealing Gandalf's plan. *grumble*

Oh, hello, Misty Mountains. We skipped Imladris, apparently.

Look, if the audience can hear the scream, then it isn't soundless, no matter what the narration says.

And Goblins are now Grablins. And Gollum is... Goo-loom?

No, Gollum isn't trying to hide the Ring. Also, since when is Middle-earth an isle, anyways? ...oh, they're talking about Gollum's little lake-thing. Nevermind. But either way, Bilbo definitely didn't fall onto said island. He wouldn't have survived, for one.

"Bilbo did have the Ring. Magically, the One Ring of Power had found its true bearer, and it was Bilbo Baggins the Hobbit." I... I cannot fully comprehend the unfathomable stupidity of that statement.

Oh, we're skipping Beorn, then, I guess. Because, you know, he totally doesn't play a vital part in the Battle of the Five Armies. Also, where's Gandalf at?

Okay, is this a sort of flash-forward/POV-switch thingie, or are we literally skipping the entirety of both the Thranduil and Laketown plots?

Yep. The lot of them somehow teleported from Mirkwood to the inside of the Lonely Mountain. *sigh*

Right. Since when does Bilbo steal the Arkenstone from under Smaug's nose? He steals a blasted cup, not the Arkenstone itself!

A crossbow. With the Arkenstone (which is, by the way, apparently now shaped like a heart) for the tip of the crossbow bolt. And they shoot Smaug (or rather Slag, for some unexplained reason) with it, and he doesn't put up a fight. I. Cannot. Even.

Well, apparently the Battle of the Five Armies never happened. *is annoyed*

No. No. No. You do not put a random OFC in, have her do absolutely nothing for the entire story, and then marry her off the Bilbo, who for some ridiculous reason spends the rest of his life in Dale. Absolutely not.

Oh, I'm sorry, they go back to Hobbiton together, eventually. Despite the logical prob--- you know what? I'm not going to start on the logical problems. I would still be typing in four hours.

But yes, please, this needs to be sporked.

-Aila

I don't get the movie makers' urge to change the names of everything. And who the hat is this... person? And why the hat doesn't that other person even have a name?

I was better than that at story telling when I was six.

Well, the art was pretty, or would have been if it wasn't so... ostenpretumtatious?

That's my take on it. I~I

(That face is still as stupid as the first time I used it.)

Right after the winged ahuizotl appeared I couldn't watch because eyesight.

so, does anyone want to create the ultimate parody badfic?
if so, can you tell me how it will be done.

It's called parody. It's done before, though not in the collaborative form you propose.

Sounds pretty fun. Every time I try to write something bad on purpose, though, I end up forcing it to spork itself.

Example: Martin soon made it to the top of the wall and leaned into the wind as he walked along it for a short ways. Then, a gust of wind caught the rose in his paws and blew it out of his hands and ripped it to shreds all for the sake of useless symbolism. Following the trend of useless symbolism, Martin wondered vaguely for a few seconds whether it was rain or tears running down his face.

Anyway, the point is, I'm not sure I could write something honestly bad without making fun of what I'm doing while I'm actively doing it. Though I could probably provide a few WhatThe moments and other no-brainers.

It's kinda like the difference between going fishing on the high seas and shooting fish in a barrel. Creating ready-to-spork situations kinda feels... artificial, IMHO.


Also, SPaG tip: you need to put spaces after using a comma.

We have an annual event where we write PPC badfic—that is badfic about the PPC—for snorts and chortles. The next one should be coming up in the next couple months, actually. The archives are Fanfic Land (2006-2009) and... okay, apparently Fanfic World is currently frozen. Dangnabbit, Webs... We'll just have to hope hS can convince them to give it back. {= /

But, in the meantime, have fun perusing Fanfic Land.

~Neshomeh, a.k.a. brandywine_baby89

For one, I sincerely doubt that badfic will ever "die down". There will always be authors out there who write some really not good things; I feel like 99% of good writers were there at some point in their life, whether they would like to admit it or not.

Secondly, in the minute chance that all badfic vanished, as a group I hope we would lay down our arms and retire as agents. There is no sense in proliferating badfic, in my opinion, even in the name of continuing PPC missions.

And if you get bored of writing missions, maybe some original fic, or fanfic of your own? Or even 'shenanigans around HQ' types of things.

As you say, as a group our knowledge of badfic is extensive; let's just use it for good, not for evil! :P

And don't worry about proposing "stupid ideas"! I think it's very similar to something that some PPCers already do, which is sporking old awful fanfic of their own. Ideas are good! Never feel bad about posting ideas.

(This is just an aside, but after commas there is generally a space before the next word begins. Just an FYI!)

I'm game. One of my shticks as a fanfiction writer is to use badfic elements to my advantage.

You can use Lady Gonawe. She has the power to kidnap people from races that will be extinct and make them live together in a peaceful paradise. Nevermind that none of them like each other.

Okay most of the pieces are characters are coming into place and I'm getting a good idea of the plot. There are just some more characters that I need for this to fall into place.

First of all I need more Asian heroes. I've got China, Japan and Vietnam pretty clear and an idea for Hong Kong is blooming, but I'm still going to need ideas for Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand.

Secondly there's Liechtenstein. She should have something that's both powerful yet easy exploitable, for plot related reasons.

Lastly I would like some ideas for South American and African OCs. It's not necessary, but I'm interested to her what you guys have to say on the matter

Okay most of the pieces are characters are coming into place and I'm getting a good idea of the plot. There are just some more characters that I need for this to fall into place.

First of all I need more Asian heroes. I've got China, Japan and Vietnam pretty clear and an idea for Hong Kong is blooming, but I'm still going to need ideas for Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand.

Secondly there's Liechtenstein. She should have something that's both powerful yet easy exploitable, for plot related reasons.

Lastly I would like some ideas for South American and African OCs. It's not necessary, but I'm interested to her what you guys have to say on the matter

... of himself. Like Ben 10's Echo Echo, or Dr. Maddox from Marvel, or Naruto's Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. Since she is often partitioned by Russia, lol.

I say Lithuania should have shadow-striking as his main power, that is he can teleport strikes unexpectedly. Based on a major victory against Prussia during the Teutonic Crusades.

Denmark is a berserker, he doesn't need any superpower. He has a long axe and is well-trained with it.

Sweden can be a great strategist and engineer, close to Tony Stark, because Ikea.

What can you do with France? For one thing, he is an excellent fighter, but charges unthinkingly to his target, allowing him to be defeated often. Ask England.

If you didn't do this already, how about shapeshifting? He could totally use it to spy on their enemies and/or freak out his teammates.

(Also, keep in mind that America's canonical Super Strength means he doesn't necessarily need more powers. I bet the whole superhero thing was his idea anyway :P)

A tabard?

Do you guys have a time-frame in mind, or will you just be working on it when you have a chance?

Good to see you both back writing again! Have fun!

It's some sort of MLP darkfic a la "Cupcakes", "Pattycakes" and the like?

I know how rough that thing can get. When you come looking for betas, I would be happy to help.

Exhaustive instructions on how exactly to update the wiki when your mission report is finished may be found on the wiki page about posting new mission reports.

Since your agents don’t have a homepage (yet), where the instructions for “The Complete List of PPC Fiction” say you should link to your agents’ homepage instead of to individual missions, you may link the agents’ names to their respective wiki pages, which will function as an index to the mission reports.

But I don’t think you should do all this right now and draw more public attention to your mission report. Better wait until it is thoroughly beta read, edited and ready for publishing.

HG

Exhaustive instructions on how exactly to update the wiki when your mission report is finished may be found on the wiki page about posting new mission reports.

Since your agents don’t have a homepage (yet), where the instructions for “The Complete List of PPC Fiction” say you should link to your agents’ homepage instead of to individual missions, you may link the agents’ names to their respective wiki pages, which will function as an index to the mission reports.

But I don’t think you should do all this right now and draw more public attention to your mission report. Better wait until it is thoroughly beta read, edited and ready for publishing.

HG

I like this. A lot. Really. (And this is all the praise you will get from me, because I’m really bad at explaining why I love something.) But I have some questions.

They talked for a few more minutes, Enelya’s hair turning bronze for one particularly interesting moment ...
Did I miss where the badfic mentions another hair color, or do you expect that your readers have seen the picture of the main protagonist? How would you describe the color of her hair there? I don’t usually look on the badfic when I read a mission, and your mission should be able to stand alone even when the badfic is deleted.

Silver had no choice but to pull Anna around the corner as Strider carried Enelya into another room.
Is this really what happened? Doesn’t Strider tell in the badfic that he carried Enelya to the bed in the same room where they had talked? This should be the room for which she got the key when she rented it for the night, although she only says that she asked the innkeeper for “a key” and then walked into “a room” which may or may not be associated with said key. Is she not aware how inns work?

When Strider walked back in, ...
Again, is this really what happened? Doesn’t Strider tell that he, after laying Elenya down, “locking the door from the inside, walked out of the room” (how did he manage to do this?) and then into his room?

”Don’t want to wait.”
I get that Silver wants to portal forward in the fic. But why does she carry Anna down the stairs and out into the street after tugging her through the portal? Didn’t they arrive where Silver wanted to go? And then they are suddenly on the market? May I suggest having the heaving and complaining happen on the way from Enalya’s room to Strider’s room, before Strider decides not to open the letter, and then portal to the market? (I’m not sure whether we are allowed to complain that there is a stair involved when the fic didn’t mention a stair, but also didn’t say that Strider’s room and Enalya’s room are on the same floor. Does “rule of funny” take precedence over “the canon tries to help the agents and makes Strider’s room to be close to Enalya’s room if this doesn’t contradict what is said in the badfic"? This may be a question to be asked to more experienced boarders.)

Being used to see quotes from the badfic bolded, I wonder why you put ‘just loud enough for her elf-ears to hear’ into quotation marks and didn’t bold it. Is this because it isn’t a full sentence or paragraph?

Her eyes wide, Anna reached down and
“We’re out of here.”
Is there a word (or more) missing at the end of the first of these lines?

... the author had mixed it up with a feast in the Return of the King ...
Why don’t you tell us the truth: Enelya, who is narrating this part of the fic, had mixed it up with a feast in the Return of the King? (This isn’t a really bad case of author bashing, but to be rather save than sorry it’s preferable to never mention the author at all. It may be ridiculous to hold a Sue or Wraith responsible for everything, including bad spelling and grammar, but this is an established part of the PPC’s general ridiculousness.)

She somehow got a bullseye on one of her first tries ...
Are your agents surprised? Oh well, portaling forward they missed the part in the first chapter where Enelya showed off: One arrow hit the bullseye, the next pierced it through the center and made it shatter into many pieces. Isn’t the real surprise that she becomes clumsy whenever Legolas is in sight, making him believe that he should teach her? “Getting bullseyes on your first practice with bows“, definitely isn’t a charge because Enelya was established to be a good archer long before what your agents call her “first practice”.

– and a dart hit the ‘Sue’s neck.
Is this still the badfic, or did your agents interfere? (I know, but only because I read the badfic, so you may want to make this more clear.)

How did your agents get the charge of having bronze hair? Where they mention Enelya’s hair turning bronze for one particularly interesting moment, Enelya actually narrates that it is bronze coloured, thus causing my confused first question. The joke would work in the second chapter, where Enelya showed that her bronze hair was already braided, but your agents didn’t see this. Charging only based on reading the words is not unheard of; the problem that bothers me here is your agents pretending to have seen something in a place where it didn’t happen.

How did your agents survive this unscathed? In TOS and other early spin-offs, agents may have braved First Person ‘fics without bad consequences (it’s hard to tell, because most of these ‘fics are gone for good and I don’t remember whether there were quotes implying that a ‘fic was written in First Person.) But since Araeph made DoSAT invent the “Me” and “You” crash dummies, it’s no longer feasible to ignore the problem of an agent becoming “I” or “You”. Agent Cadmar can tell you a loooong story about what may happen if your agents enter a First Person fic without a working crash dummy. (Storme Hawk mentioned this already, but he may not have been very clear about it.)

So, this is a good first draft, showing what you can do with this ‘fic and your agents, but some details need more attention before it can be considered to be finished and ready for publishing. You probably knew this when you asked for beta readers.

HG

I like the pacing of this mission; a lot of us (myself super-included) have a tendency to get hung up on little details that bog down the narrative. You avoid that, keeping the mission going, and only showing us the major flaws in the badfic. One thing that could maybe use a bit more time (at least some of the time, not always) is the misspelling-induced puns. Some folks here say it's redundant to include both the original line and the description of the unintended effect, but I personally like seeing the original sentence, as it's frequently quite entertaining on its own. But that is a subjective thing on my part.

The pacing furthermore harkens back well to the original series, as well as other details. I like seeing agents sleeping and eating on the job, (and playing board games together!) which is typically not depicted anymore, and which I want to get into the habit of mentioning myself. (It doesn't help that most canons don't have the time frame delineated as well as LotR. Oh well.) I liked reading some agents whose personalities aren't so over-bearing and dramatic that they take over the writing and distract focus away from the mission. You should still develop their personalities over time, of course, but it's good you didn't drop their entire psychologies on us right away.

I was going to say something about how vague the assassination was, since all you did was imply that Silver shot the Sue. But then, just now, I looked back at the badfic/mission title and realized there's only one place the Sue could have been shot. So excellent stealth joke there.

One thing I didn't understand, though, was the "you owe me two dollars" joke, though, and what it had to do with Doctor Who. Also, what happened with the orc that attacked the Sue just before the assassination? I can't tell from the words if the orc or one of the agents darted Enelya. And where did the orc go? It just says, ". . . Anna took care of the orc." Does that mean she treated their wound? Killed them? Just portalled them somewhere?

Oh, and I liked Anna's mini-MST of the summary, too.

I've got a list of mistakes I caught below. First, I wanted to mention that, generally, a story should get betad before it gets posted to the Board. (Don't feel bad; we almost never bring this rule up.) There's a big old list of potential beta readers right here in the community, available on our wiki:
ppc.wikia.com/wiki/PPCBetaReader_Directory
(Not all those names are current users, but you can always just stick to names you recognize. And, of course, you can seek the help of multiple betas for any given story.)

The little errors:
(In the Disclaimer)
Titles of long works (Lord of the Rings) get italicized, while short works ("Arrow Through the Heart") have quotation marks around them. Also, the comma after "Rings" should be changed to a semi-colon, since that's a pair of sentences linked into one. A little way into the story, "Doctor Who" should also be italicized.

". . . and with a very loud 'BEEEEP', the CAD displayed . . ."
The comma should go inside the quotation mark.

". . . with even a lightning shaped mark on her hindquarters."
A hyphen goes between these two words, since a word that's usually a noun is being used as an adverb. (Lightning-shaped. Also, why no My Little Pony joke?

"'Alright, we're portalling ahead . . .'" ("Alright" is technically two words, "all right.")

"Her eyes wide, Anna reached down and"
failed to reach the end of this sentence! Looks like something got deleted here.

". . . a bag of chips, which after an intense game . . ."
A comma goes after "which" here, as it's technically part of "Anna won" at the end of the sentence. (Since it could be rewritten as ". . . which Anna won after an . . .")

"In the morning, well rested and not so eager . . ."
Another hyphen here.

(In the charge list:)
Having both dashes and commas in the same place (--,) is redundant. The dash is enough of a pause that the comma (or any other punctuation) isn't needed.

". . . after using the DORK to become elves . . ."
According to our wiki, this should be "D.O.R.K.S." (The "S" is part of the acronym, so you don't need to remove it to make it singular.)

Unfortunately, I didn't think to take notes, so I can't offer you much concrit, other than that the end felt a bit...rushed. You barely spared a paragraph for the execution and ensuing wrap-up. I mean, it doesn't have to take pages, but it felt too abrupt.

This, however, is what I enjoyed: the opening was fun, and set up your agents well. Also, the mission itself was rather reminiscent of Jay and Acacia, especially the style of badfic chosen, the whole hiding-in-the-bushes-at-the-Council-of-Elrond thing, and them going as Orks, which was appreciated. Finally, I liked everything in there that involved the word 'glowing,' especially the discussion on its potential uses as a curse. I may just have to steal that.

Also, DORK is technically DORKS.

-Aila

but I'm rather busy atm trying to find somewhere to live next year whilst I'm at Uni.

Silver got an pulsing headache.

as Strider carried Enelya out, to her room. (Just took me several tries to understand that.)

Enelya whistled apparently almost soundlessly. (A bit awkward.) (And I got to the charges before I knew that it had anything to do with the horses and not just quietly whistling a tune.)

I was a little distracted for the rest, but I didn't notice anything glaring.

Gotta say I hoped Luis Suarez was going to be out of action for longer than he was. However, given that Uruguay were on the receiving end of a 3-1 drubbing by Costa Rica of all people, I think England can get something out of the game even with the Premier League's finest actor back in the camp.

Also, some asides about other teams in the World Cup.

#1: Japan are officially sponsored by Pokemon. They showed up in a Pikachu jet. I want a Pikachu jet. You do not know how much.

#2: Bosnia finally qualified for a major competition! Well done, chaps. Good display against Argentina, too; let's just hope for more goals in the less horrendous games.

#3: When did the US become, like, a decent side? They looked solid at the back and attractive going forward. Also, bit of trivia, Clinton D. Dempsey III Junior's goal was the fifth-fastest scored in World Cup history.

#4: Belgium aren't living up to the hype, alas. The first half against Algeria was... let's be kind and say unconvincing. The talent's there but the coach appears to have gone completely mental.

Updates next week! =]

Well, mostly because I was once in a commercial with Nagatomo... I just sat around with a few other people and we just had fun (and played soccer :P)

To be perfectly honest, I don't know a whole lot about the world cup. I tend to root for whoever is winning at the moment, and I am liable to "switch sides" whenever the other team pulls ahead. In short, I don't often follow soccer, but when I do, I just watch it to see a good game.

On another note, I notice several people on this thread calling it "football". I'm American, and therefore a member of one of the only countries in the world who calls it "soccer", but I can't be the only one, right? I'm not that out of the ordinary.

...but I know my duty as good citizen and will cheer for my country's team.

You're creating a character, just to kill him off so that you can have a trio of DMS agents?

I think you're missing the point. Butler serves no purpose as far as I can see, and trio's of agents happen in the PPC, sure it's rare but it happens so why not just go with them at the start, or have one pair at the start with a third agent join them later (see below where I go off on a tangent). You're still effectively trying to get permission for four characters, and that's not including Plank if you try and get him in from the start as well. The way forward ( that I see) is using less agents, not more.

I get that you want to bring in four or five characters. But, to me at least you still seem like you're trying to cram them all in from the start. If I'm reading this right, and feel free to correct me if I'm not, but you want 3 agents in the DMS, 1 in the DIA and 1 in DMSE&R, yes?
If I were you I'd start out with a pair of Agents, seeing as they're together in your post, let's go with Ellis and Wells, try and get permission with them and just them, forget about any extra story plots you have in our head for now. Then once you have permission go through a few mission and introduce Bessie as a Recruit who Wells and Ellis get the 'joy' of training, go through a few more missions and bring in an interlude, or find a mission, that'd neatly link you into the DMSE&R and Plank (assuming you still want him by then), and all the way along drop little hints, nothing big about you building up the start of a plot. Now maybe wait a mission or two more, have another interlude with Plank and maybe introduce Moore into this one as well. Add more of the plot in and then wait a small while, building it up more and more until you have your climax.
By this point in time you'll have several missions under your belt and you should have been with the PPC for a decent amount of time, you'll know how to write the missions, what could happen, what could not and generally be in a better position for your big plot than you currently are, if at that point you do indeed want to continue writing that plot at all.

You can take or leave as much or as little of what I've written as you want, I'm just trying to throw some ideas around that could help you. But I think the crucial thing is that everyone (or pretty much everyone) starts in the PPC with one team of agents in one department. So just give it a whirl, and add in more characters and more of your story as time goes on, don't worry about any grand plot at first, just do what the DMS do best, spork stories and kill Sues.

Storme Hawk

I forgot to add a word in Butler's profile.

"And now that he has, for as of yet unknown reasons, destroyed any evidence of his past, even his name has been lost."

I meant to say "his real name has been lost". That one word changes the meaning quite a lot.

What an embarrassing mistake. I need to be more careful from now on.

Is this a crush I detect?

Just kidding. But no, I haven't heard from him. This is the month we have camps and intensives in the U.S., though, so he might be busy.

I wouldn't even know where to look for the fittings fixtures.

I'm assuming the concern is the Tube, rather than, er, anything else? Kaitlyn and I have been discussing the British Museum as a possible venue, which I think would escape most football-related crowds. It also sits close to stations on the Northern, Piccadilly, and Central lines, and is easily walkable from the Bakerloo, Circle, and District... oh, and the Hammersmith & City, and the Metropolitan. And the Victoria... basically, stay off the Jubilee, and you can get there!

Ahem.

It's also within walking distance of Covent Garden if people wanted to go shopping. There's parks nearby, the river just beyond CG... I mean, it's basically central London, with all that implies. Just not the Tower Hill/Trafalgar Square/Hyde Park & Museums trinity we usually visit.

But of course, if we can't actually get there, re-planning might be wise. ;) So, back to my original question: are we going to have trouble?

hS

So we can check it then.

Father's Day in Italy is on March 19th. It's quite interesting to see that different countries have the same festivities, but on different days.

Thank you so very much for the reminder. I went and gave him a hug immediately, and when I commented on being reminded of the fact that it was Fathers' Day, he immediately guessed that the PPC had done said reminding. Um. I think I talk about us too much, and/or my parents know that you guys are just about my only source of information on anything that's happening ever. I'm not good at paying attention to anything other than my books.

But in any case, that was off-topic. I love my dad very much, and I wish that we hadn't gotten into one of our sort-of arguments today. Then again, do you know any other fifteen-year-old girl who defends her thirteen-year-old brother with enough mindless consistency that her father gets annoyed with her contradicting him again after he said something mildly rebuking to said brother? I guess I have that to be proud of.

Anyhow, happy Fathers' Day, all, and especially those of you who are fathers yourselves! Going to bed now!

-Aila

...even if he did laugh when I told him my alter ego's boss was a psychic sunflower. :P

He was actually pretty crabby today considering he just got back from a long trip, but I'm still glad to see him again. One of my friend's dad's is kind of neglectful, another is abusive, and two are dead. I'm really lucky to have my dad.

Of course, I don't mind holding his hand in public, even if I'm seventeen. I'm not too cool to hold my dad's hand. The other kids aren't cool enough to hold their parents' hands. ^_^

I don't know Twilight that well, I should probably learn.

Can one of the Sues be a unicorn that is also a vampire? Its coat will sparkle like diamonds in the sun, and a hematophagous unicorn would be very creepy.

I think that they should run into another continuum that is known for vampires, and cause those vampires to turn into Twilight vampires.

How well-known is anime!Hellsing? Anne Rice vampires would probably be happy at the change. I might not read Bram Stoker's Dracula, but there was a good movie made and I can look up Cliff Notes.

1.Urple prose(everything needs to be overdescribed to a ridiculous extent)
2.dubious lube(this is a MUST for any bad smutfic)
3.trivialization(everything that can be trivialized,must be trivialized)
4.gratuitous rape(a corollary to the above,trivialized and excessively squicky rape scenes written in urple prose would do well to make the worst smutfic ever)
5.extremely overpowered sues(both heroic and villainous sues should be ridiculously overpowered,but not to the extent of invincibility)

I mean, I don't know what canons are being crossed, but I'm definitely interested.

'Course, three of my four Action agents were recruited from badfic, so I guess there's a probability curve at work somehow. You were referring to Ilraen-Aroline-Fothergill, Gall Bonecrusher, and Derik. For the latter two, links to their recruitment missions and interludes can be found on their wiki pages in the "Recruitment" section under "Mission Logs." Ilraen only has the interlude part, since the mission was never finished, so you'll find that as the first entry under "Mission Logs."

The aforementioned sections are generally good places to look for a given agent's recruitment story, if they have one. If not, their first mission may discuss their recruitment, though the detail will vary. If you're looking at a mysterious character, their origin may not come up until later in the spin-off. For some characters, it may not come up at all.

There doesn't seem to be a list of recruitment stories at this time, so if you want to compile one, that would be cool. The Badfic Characters category might be a good place to start looking. For non-badfic characters, you may find the wiki's search bar helpful, though not all hits are good ones; I just took a peek myself. Otherwise, I guess you'll just have to do a lot of reading, which is no bad thing. I've often been surprised by what I find in places I never would have thought to look.

For general guidelines, that depends a bit on where the recruit is coming from, but basically the procedure is this:

1. Convince person to join. Incentives may include threats (e.g. "your other choice is dying when this fic ceases to exist"), bribery (e.g. "so, you like weapons and hate Sues, huh?"), and outright lies (e.g. most recruitment pamphlets/ads found in World One), though probably not all at once.
2. Provide transport to HQ.
3. If necessary, take them to FicPsych; otherwise proceed to step four.
4. Get them to the Marquis for processing and assignment.
5. Training of some sort may be assigned. If not, proceed to step six.
6. The recruit is assigned to a department and RC. They are now an agent and should go meet their partner.

~Neshomeh

P.S. The wiki is also useful for looking up the proper spelling of agents' names. {= P

Although I did mention a Brave New World soma trafficking ring in an ambiguously canon Purim party a while back.


Speaking of weapons contraband, what do you think should be off-limits to PPC agents? I'd vote to keep NBC agents out of agents' hands, because stuff can go seriously grimdark with those kinds of weapons. Same goes to Obviously Evil Artefacts With Ominous Auras of Doom (aka get rid of that Suvian Sword of Mercilessly Devouring Souls before it kills us. No, Harris, I don't care if it's cool, throw it into a gorram volcano right now).

It's summer, which means less bored students hanging out on FF.net to kill time. I had the same anxiety a few years back.

I just read the first chapter, other than needing a beta, it's pretty good.

When Tiger gets a headache, a groan would correct Sparky's burst of omniscience that prompts him to ask what's wrong.

I've got a little piece from the Cafeteria Kitchens, and I was hoping to get it glanced over before I put out a link. Anybody interested? Canons of interest include: PPC (major), Fairy Tales (minor), and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Shivering Isles (very minor). The piece is currently sitting just shy of 2000 words, and probably needs a stronger conclusion, but it's a pretty simple one.

If anyone's interested, contact info for me is just my username here at gmail.com.

If you're still looking for help with the poems when I get back from my vacation, I'd be interested. I don't consider myself a poet, but the best part about it for me has always been picking the right words for the meter, and I'm not afraid of doing crazy things like using apostrophes and breaking sentences across lines to make it work. Also, I'm at least passingly familiar with all the fandoms you've mentioned.

I should be fully available as of July 1. For now, have this cool video about the Beatles and prosody. {= )

~Neshomeh

(The other canons I don't know well enough; I technically "know" the Lord of the Rings, but there are others here who know it far better!)

Aaaaaand while it's not a requirement, if you put the stories in GDocs (or Drive or whatever we're calling it nowadays), then I might be able to work on it on my phone at work tomorrow, so I can get it back to you faster.

Rather, I'd like to quarantine my SIAT stories. The short explanation is that its a series designed to contain my absolutely stupid ideas.

The long explanation includes how the canon characters know about the Author, and how they could easily end the stupidity (and their own continuance) by strangling her. An unpublished section includes how they are mentally influenced to be happier than they should be.

On sort of the same subject, I have a question as well. In the first story I am planning a mission for, the author continues to write "her" or "she", even though the rest of the story is in first person. This happens a total of twenty- eight times, and sometimes in the same sentence as the first person material.

What usually happens with that? Does that create a mini or could it be a legitimate excuse to create a new character, or what?

Another question I had has to do with my first mission, but not with minis or anything. Say, theoretically, an Agent loses a piece of technology in a Chronicles of Narnia badfic and is unable to find it before someone else does and it vanishes. Would that story be quarantined or something?

Well, there is a narrow formula that I'd like a specific term for. It's not necessarily a Sue, but they just end up in the middle of the story and don't really change it. (Usually it's a love interest.) There are often large copy/pastes from the script. It's like Pinky and The Brain and Larry.

Where does an agent send minis that don't have an OFU and that they don't want to keep?

The mini from Yu Yu Hakisho seems to have been sent back to its agents by the CAF Adoption Agency.

I've got some lack-of-capitalization minis from a Sly Cooper fic that I don't know what to do with. I'm not even describing them properly since I only intend to do one mission in that continua.

I also have this fic taking place before Elizabeth becomes keeper of the mini-squids.

Do floaters make copies of their mission reports for the departments that would have normally handled it if they had the staff?

Or is contacting other departments only for when something goes so wrong that they need a little help or just advice?

I read intelligence's page, indicating that fics are sorted and then the iffy ones are checked by spies before being forwarded to departments. Is there a department, person, or flower that decides whose console it goes to and when?

Or is it like the internet? Basically the mission report goes to all consoles, and the one tied to a suitable team "claims" it.

Is there a such thing as missions being shoved backward in the queue because the most suitable agent is wounded, so their partner gets a temp and missions that they could handle? Is there even a database that is aware of such things?

Is there someone who can be bribed, either to keep a particular intel-report in the shuffle for a bit longer, or to put something through as a mission before checking to see if it's really a badfic?

Keep most of the existing article as an introduction, but swap the last two paragraphs and remove “—just post a beta request on the Board“ and “Alternatively, you can contact someone listed in the PPC Beta Reader Directory.”

Then append two new sections (pending Neshomeh’s permission for the second):

How to find beta readers
Just post a beta request on the Board. But consider: Since it is only visible ...
(Text from the original post, clarifying “a shareable document (e.g. Google Doc)”, up to
“on the board not too long ago.”)

How to be a beta reader (Neshomeh’s advice)
(Insert text from Neshomeh’s response, from “Beta-reading really only requires” up to
“it's not your fault.”)

HG

Sounds good to me. What about sharing a Google Doc with the person who volunteers to beta-read? That works great for people who use that service a lot (like me or Herr Wozzeck) and have Gmail/permission

Seconding what VM said; I think it's definitely a good idea to put this idea forward more. I think your proposed text is a little cumbersome, and it'll need a clearer bridge to get from "we offer beta services" to "posting a link on the Board is considered publishing," but unfortunately I can't help with that right now. I'm checking in from a hotel room, and I'm going to be signing off and going to bed pretty soon.

I also think it would be a good idea to educate people on how to be good beta-readers (i.e., reading it once, pointing out the most obvious SPaG errors, and saying "good job!" doesn't quite cut it). There was a seminar for betas proposed at one point, but unfortunately it never happened due to time constraints and people leaving. I'm not sure how many of the people who were involved in that are still around, or who still has the time and interest.

~Neshomeh

Since we encourage beta reads so heavily, it would make sense to have more guidance for people to find beta readers before they put their story on the 'Board.