Aug 2014 Archive, part a

I'm not a permission giver, but I do know that you need (either in this thread or linked):

-- Brief bios of your agents.
-- Writing samples as based on this document. This is meant to test your writing abilities and how well you think given unusual situations.
-- A link to a badfic you intend to spork.

That's what you need. If you're asking whether you SHOULD ask for permission, that's really something only you can decide.

PC

If you think you're ready then go for it. Just ask yourself, have you participated in discussions on the board? Have you read through TOS and other spin-offs? Do you agreed to the constitution? If those answers are yes then go for it.

A note on the writing samples, a small while back Hs and some others came up with a random prompt table (or two) to use to help create writing samples, I haven't got the link to hand, but if you search around for it then that could be quite a good way of producing a writing sample without it ending up 'boring'.

Storme Hawk

So, uh, who's going to be Falchion's partner? Cheesy? (Also, wow, that fanfic sounds truly awful.)

I'm confused about the alternate memories you mention. Would those be the result of Falchion being a self-insert or did I miss some key point in your post?

I love the idea of pairing Whirlwind with Spikes. Instant death or extreme pain! *evil laugh*

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8790541/1/The-best-Fanfriction-evar

Let's see what goodies we can pick up today.

Today we shall look at Harry Potter badfics.

PREPARE FOR DUMPING

http://www.quotev.com/story/5136020/I-Am-Strong/

http://www.quotev.com/story/3750426/ChoicesHarry-Potter-story/

http://www.quotev.com/story/5172414/Two-times-a-half-blood/

http://www.quotev.com/story/5102069/The-Slytherin-and-The-Gryffindor-Fred-Weasley-Love/

http://www.quotev.com/story/4260665/Enchanted-Albus-Potter-Love-Story/

http://www.quotev.com/story/4935087/Harry-Daniels-and-The-Order-Of-The-Shadow-Phoenix/

http://www.quotev.com/story/4597958/A-Sirens-Love-Song-Sirius-Black/

http://www.quotev.com/story/5208154/I-Think-Explosions-are-Cute/

DUMP COMPLETE

As per the usual, I just picked out suspicious looking 'fics and haven't actually read them.

So yeah.



THE EMPEROR PROTECTS!

World-Jumper and I are behind on actually doing the mission for it, but it needs to die.

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/9926560/1/

THREE alicorn Sues/Stus and bad geography all over the place.

Ok. This one's... this one's got it all. In addition to the horrifying concept of a Stu / Xenomorph pairing, we have gigantic errors in continuity, timesquiggles, atrocious prose, a whole Stu faction, mild soapboxing, pointless cameo crossovers (or is that crossover cameos?), bad science of every description, hideous pacing, inexplicable invocation of the letter 'm', and worst of all soul-crushing boredom.
NSFW, NSFB, callous, and strange. I bring you "Alien Companion": http://das-sporking.livejournal.com/165379.html (Link leads to a spork, in case you couldn't tell).


Also, staking my personal claim on this little sap-fest, "Halo: The True Meaning of Christmas": https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4706392/1/Halo_The_True_Meaning_of_Christmas

Also, can I just stick these on the relevant wiki pages myself, or does an Important Person have to do that?

https://www.fanfiction.net/u/72897/Breeker-Dude

I want the Dick Hardbones one. Breaks the time-travel rules of Back to the Future, Dick is a purposefully unlikeable character, they include a Parkinson's joke, and the whole thing is worthy of Bleep-products.

The Magic Schoolbus one has Miss Frizzle use the schoolbus' powers to seize power and create a totalitarian empire.

Bang is a trollfic where Neville Longbottom is a school shooter. He injects Harry and Hermione with polyjuice potion that turns them into their actors and then makes scathing comments.

I'll try not to overload you this time. (I get the feeling I post too many links on all these threads. ^^;)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10528765/1/Do-You-Know-Hermione
It digs its own grave.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10309102/1/Geronimo-Stilton-INTERPOL-The-Beginning
Props for choosing a kid's book series, but on the other hand...

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10507407/1/The-Angels-and-the-Gods
The author outright states she left out, quote, "Tony Stark removing the thing- I don't know what it's called- in his chest." Also, the only thing reasonable about the Sue is her name.

I still don't know enough about LOTR to judge, but this appendix is pretty special. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/933774/15/The-Fellowship-of-the-NazGirls

Ah, another thread for badfics, eh?

I know I already detailed this here, but I found a Kid Icarus fanfic that involves a horribly OOC self-harming alcoholic Pit, a completely uncanonical history for him, and a Sue angel who's his love interest. *The armor bird squawks angrily.* Ah well, might as well leave it on the board for all to see before I head off to Europe tomorrow!

An Angel's Secret by goat_lover4444

(Also, I've finally figured out how to do text links on the board. Turns out it's the same as how they do it on deviantART! Funny, ain't it?)

This is going to be even more inconvenient than those confounded agents always wandering through my nice clean department. I don't suppose I could persuade you to not go out of your way to cause me endless trouble? No, of course not. What sort of world would we be living in if people didn't mess things up every chance they got?

>C

I don’t intend to ask for Permission soon, so this may never become a problem, but I hope you don’t mind still-not-an-Agent Androia Avatar, who was created by an "anonymous player" on World of Warcraft joking about "Agent Anonymous" being too ridiculous even for the PPC. (Yes, "Hieronymus" is a deliberate misspelling of "Anonymous", although the evidence vanished with the old Harry Potter Lexicon Forum three years ago.)

Anyway, I like what you are doing here.

HG

I'm reading Homestuck fic.

This is a fantastic humanstuck (which I generally disapprove of) AU, featuring GamzeeKarkat. I literally cried, it was so beautiful. The writing was amazing too.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/1030564
You meet him and he's a kid, half your age, but he takes care of you anyway. Your life is clean and clear and slow when he's around you, and you remember the parts with him in it and blur the places in between until you see him again.
So this is the story; the bits you remember, the important parts of your life. The parts that had him in them.


I kind of have a huge fondness for Karkat-Signless meetups, because they're both amazing and someone needs to give KK a hug, so here are two especially good ones:
http://archiveofourown.org/works/281939
The Signless meets his descendant in a dreambubble.
Alternatively, Signless: Fondly regard crustacean.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/505174
Dream bubbles allow for a lot of things, especially conversations that need to take place. Karkat has a bone to pick and The Sufferer's got it coming. Round and round the universe goes, descendant to descendant and ancestor to ancestor, always inheriting the momentum of the past.

I just utterly adored the idea behind this one--I'm not a particularly shippy person (except, it turns out, when it comes to moirallegiance), so the concept of the Signless and the Disciple's relationship that went "beyond the quadrants" being that of siblinghood was just... gah. *adores*
http://archiveofourown.org/works/305964
The Signless and The Disciple shared something that was beyond the troll quadrants. Perhaps, to someone from another world, that something would not be so unrecognisable.

This one has nothing to do with any Vantases at all (*gasp* I know, completely insane!)--it's a fascinating fic about the beta kids, who, having recreated the universe exactly as it had been, just don't seem to fit in. It's all told through the eyes of their various romntic partners, who, despite being nameless storytelling devices, each have their own distinct personality. I love outsider point of view as a device--it's one of my favourite things to find in any story, fanfic or not--and it's used particularly well here.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/172018
How do you adjust to a normal life after living through the end of the world? At the expense of whoever is foolish enough to date you apparently. You meet the strangest boy, the most Amazing Girl. You meet Rose Lalonde in college and John Egbert in Bolivia and all of them are a little off, a little broken, a little wrong in exactly the same way.

Finally, this is an amazing crossover-AU-thing with, of all things, a D&D style universe. The basic background premise is that the SBURB players who were still alive as of Act 6 (both sets of kids, Karkat, Terezi, Kanaya, Gamzee, Sollux, and Aradia--the cherubs didn't exist when it was started) created said D&D style universe and became its gods. Fastforward several thousand years later and find that, out of boredom, they've been incarnating themselves into the world--but now, a new evil threatens, and with Karkat as the only one who even vaguely remembers who they are, they set out to save the world. Hilarity ensues and I'm really not explaining it well, because wow it's such an interesting and wonderfully executed piece. The story is partially driven by user-suggestions, and the author manages to do an utterly amazing job of weaving them into a cohesive narrative. Their writing is fantastic, too, even moreso when you learn that the way they write it is with the least editing they can possibly do to stop going insane over fixing things. It's also long: so far, there's 97 chapters and over 400000 words, and it's nowhere near done.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/420086/chapters/700061
The halls of the Gods are empty, echoing with unheard prayers.
The forces of corruption and decay are growing in power. Soon they shall sweep across the world like an unholy plague.
From the deep caverns beneath the majestic Dragonshard Mountains, across the mighty Greenweald Forest, to the fair city of Porthaven on the storm-wracked coast, there are fourteen people with the mark of a divine ruler on their skin. They do not know it, but they and only they can save the world from apocalypse and ruin.
So naturally, they're going to spend as long as possible arsing about slaying monsters and looting ancient temples. 'Cos, you know, adventurers.

I would add more, but I'd be surprised if anyone even read this far, and anyways, I want to get back to reading The Land of Dragons and Dungeons. I'm on chapter 62.

-Aila

I just thought it would be fun to have a good fic theard, since I missed out on the last one. Maybe it was just to soon.

This one is a How to Train Your Dragon crossover with Dragonriders of Pern. I'm only at chapter 4, but it looks like decent and the reviews are glowing.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6926441/1/Two-Worlds-One-Dragonrider

I deliver to you, Story of the Blanks, a flash game that neatly fits into existing MLP canon, especially if you take the Cutie Pox into account.

Warning for grimdark content.

http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?disc=199610;article=261680;title=PPC%20Posting%20Board But since you ask, I'll drop a link or two here.

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/5523/nights-favoured-child In which Nightmare Moon beat Celestia and mentors Twilight Sparkle.

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/103630/attack-on-titan-the-ponies-from-afar I love crossovers, and this one's a real beauty

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9959054/1/Reflection-in-Steel

Awesome in every way except for some spelling errors and the fact it hasn't been updated since last year.

I hate it when badfics have like 27 chapters and were updated yesterday while goodfics have about 2 chapters and were updated 3 years ago.



THE EMPEROR PROTECTS!

Have you thought about using italics when she's interrupting herself? Other than that, it's looking pretty good.

Those were actually pretty awesome. :) My favourite crossover idea is Avengers / Nolanverse Batman, where Scarecrow and Loki team up and then Batman have to work with the Avengers to stop them. I imagine he and Iron Man has a lot to discuss about whether or not a secret identity is needed or not.

Back at the Metroid wiki I used my blog mostly for idle technical speculation (since one of my main jobs there was to be the science consultant) and... I guess you could call it editorial content on the meaning and implications of the games. Few people bothered to read it.

Looking over your page, superficially it looks good but you seem to use the word "German" a lot. One would assume after you mentioned you were a native German citizen living in Germany, most of what you interacted with would be German in one way or another... also you don't have to sign edits to your userpage.

http://www.tickld.com/x/this-guy-just-changed-the-way-we-see-lord-of-the-rings-mind-blown

It fits a lot with the politics in the rest of the story - there's definitely strong political issues in the relations between Gondor and Rohan, not to mention Saruman attempting to grab his own piece of the pie by manuvering the White Council and turning his neighbors against each other. And it fits, thematically, with the way that both Orthanc and Minas Tirith were weakened from the inside long before anyone had a clue what exactly was going on.

To my mind, it also reinforces the whole theme of all the different peoples of Arda coming together and trusting each other in the end, instead of succumbing to old rivalries. (The primary example of that being, of course, the Council of Elrond, and appointing representatives of Men and Elves and Dwarves to go with Frodo on the quest.) It's a bit of a reversal of their old methods of breaking apart kingdoms.

I can't help but think, though, that the Nazgul's methods in the Shire show a lack of preparation. They just go up in their suspicious black garb asking suspicious questions of the locals - I suppose they thought it would be an easy mission, but still, that is not smooth investigative procedure at all. But it makes some sense - they're ex-rulers, not field agents, incognito was not their style while alive.

That Sauron was eventually defeated by a mission that relied on, I believe Elrond used these exact words: speed and secrecy. And hobbits sneaking around with the One Ring.

And in the meantime, Gandalf was running around trying to strengthen and unite the remaining kingdoms of Men. Pretty cool.

~Neshomeh

Weren't the Nazgul originally politically powerful humans? I mean, the other Rings we know about all went to powerful leaders, didn't they? The big three Elves and some Dwarf lords in their halls of stone?

Why would kings, lords and a king/sorcerer/Macbeth-combo be used as front line fighters? They wouldn't, because they are not good at that sort of task. They would be used for exactly the kinds of things you've outlined here. Political maneuvering and exerting their will over the masses. The things they had spent their lives learning to do.

-Phobos

Not that I ever got permission for this lot, but here we go.

Vid and Nemedra are part of the ROTC. They know of each other, but aren't friends: at this point in his life, Vid is clever but not an excellent student, since the only classes he cares about are the ones where you get to take stuff apart and put it back together (like shop,) and Nemedra is in the junior officer track, and on multiple teams. I'm thinking track and ladies' Lacrosse.

Trask would be a freshman when they were Juniors or Seniors, so there's really no way he'd know them. And he's a velociraptor, so... okay, I know I'm not the only one with a non-humanoid agent, I need to work on this if my AU is always "Glaurung it, what do I do with a velociraptor? because that shows a distinct lack of creativity. He's the best student out of the three of them, especially interested in biology and languages, and he's an avid birdwatcher. He still brings the kind of brightly colored backpack that was popular in middle school and he's not on any teams, because for some reason he can't be trusted with the equipment. Volleyballs pop, hockey-sticks get tangled, he keeps tripping over the soccer ball, he's more likely to duck than to catch a basketball pass... you name the sport, he's bad at it, not through clumsiness or lack of any noticeable athleticism, but because you can count on him to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

With stuff about my Agents in high school.

-salutes grimly- Watch this space.

Starwind Rohana is short, energetic, and prone to going bezerk if you push her buttons even a little. When asked about her name, she just says "I'm Scottish"; no-one has pushed her further. Despite apparently being classic bullying material, no-one has tried since her second week at the school - probably because she was excluded for a week (or... whatever the American equivalent is) for nearly breaking someone's arm when they tried. She's been excluded on several other occasions, too, most notably for the day when she turned up to school dressed in woad and not much else.

Esme Telnar, on the other hand, is tall, skinny, eerily beautiful, graceful, sociable, likeable, talented... and, for reasons known only to herself, spends all her time hanging around with the aforementioned bezerk Scot. Half the guys in the school want to date her - but can't get past her scary friend to ask.

Together, they run the school paper, the Mutinous Monitor. Well, they call it the school paper... the Librarian calls it 'that criminal waste of paper', and has tried several times to stop them printing it. If only his student assistants would stop giving in when Esme asks them to let her use the printer...

The Monitor is, of course, a tabloid (or whatever the American translation is); it features rumours, gossip, candid photography of teachers and popular students (Starwind is on record as saying 'They want to be in the public eye? Then let 'em!'), horoscopes, pictures of the latest 'hot' singers and movie stars, and letters from students - including, as I've mentioned before, perpetual conspiracy theories from Kayleigh and Sambar.

Every issue also seems to include a 'new feature', none of which make it into a second issue. 'The top ten coolest explosions you can make in the lab' actually led to Prof. Echinacea hunting down and burning every single copy of the issue - which may not have been the best idea, since the girls sprinkled the paper with chemicals that made the fire burn bright purple. 'The top ten places to get a little privacy at PPC High', on the other hand, was very well received by the staff, though the backlash from the students meant it still didn't have a second installment.

hS

Nah, just kidding. This is awesome.


Gaspard: Legend has it that there is this half-Chinese freshman guy that "haunts" the school. Outside of classroom hours most people only catch fleeting glimpses of him before he melts into the crowd. He's been seen hanging out just about everywhere: in the library, outside on the football field, in the Cafeteria lineup, around various clubs or organization meet-ups and so on. Those that manage to talk to him find him almost completely unremarkable: his grades are average, he suffers from mild acne, he doesn't participate in any sports or activities, he has a virtually nonexistent social life, and his after-school life consists solely of eating, doing homework, and sleeping. However-- and this is a big however-- Gaspard knows everything about the goings-on at PPC High. Everything. He knows who belongs to which club, who bullied who, who is going to get in trouble for bullying, and who is dating who. No secret is safe from him... but that doesn't matter. Nobody goes out of their way to find him anyways. Nobody except...


Angus: an overweight senior who recently broke up with his girlfriend. Unlike Gaspard, Angus is very visible. In fact, he's known as the all-around Genuinely Nice Guy of his year. He's earned the reputation through countless small acts of kindness: need a pencil? Angus has got you covered. Missing a dime to pay for that granola bar? He'll give you one and won't constantly harass you to repay him. Can't figure out a math problem? He'll walk you though it. Nobody has seen Angus get upset about anything; the senior seems unfazed by even the most stressful situations. This doesn't hold true when it comes to comments about his weight, though. Fortunately, this has never been an issue for Angus. I mean, who would go around and mess with such a helpful guy? That's like kicking a puppy.

Laura is a greasy, zit-speckled problem student. The junior is a frequent visitor to detention thanks to her propensity to talk herself into trouble, both with teachers and other students. Despite a car accident in her sophomore year that damaged both her left arm and vision, she is still an avid video gamer.* She’s even part of an after-school gamer club, which is looking to try and get into some competitive tournament play. Laura’s been teased a few times about her weight, which usually leads to more trouble.

Danny prides himself on the quality of his schoolwork. The senior has a passion for English literature and writing classes, not to mention debate club, the Model UN, and tabletop role-playing games. When he has time to spare (which honestly isn’t much given his other pursuits), he volunteers to tutor freshmen after school. He has spoken repeatedly of pursuing an education degree once he graduates into college. Danny walks with a slight limp caused by a broken leg sustained during a fall. He and Laura don’t really know each other too well in this universe due to running in different social circles.

Jim Pittman is a senior who recently transferred in from out of town. Underneath his laid back attitude lies a talented athlete. He managed to impress the coach well enough to get a position on the football team despite his newness. Jim also has an abiding interest in legal issues and wants to pursue a career in law enforcement. Despite all that, he’s also something of a sci-fi nerd; he tends to keep his knowledge of Star Wars expanded canon and Star Trek races under his hat when shooting the breeze with the other guys on the team.

Remember when I said Laura was a problem student? Penny “Gremlin” Teng has her beat, what with having an actual criminal record and all. It's nothing too serious – shoplifting and vandalism – but it's enough to get the sophomore a reputation with most of the student body. Penny maintains her grades just barely enough to keep from getting expelled. She also has a real knack for electronics and computers, which is where her nickname came from. She is good friends with Laura thanks to both their shared time in detention and their shared membership in the gamer club.

Karcie Nil is quiet, serious, and studious. She typically dresses all in black – not the fancy ornate black of a goth, mind you; just practical flat black – and dyes her hair blue. The sophomore tends to prefer the company of books and coursework to other people. She excels in the fields of biology, literature, and sociology. One of Karcie’s only major interaction with other students is her on-again, off-again membership in the debate club, where she and Danny have a passing familiarity. Her teachers have partnered her up with Penny for coursework a few times in the hope that some of Karcie’s positive traits might rub off on the delinquent.

* I elected to tone done the extent of Laura’s injuries because a missing eye and arm in a real world school would be very bad news.

Rina would be the band geek, Pokemon geek, book nerd, and shy kid who prefers to read her books and X-Men comics by herself unless she's with her friends, when she kind of becomes the 'big sister' of the group despite the fact that she's one of the youngest in her social circle. And she's also kind of loud and enthusiastic.

Randa is just all-around friendly and one of those kids who doesn't get on the teacher's bad side despite the fact that she's got an impressive vocabulary, if you get what I'm saying. ;)

And I get the feeling that the Floating Hyacinth would be the Band Director, and the Queen Anne's Lace is HomeEc. Alice the horse is the school mascot!

Barid (Barry Dawes, Sophomore) is a lanky kid in the class clown tradition. He usually wears obnoxious Hawaiian shirts. One never knows what his next bout of shenanigans will look like. Food fight in the Cafeteria? Handstands in the halls? No, today it looks like he's drawing on himself with a Sharpie. He's got a solid C- average, and that is good enough for him.

Brightbeard (Ed Brightbart, Junior) is stocky and serious. He went to Military school for a while. Shortly after transferring to this new school he broke up a schoolyard fight involving Barry. Now he can't get rid of him. Ed spends a lot of time working on projects in the shop. He is also a member of the after school Interfaith Alliance.

Decima (Natalie Thompson [use that name at your own peril], Junior) is anti-social and stand-offish. She insists on being called Decima. She wears a lot of black, and has more earrings than some consider appropriate (we'll not even talk about her other piercings). Combat boots and super-short hair are her norm. She has a fascination with the occult and considers herself to be a Wiccan. Despite her dark, tough exterior she has a thing for cheerleaders.

Starting with the easiest to translate, Gall is a bully. She probably used to live somewhere she had to be tough to get by—maybe someplace rural, where the only other kids for miles were rowdy boys—and hasn't quite figured out that her fists and cruel remarks are neither a necessary nor acceptable way to solve problems and gain respect. It doesn't help that she struggles with reading and writing, although she understands perfectly well when things are explained to her out loud and she can explain them back. She might join a girls' wrestling or hockey team to channel some of her aggression, though she'd complain about not being on the boys' team—she's just as good as any boy, after all, and they get all the attention.

Nume wouldn't have perfect recall in the real world, since that's not really a thing, but he would still have exceptional memorization skills and book smarts at the expense of any discernible social aptitude. He could easily get straight As and rock the academic competition scene, but finds himself incredibly bored by simply absorbing and regurgitating facts and doesn't care much about pleasing anyone, so he cuts corners and spends as much time as possible on things that stimulate his imagination. His only steady form of social interaction is a tabletop RP group, which both admires and loathes his ability to quote the rulebooks at them. He doesn't set out to be a rules lawyer, but he can't always resist the impulse to point it out when someone is doing something wrong. Because he looks exactly like the huge nerd he is—skinny, gangling, thick glasses to correct his farsightedness, zits, and a voice in the process of changing—he's often picked on by people like Gall, who don't care that nerdy is in now.

Ilraen would start out as a freshman, bright and friendly, but naive due to being homeschooled up until now. His efforts to please people and make friends would probably result in his good nature being taken advantage of for some time, before either the teachers or more morally upstanding students put a stop to it. He's interested in team sports, but doesn't quite have the physical condition to be any good at them. He also likes science, technology, and sci-fi, and might potentially attract Nume's interest upon making a working model of the Enterprise or Serenity or something. With Ilraen being too clueless to be offended by Nume's callousness at first, they'd start hanging out and gradually realize that their skills and interests complement each other. Woe to Nume when Ilraen eventually realizes that girls are pretty and starts spending more time with them. Ilraen also grows up into a steady, responsible guy, making it a point to look out for kids like him who might be taken advantage of or victimized in any way. Ultimately, he's a lot more interested in people than things.

He can't hold a candle to Jenni, though, whose sole mission in life is to get to know absolutely everyone and fix their problems. You could almost call her a social butterfly, except that she's not doing it for show. She's smart, but struggles with grades due to spending all her time on her friends instead of books and papers—except for her bio, A&P, psych, and sociology classes. She hasn't quite decided whether she wants to be a doctor or a psychologist yet, but you have to go to med school either way, and she's all for that. Then again, she might just toss it all out the window and join the Peace Corps or something. Travel, adventures, and helping people—awesome! She's an idealist, and hasn't quite realized that the real world won't change overnight once she's on the scene, and she can't always help everyone she meets. Her electives include choir and art.

Derik is a musician through and through. He's in choir and also plays multiple instruments. His voice is changing, but he's managing it better than most, and refusing to give up on the upper register. He's adventurous and friendly, keeps himself in shape, and would play sports if he could do that and be in the marching band at the same time—sadly, rehearsal times often conflict during football season. Tragically, in his junior year, he winds up in a motorcycle accident that leaves him with serious burns on the right of his face and upper body. He's out of school and generally withdrawn for some time, and when he comes back, he doesn't resume his music classes, since performing in front of people is more than he's ready to take on when going to class is bad enough. (Unlike dragonriders, high schoolers tend to stare and whisper at serious deformities; not great for one's self-confidence.) He still sings and plays privately, maybe making YouTube recordings for fun, and he'll gradually let people back into his life—maybe former choirmate Jenni, who would be one of the first to let him know she doesn't care about stupid things like appearances and wants to make sure he doesn't turn into some sort of bitter, basement-dwelling psychopath.

My, what a lot of text. I think that'll do for now!

~Neshomeh

Let's see...

Larry probably would have been a slightly chubby comic book and anime nerd. Favorite subject would be science.

Samantha had great study habits, so good grades in the classes involving memorization. Not really driven to do spectacular though. Doesn't do well in art even though she draws well because it's just technical proficiency.

Hue would have been the oddball who eats nothing but candy. Doesn't do well in class but is a member of the community outreach club.

Kim would have been an average student, though the victim of teasing about her packed lunches during passover.

Shangmu would be somewhat popular. She'd be on the gymnastics team instead of cheerleading.

Nathan and Dwight would still be in the closet.

Obviously, Prof. Mallorn teaches Geography. He's short (obviously) and has a tendency to dye his hair - mostly gold and green, depending on the season. ;) He also has to be white - and I mean really pale white. Y'know, like almost... silver?

Dafydd Illian is Britain's revenge for all those obnoxious American students at Hogwarts. He's Welsh, a descendant of the Princes of Gwynedd (though that covers a lot of people; he's not a Hidden Heir to the Throne or anything), and incredibly disdainful about... well, everything American. He's also in the school choir. Unfortunately (for him), his lovely Welsh accent, delicate features, and hair that's only just within the length requirements - or, if they don't have those, is just plain long - combine with his attitude to make him a prime target for bullies. The girls all think he's cute, though.

The bullying isn't based on anything from actual Dafydd - it's just the logical conclusion from 'arrogant, standoffish, pretty boy'. He has a plot arc where he learns to actually interact with other people, such as...

Selene is half-Chinese (and has the Chinese version of Windflower, which I believe was Fung Ying, as her middle name). She's... oh, let's go for hilarious irony and make her a Jehovah's Witness (ie, forbidden from taking blood - Sel's normally a vampire, so yeah). But a shy one who's mostly in it because her parents are. She tried the missionary approach when she was just starting school, and the bullies still think it's hilarious to make jokes about it. She sits at the front of most classes, because she's genuinely interested in everything - and also because there's more empty spaces there, so she doesn't have to talk to anyone.

Some time in the second season, Dafydd and Selene end up with a Chemistry project together. The... rather enthusiastic result gets them nicknamed 'the Pyros', and gives the pair of them a brief breather from the bullying (Dafydd manages to threaten to set the bullies on fire without ever quite threatening to do so). It also draws the attention of...

Constance Sims. Average American teenager. Wears really thick glasses. Her dad's a moderately-successful author, and... well, basically she's Constance! She's not popular, but she does have friends, and isn't usually bullied. She thinks Dafydd's accent is adorable, and of course they have a relationship-building subplot going on.

Most of my main agents basically slot straight in. Kayleigh can keep on being Kayleigh (and scaring the life out of everyone), Narto can keep on being socially awkward and picked-on... Lou's not there, because Lou is always Lou, and getting her to not talk back to me would be an exercise in futility.

hS

I had my fill of that from EQG.

But my current, slap-dash take on my characters would be:

Doc would probably be a lot like I was in grade school, very few friends, the ones he does have are nerdy. I'm not sure if he would be into tabletop RPs, or just be a books-only guy like his PPC self. Definitely studious to the point of roboticness, not really knowing how to disengage from being busy to do anything else.

Vania would be the type to try being friendly with everyone, with mixed results. Others would start noticing strange patterns in her behavior, and she would start noticing lapses in her own memory. Eventually, she would start getting treatment for multiple personality disorder.

I guess Séverine and Yoof would be lunchladiespersons, unpopular with the kids for Sév's attitude and Yoof's large amount of body hair, too much to be contained by mere hairnets.

Molly and Ollie (name changes not yet finalized) will be Freshmen. Molly will be into drawing, for sure; I'm thinking an interest in astronomy for Ollie, which might develop into physics later on. This is a lot more circumspect, since I haven't had a chance to really write them yet.

Fr'sst will be a mean stray cat living somewhere on campus, secretly fed by a lot of students. (And maybe some of the staff?)

Cali is/was a teenager (not sure where he is on the timeline right now), but teenage-modern-Earth-human high school, I believe he would be the kid who reads way too many comic books, and dyes his hair blue. It seems like he would be a prime target for bullying, because he's not all that big, and not all that strong, but he smiles so darn much and is so nice to everyone that it would be like kicking a puppy to pick on him. Even the cool kids would interfere if someone gave him a hard time.

Unger is that kid who has been strong ADHD meds since he was four and it's stunted his growth, so he's tiny. And he's still unbearably hyperactive, and got shuffled off into the resource classes years ago (remember he couldn't read when he joined the PPC). He is incredibly friendly of the never-met-a-stranger sort, but tends to get on people's nerves with his impulsivity. He's not actually unintelligent, he just can't focus long enough to function in a classroom.

Miah is one of those kids that talks big, acts out, is irreverent to teachers, but skates along doing just enough homework and behaving just well enough that she doesn't get suspended (too often), though she is frequently in detention. She's just unpredictable enough to keep everyone unsure of what she'll do next and just vindictive and sneaky enough to keep everyone ever so slightly afraid of getting on her bad side. She avoids commitments, but will do nice things for people that she feels deserve it, especially if she can arrange for no one to know it was her.

Kelok is very smart, but painfully shy. He is generally subdued, wears dark clothing and doesn't try to make friends at school. He was adopted from an orphanage in one of the formerly Soviet countries as a preschooler. He is neighbors with Unger. They have been friends since Kelok got to this country, even though they have wildly mismatched personalities. He knows how to fight, and has been suspended several times over the years for decisively ending fights that bullies started with him. He's mostly left alone now as not worth it since he won't react to anything less than physical violence (and they've mostly learned they want to avoid that with him).

I think the Daisy should be something like the Career Development teacher.

The Queen Anne's Lace would probably teach biology and anatomy, the Poison Ivy would teach some sort of language, the Strawflower would be in charge of history, and the Reannual would teach physics when he wasn't trying to impress upon his students the importance of advanced quantum mechanics. Regarding gym and sports, I'm a bit divided. I could see Big Thorn in that role (as from my experience, gym can have a lot of disturbing acts of violence associated with it), but he might be better suited elsewhere. My other suggestion would be either Captain Dandy, Waterlily Commander, or Admiral Pansy. I could see the three of them as soldiers who became teachers once their tours of duty were up.

Also, would they have their PPC names (Mr. Hornbeam, Principal Sunflower) or more real-world appropriate (if still punny) names? Examples might be Principal Helios, Ms. Queensly (Queen Anne's Lace), or similar.

Where my agents might fit into this will follow later.

The Hyacinct should be the swimming instructor, and Otik might be some sort of secretary. The Nightshade would surely be a janitor.

About my agents, Corolla would surely be a popular troublemaker, of the kind that just can't stop making pranks but somehow managing to get almost scot-free thanks to good grades.

Not sure about what Agent!Sergio and Nikki would be, though the latter wouldn't be so different since she IS a teenager.

And Sergio would surely own a rather run-down car on which he would keep working on in his spare time.

While I haven't specified this anywhere in the one mission I've actually posted (or the half-dozen that are in various stages of being written), my agents are only capable of reading the Words for the chapter that they are in.

I thought that made a nice balance between being able to skim ahead (or back) to check stuff, while still allowing them to be surprised by stuff even if they do find the time to read ahead. After all, there may be times where they're stuck with nothing to do, and while they can just portal through the boring bits, it would make sense for agents to do as much intelligence gathering as they can. I wanted to have it so that my agents could always be surprised by something, regardless of how much time they had on their hands.

is that they can see what the Words say all the way through, though it's still possible to make mistakes. For example, in my most recent mission, Rina accidentally overlooked the fact that several noncanon two-way mirrors were used again in the story and stole them, only to later realize she had to put them back.

... I have this as a skill which most agents have, but some - specifically Agent Huinesoron - simply never learnt.

hS

The way I've written it in my missions, they can skim trough the whole fic. I use it to save time in the story. The agents can check the Words and find that there are no major canon breaks for the next two chapters, but there is a mini three paragraphs down that they need to collect. Then they can portal accordingly.
But it shouldn't get to the point where the agents aren't surprised by anything they see, because they have already read in the Words.

Like Phobos said, they shouldn't be watching the words all the time. Although I did exactly that in my last mission, but that was because they needed to keep an eye out for some potentially lethal punctuation.

The agents shouldn't have the time to sit back and read the whole story while on a mission. It is important to keep in mind that, while the story is just words to us, to the agents the story is physical and real. They should be engaged in what is going on around them. They shouldn't need to look at the words, except as a means to explain why they are experiencing something odd or to make sure of where they are portaling.

-Phobos

Can you reference the fairy tales at all? Perhaps a red hoody or having a villain shout "huff and puff" when trying to get through a barred door. Maybe an illustration or tattoo of a cartoon villain wolf.

That's a pony crossover fanfic, by the way. As far as I know, pony!Rose does not make an appearance. *shrug*

Also, in "The Unquiet Dead", the servant girl with the alien sight thingie gets a look at Rose's future/past/whatever and says "The things you've seen...the darkness...the big bad wolf" at the end of her spiel, so you could totally do something like that. It'd be a more subtle version; I didn't even notice she said that until they flashbacked to it in "The Parting of the Ways."

I know that Bad Wolf in Hebrew is 'זאב רע', "ze'ev ra'".

The scientific name for wolves is Canis lupus, so you could either make a name that looks like a subspecies (Canis lupus malus) or a full new species (Canis malus).

What else . . . Spanish would be, "lobo malo," I think. Or maybe "mal lobo?" I forget the rules for "malo" vs. "mal" usage.

Hey, pig latin! Adbay olfway! Huh? Huh? >>

And how about the Middle-earth version? Bad warg? <>

The scientific name for wolves is Canis lupus, so you could either make a name that looks like a subspecies (Canis lupus malus) or a full new species (Canis malus).

What else . . . Spanish would be, "lobo malo," I think. Or maybe "mal lobo?" I forget the rules for "malo" vs. "mal" usage.

Hey, pig latin! Adbay olfway! Huh? Huh? >>

And how about the Middle-earth version? Bad warg? <>

I don't understand... Who could do this?
This... this is terrible!
Actually, it's quite impressive how much worse this is than a fair amount of hormonally-influenced Suefic. It's horrifying, sure. But impressive.

Can we spork it? Is the question burning in my mind after reading the extracts and a bit of the rest. Okay, probably not, since it was released to the general public and thus it would be unfair.
But, seriously, this rivals some of the worst badfics I have seen being killed by Agents.

What's so bad about this is that clearly, they have read the books. They just didn't care.

Aragorn and Eowyn and basically healing cock? Frodo naked in the middle of the Council and Arwen is only 13 years old? How do Elves age when extremely young compared to young humans?

The thing that strikes me the most in all these examples you've included is the profound lack of analysis. They've clearly read enough to get the gist of what is on the page, but they've made no effort whatsoever to understand what they were reading.

I just... I can't...

*curls up in the corner and dies*

The first paragraph made my eyeballs fall out, now I need to go look for them...*dies within death from the bitter irony.*

Subtle trollfic done in the style of a really old fairy tail. I've seen things that I'm less willing to read.

Here, have some bleepka. I don't know about the side effects, but I'm not entirely certain I care much at the moment.

Eru, this is awful. My frog, this person is arrogant. And can she even use the Glaurunging English language? A clue, no!

I can't think of any 'Sues quite so bad as that at the moment. Badly written stories? Yes. Out of character canons? Definitely. Trivialization and stupidity? Are you kidding? But no 'Sues like that. This one takes the cake for now.

As I said before, Erk.

I like your idea of giving them a summary. How do you suggest we go about it? PM the author? Make it a cool post on Tumblr?

Also, hi, newbie! Your welcome gift is a K.K. Slider plushie, complete with guitar! (K.K. Slider is a dog musician from the Animal Crossing series. He's cool.)

Welcome to the PPC! It's pretty obvious by this point that you are a Tolkien nut; do you have any other fandoms?

Speaking of Tolkien Sues, have you ever read The Game of the Gods? It's a very funny fic.

As for your newbie gift:
*rummages through bag of holding*
Aha!
Have some non-enchanted, definitely-not-magical replicas of the Silmarils!

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--I would prefer your sight stay intact, all things considered.)

-Aila

Have a Carafe of Continuous Caffeine! I promise it doesn't break any major laws of physics... much...


In regards to your proposal I'm glad to see that I'm not alone in finding the LotR series rather... ponderous. I think that a quick "cliff's notes for canon" setup would be useful not just for authors, but for people like me who interact with the canon without really being "fans". If you decide to go through with it I'd be happy to help expand it to other fandoms with a large insider-outsider rift.

Hi, have some fudge!

Welcome to the Board! As a present, I give you a honking rabbit! He's very fluffy and he has great big nasty teeth. He eats fanbrats. ;)

May your sporks never dull!

-Crawls out of the woodwork-
-Points to the Constitution, Wiki, and Original Series-
-Sets up a table with tea, scones, and jam-
Don't let the leaves eat you.

Are 'newbies' allowed to give gifts to fellow newbies?

Ah screw it. Welcome, and have one of my shed feathers! Handle with care - I've heard people say it's still a wee bit sharp...

I definitely understand your take on the badfic. I do that too unless it's spectacularly atrocious. (Though lately I've been thanked by the author of a fic that doesn't contain a word above three letters that's spelled correctly for eight consecutive scathingly sarcastic reviews. I think she's a troll.)

LotR is hard to get through unless you're an incredibly dedicated reader, which most people are not. (I only know one person in Real Life besides myself who's finished it.) I'm not going to go into the passivity of it (I find it quite exciting myself) but I do appreciate the fact that you've read some of it.

That is definitely an interesting idea. I think that might be a division of the Department of Author Correspondence. It's currently retired, but that's because everyone who worked there retired. If someone else were to be enlisted, that could be a definite thing. The downside of it is that I believe that if someone has watched the movies (the Extended Editions, anyway - I haven't actually seen the Non-Extended Editions) then one knows enough to not completely shred the canon as many do. Perhaps for books that have not been made into movies, or have been made into particularly poor movies, such as the Inheritance Cycle or the Prydian Chronicles. Of course more discussion on the topic would be called for.

And last, but most decidedly not least, since you've read through all my aimless ranting, have a magical stepstool and a graphite drawing of your favorite fictional locale in a green wooden frame!

Sorry can't answer your question. I'm really more of a Marvel maniac. Speaking of please take this X-men jacket and Loki Toy.

Not to worry! Darkotas, Seychelles, and myself shall be taking it on when Seych and Dark get Permission. Although we're 95% sure it's a troll, since it's so similar to My Immortal. >:U

It is pretty interesting. I prefer Nikki Colon's interpretation, myself; fans can say whatever they want, but the original author has ultimate power over his/her universe.

I see the author as the representative in our world of the canon they "created." Their mind is closer to the real deal than anyone else here can get, so their statements are most likely to be true.

Obviously, there will always be exceptions. As hS said, all authors make mistakes. The entire Left Behind series can't possibly be an accurate adaptation of the world it represents, because the ostensibly earth-like world is full of ostensibly human characters that don't behave like earth!humans. (I wonder if it's really a world full of orcs?)

It's a little trickier with games, since they don't have a single "author," even if you only focus on the story-boarding aspect. I haven't played any Zelda games, but reading through this article, it seems a character called Ruto gives Sheik a male pronoun in the game. That could have been a decision by multiple developers to mislead the player and leave the spoiler as a greater surprise. Ruto could have been doing the exact same thing in-universe, to help keep Zelda hidden.

On the other hand, I would be more willing to trust the pronouns supplied in-game, back when the story was being concepted, than an announcement now, sixteen years later. This announcement could just be an attempt to curb the weird fanart and other weirdness surrounding Zelda's apparent gender bending.

So there's really no easy way to say. I'll leave it to the actual Link fans.

--doctorlit can't leave the village, as he doesn't even have a sword or a shield

Especially about what this person thinks Jesus has to do with Miyamoto or any of this. Is he trying to appeal to authority?

I also soundly agree with 99 and AdmiralSakai. Perhaps The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe tells itself to me in such a way that I am led to believe that the White Witch was the benign protagonist working for the good of the Narnian people. If that's the case, I'm an idiot.

99, that signature is a bit... different.

I mean, what is canon but things the author has said, written, or typed? That doesn't stop when the work is published. It's a lot more dubious when we try to guess a dead or otherwise uncommunicative author's original intent, but clear statements are clear.

I believe that when it comes to canon, the author's word is law. Canon>Fanon. Simple. Except for when the author isn't making a modicum of sense, then the inverse is true. Of course, if there isn't any canon to fill in a gap, that's where the fanon comes in and that's where we get shiddery like headcanons.

If there is canon to tell us what is going on, the fanon is irrelevant. Except for when the canon makes no sense or is absent.

When it comes to the fundamental themes (what the author was trying to tell us), it is completely in the eye of the beholder and they can believe what they want to believe. Besides, the author should be able to get their message across without any mis-interpretations along the way.

When it comes to themes, the author should be able to get their message across and if they can't, what they mean is up to the reader.



T͙̦̞͛ͥ̾̈ͧ͛H̻̅́ͭ̂ͤ̓̅E͓̮͉̣̱͗ͪ̅̑ͫ͆̓ ̤̗͚͔͖̙Fͬͥ͆̍̐ͣA̱͖̟͓̪͍L̬̖̘̼̟̋̂̊S̳͓̩̯ͧͪͫ̃Eͣͦͬͨ̈́̃ ͉͐͒͗̑EM̘̭ͤͧP̖̱͈͇̫̋̾ͭ̄͐ͬ͌E͙ͯ̏̿̀̑͐̈R̯̹̥̼̎ͬͮ͛́̉̚O͌̎͊̈ͦR̭̣̙͚͈̩ ̖͙̞̓ͭ̒H͐̋͒A͖̳̲͓̰͙͍͛͂ͧ̌́͛̏Š̖̐ ̼͇͚̊̉ͧ̓͊̆N̻̱̗͉̪͔̞ͤͫË̠̳̲̠̼̲̰́̎̾̐͑͌̅V̱͈̯̪͙̘E̫͚ͮ̒ͨͣ̐Ṟ̝͔̂ͯͣͯ ̝̗̬̜ͧ̀̅P̯͇͙͈͍͙̣ͭ̔ͪ̃ͨR̉̍O̳̤̽T͕̙E̟͕̗̺ͭĆ͖ͨT̞ͤ̒̊͌E̻͖̤̬̦D̟̣̪̟̊̇̓͐ ͫͨͯͪͭͤA̲̙͗ͭ̂͋N̊̑Y̞͇̼̪̬͕̲ͩͥͩ̓̀ͩȌ͔̙͇͎̻̓̋̋N͙͇̰̺̘̻͔͑̍͐ͭE̍ͬ̆ ͍̠̟̪̳̅ͨ̊̌͐F͎̤͍̱O͉̻̘R̮̰ͩ ̦̙̼̰̂ͣͪ̎H͈̯̤͉͙͎̣E͖̪̬͇͐ͯ͐ ̙̓Ḯ͒ͦ̾ͦͧͧS̺͓̤̎ P̱̹͖͍̓̑̓O͚̼͍͖̓͆̍̒ͯ̎W̞͎͕̥͎͎̓ͮͮ͌̌ͤE͈̟͖̰̎̇R̗̠̲͈͈̳͙͂L̟̳̺͉̫̯ͯE͎̹͉͕̖ͤ̾ͥS̓͐̈́S͕ͣ!̙̞̩̣̀ͅ ̬̫͗̔̐ͥ̐AL͍͔̱̝̲͔̎L̝̱ͪ̚ ̠ͨH̫͔̖̉ͦͨÃ̰̣̾͊̏͐͋I͇̘̫̞L͓̠̣̼͎̥ ͎̥̩̣̲̻̳͆͛͆C̏ͭ̿̃̊Hͭ͗͆̽̊Ấ̙͕̰̬ͧ̀ͅO͖̤̘̲͐͐̂̑ͩS͍͖̹̳̭̙̺̑̋!̩̺ͮ̔ͩ̀̏ͮ

I hate to have to bring it up, but I'm really not OK with you sharing and asking for commentary on PPC fic without Permission. I get that you're excited about your characters - I completely know the feeling! But could you please run them around and get to know them in something that isn't PPC?

I’ll try to look at it when I find the time, maybe in a week or three.

HG

I personally grew up with the 90's movies, so anything I watch will compare to them. Tell me more about this new cartoon, it sounds interesting.

AS I was a HUGE fan of the original cartoon. The one from the late 80's/early 90's. So far nothing new in the franchise has come even close to something I'd watch.

Speaking as a childhood fan of the 2003 series, I'm very excited to see it... and very nervous. I'm actually rather intrigued by the new 'darker and edgier' look and the inclusion of more grime. Living in a sewer won't leave you all nice and shiny, after all.

But I'm nervous how they're going to handle it. I mean, that cartoon was a huge part of my childhood. If it's all very serious with very little humor, I'll be sad.

Either way, though, I'll be going to see it tomorrow.
('-') ('-')/ (/'-')/ ('-')/

Speaking as a childhood fan of the 2003 series, I'm very excited to see it... and very nervous. I'm actually rather intrigued by the new 'darker and edgier' look and the inclusion of more grime. Living in a sewer won't leave you all nice and shiny, after all.

But I'm nervous how they're going to handle it. I mean, that cartoon was a huge part of my childhood. If it's all very serious with very little humor, I'll be sad.

Either way, though, I'll be going to see it tomorrow.
('-') ('-')/ (/'-')/ ('-')/

I don't recall any other new cartoon for TMNT floating around. I thought the only current one was the Nick one. Maybe I am just getting my wires crossed.

Anyway to answer your question, I actually should look into the cartoon while the movie I have mixed feelings on. I actually like the design of the Shredder's armour but I get the niggling feeling of it being a bit too similar to Transformers. The design of the turtles themselves don't really seem to affect me but I also haven't really seen much of that to really decide either way.

It's got potential, but if they lose the charm of the original by trying to be too edgy, they're going to mess it up royally.

Fingers crossed, huh?

I enjoyed this a lot.

The scene setting you did at the beginning for the cafeteria was very good, I particularly like the line '...the people chatting and eating ran the gamut from humans to illithids to a Triceratops...', and the following one about the quality of the food.

The way it builds up to the ship crashing through - starting with a seemingly normal portal, then definitely an unusual portal, the agents readying for action, and then the prow of the ship coming through, was very well done. I could picture the scene clearly in my head, it was really well described.

Cap'n Marilena seems like a really interesting character. She's got a nice unique voice, and a strong personality (as well as a nice random mission that fits nicely with the general randomness of the PPC). I do hope we'll be seeing more of her. I like how she compared the security officers as being like the Royal Navy, that was a nice touch.

I didn't spot any typos, and I thought that the description was really well done, and didn't spoil the flow of the narrative at all.

I enjoyed this a lot.

The scene setting you did at the beginning for the cafeteria was very good, I particularly like the line '...the people chatting and eating ran the gamut from humans to illithids to a Triceratops...', and the following one about the quality of the food.

The way it builds up to the ship crashing through - starting with a seemingly normal portal, then definitely an unusual portal, the agents readying for action, and then the prow of the ship coming through, was very well done. I could picture the scene clearly in my head, it was really well described.

Cap'n Marilena seems like a really interesting character. She's got a nice unique voice, and a strong personality (as well as a nice random mission that fits nicely with the general randomness of the PPC). I do hope we'll be seeing more of her. I like how she compared the security officers as being like the Royal Navy, that was a nice touch.

I didn't spot any typos, and I thought that the description was really well done, and didn't spoil the flow of the narrative at all.

Can this be added to the PPC Wikia? Sofar I think it should go under cafeteria.

http://ppc.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Trans-dimensional_Organisations

I also think that Pizza Run should either get its own entry, or a sub-category of other trans-dimensional traders.

The flow is just right as it is, it would probably seem to be rushed if you hadn’t taken the time to make more sense to unfamiliar readers. But I wonder whether the first two paragraphs, tweaked a bit, might work better in present tense, because the PPC cafeteria is not history yet, and the "One day" at the beginning of the third paragraph so obviously denotes a shift from describing a general situation to telling a specific event.

Also, two sentences confused me:

"He landed on the floor and dragged the tuna into a deep shadow under on the tables."
Shouldn’t this be “under one of the tables”?

"One pair of cafeteria doors, which had already been open a moment ago, were suddenly thrown open ..."
I guess the doors were not closed, but also not wide open, and somebody may have peered in, and then they were suddenly thrown wide open and the security agents stormed in. The wording is a bit weird.
(Also, grammar check says that "a pair of doors" is singular and thus it should read "was suddenly thrown open".

It’s nice to know that may agents, when they eventually arrive at HQ, may be able to get other food than what is served in the cafeteria.

HG

Your pirate captain is amazing, the ship's name was amazing, I loved the description of the crew, and the agents' reactions were perfect! The little bits like the animal furs that were too perfect to be real we're what really sold this for me, though. I mean, what else are you going to do when your room starts overflowing with Sue pelts? :P

Going to Googledocs now!

I've always wondered what you can do for edible food in the PPC if you aren't lucky enough to have access to World One or aren't able to pass as human...

Also, I love your Pirate Captain. She's welcome back any time. :D

And the DES' better off NOT stopping that ship from coming back. There's going to be a riot otherwise.

That's great. I love the concept that there are other entities causing havoc and otherwise with plotholes.

I could see it going either way. He may have sought out a plot hole in a deliberate attempt to leave the area- if so, the Agent may or may not actually be on Dagobah any more.

Megacrossovers just don't usually go so well. It's hard to make a convincing case for just two being combined, but really, what did they need to throw Stargate and Star Trek in there for? And - I just don't know.

I suppose it's fair to mention that I have read one good megacrossover (if six counts as mega - I think it does), but even that was not meant to be taken entirely seriously. This is just over the top.

I found one of those once. It didn't go so well.

No, seriously, what. How can someone possibly manage to juggle so many continua together?
-Is speechless-

That was a very cute story I must say. :3

Maybe Voltimer and Mcgonagoll can hang out together.

I'm leaving it as no one in PPC knows where Larry actually comes from, but what are the limits on this? Does he need to come from someplace that's not in the CAD's database, or just out of that story's influence?

Like, I imagine that it doesn't matter if you're from Sherlock!America or World One unless you're a fan of the Huffington Post and happened to hear about a certain detective.

I'm thinking about having Nathan and Dwight not be from World One either, but they managed to figure out that they're from the middle of huge bit areas in canonical worlds.

Personally, I think the only distinction between World One and any other version of Earth is just that WO is "closer," in the sense that a disproportionate amount of agents come from there. I don't think it would feel particularly different from the majority of other (non urban fantasy) versions of Earth to most characters.

Honestly, if you're getting confused about "World One," you're overthinking it. The very concept of "World One" is just a placeholder name so we, and "RealWorld" agents, can talk about the so-called "Real World" without confusing/insulting a Narnian agent, who would see Narnia as the "Real World."

If you're wanting to do Despatch-style missions (I think that was you, yes? Apologies if I'm wrong.), then you don't necessarily need to depict World One. You can just send the author avatar through a portal, or whatever. You also don't necessarily need to say the self insert is even from World One, depending on what the fic allows. The fic in my second mission is (in reality) a Mary Sue story written in the real world about the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes continuum. However, for the mission, which I'll link to below, I instead chose to treat the story as a Despatch-style situation, where the author was a (modern-day) inhabitant of the AoSH continuum, who created a story with herself as self-insert, which let her go back in time to visit Holmes. I was able to this because the insert never refers to Holmes and the other characters as fictional. She is surprised to see them, but only how-did-I-get-here surprised, not this-has-mind-destroying-existential-repercussions surprised. She also claims to be from the future, not from another world where Holmes is fictional. Obviously, something like this depends on the fic you're missioning. Here's that mission:

http://doctorlit.dreamwidth.org/3091.html

Um. Sorry. This post got kind of long. I hope I've at least answered something. Is there anything I can make more clear?

I know there is a Megamind fanfiction about 9/11... And I think the MIB cartoon addressed it...

Basically I'm thinking that there are fictional worlds where nothing significant happened on September 11 of 2001. (Obviously this is only remarkable in continua that were both published and set afterwards, and there are probably only a few examples that actually address it directly.)

My point is that some worlds are defined by what did happen and what didn't. Biggest problem with SuperWhoLock is that Watson didn't mention hearing about whatever Supernatural happened that the world should have noticed.

If you have to interview someone to see what world that they're from, you could probably ask about significant events to get an answer.

(Since I'm the person who invented the designation 'World One', I suppose I'm the best qualified to comment...)

The 'World-number' designations were instituted by the Weeds, while they were off exploring the Cascade. Their mapping led to the creation or definition of doors into HQ and the extended Cascade (scroll down to 'Relative Dimensions' for the complexity of what, exactly, HQ is), and those doors are numbered.

The numbering system for the doors is world-country (or other sub-unit)-number. So, door 1-Cym-3 is World One - Cymru (Wales - they use the local name) - Door number three, indicating there are at least two other Welsh doors. Other known designations include 1-Sch-2 (Switzerland, World One - this door opens into HQ near the Department of Finance), and 2093-Ann-2, where World 2093 is the world of Minecraft, and 'Ann' is the savefile name (Annuminas, in this case). The story behind that door will no doubt be posted in the fullness of time.

So why is World One... World One? Quite simply, because it's the first universe ('World' is a misnomer; the entirety of, say, Star Wars has a single 'World' number) the Weeds had occasion to catalogue - in other words, it's the universe they started in; the universe of Origin and the 'Real World'.

And it is special. As far as the Flowers are aware, it's the only universe in what we term the Prime Multiverse which isn't a Word World. To the best of their knowledge, all non-Word-World planets they've opened portals to lead to the same universe - World One. It's the only universe they know of based on atoms, not words.

This perspective informs Multiverse Theory (first section). The Prime Multiverse consists of World One - the Real World - surrounded by a bunch of Word Worlds which appear to be created by it. That includes all the alternate versions of Earth - such as Godzilla's world - and any other fictional worlds, such as Middle-earth. So Godzilla!World would have its own World number, and its own doors (potentially).

The only non-World One 'Atomic Worlds' the PPC knows of are the alternate multiverses described in Multiverse Theory. So the EPC, for instance, has its own 'World One', a non-Word-World which created its own multiverse of Word Worlds (such as the critically acclaimed sci-fi show Master Who). But it's next to impossible to access those - certainly your standard portal won't get you anywhere near them.

Of course, this nice neat Real World > Word Worlds picture breaks down slightly when the details of portals are taken into account... specifically, written portals (which make up every single portal the PPC creates, though a few legacy natural plotholes are still found in the fabric of HQ - they lead to Reality Rooms) are capable of breaking into World One, which the theory says shouldn't happen; they should only lead to Word Worlds. It's almost as though the 'Real World' is just a fictionalised version of some world where a bunch of people, let's call them the 'PPC Board', sit around writing stories about the PPC... <>>

hS

In the Myst series, which has Word Worlds of its own (after a fashion), a major point was that capital-'W' Writers did not create the places described in their Books, but simply established links to worlds that had previously existed. I think that World 1 is similar, in that all of the canon worlds are as real as 1 but don't really have any reference relating them to it until their stories are written*. World 1 isn't "special" except as a place where many such links originate.**

This seems to fit with the origins of the PPC in that the Flowers directly entered World 1 from outside of it without anything about them first being written here.


The long and short of is that explaining World 1's basic nature would be as "simple" as explaining any alternate universe: "It's just like your Earth was in 2014, only there are no Forerunner ruins"; "It's just like your Earth, only wizards don't exist"; "It's another world called Earth, where there are only Men and everyone uses something called "electrical technology" instead of magic." Explaining the existential aspects requires a good understanding of the weird stuff up above, but once that's done there really isn't much to it other than "World 1 is what's on the other end of one of your connections and they were the ones who initiated it."

*I don't think they're fully-formed but inaccessible, but that's where things get weird. I'm imagining them in a sort of possibility flux where they aren't fully-realized so much as just potential- if you have a background in computer science you can think of them as constantly-shifting garbage data that has yet to be referenced, with the canon work acting as a pointer or filesystem that makes them comprehensible and stable; if you have a background in physics you can think of them as in a state of superposition, or as a quantum foam; if you have no background in either of these areas I don't really know how to explain it and it's probably too esoteric to matter anyway so why did I just type this monster paragraph?

** This does imply that when an author changes things in a story, the old story is still around and the "changed" one is just a slightly different universe that has always been that way, that the pointer "Star Trek" now direct to instead. That in turn opens up the possibility of "cloning" vast numbers of essentially the same character or object by collecting instances of them from other versions of their story that are only slightly altered... in the Myst series Linking was elastic in that very slight changes could be written and propagated through the Link to actually alter the world they were in, whereas large ones would just change the Link to point to a different world.

The problem with explaining the Real World, at least to me, is that anything we have to compare it to is a man-made creation. Trying to explain what World One is like to someone in Godzilla!New York would boil down to "it's like your world, but no giant monsters destroying cities." Personally, I think the best way to handle that would be to show said Agent the source material for their world, explaining that in our world, they don't actually exist. Of course, being told that you don't exist might cause some mental issues in the form of an existential crisis, but the concept of alternate universes is confusing at best anyway.

This is probably going to sound silly but...
Whilst on the Gathering are wee going to call each other by our usernames, our real names or just gesture vaguely and hope everyone kind of understands who we mean?

Got my train tickets booked, now I've just got to hope the holiday club I'm doing this week doesn't tire me out too much.

Sorry I didn't respond before - my computer fried and I'm only online now thanks to my mum letting me borrow hers until replacement is affordable. But Lycaenion and I can definitely confirm attendance - and since our hotel insists we check out by 11 am, we're likely to be there earlyish.

(She's arriving on Thursday, so we figured better to just make the short trip from Gatwick and stay 2 days in London than go all the way back Oop North and back down again in the same span of time.)

Hi, hS and London Gathering people!

I doubt any of you remember me, but I used to hang out here something like five or six years ago (Eru help me, where did the time go?). I was never a very loud voice, but I made some of my best friends through the PPC. I hadn't checked the Board in uncounted ages, but Araeph happened to be checking the Board and pointed me here because, well...

Quite by happy coincidence, I am visiting London for about the next two weeks!

SO HI, you're getting an unexpected tag-along, if that's okay!

~ Lee

I just thought that the replies should consist of more than people saying they can't make it.

But I can't. I also wish there were more PPC-ians in Australia, so we could have a Gathering here. But...as far as I can tell, I'm one of two. Have fun, and give us a report!

I'll definitely be coming along next year, but until then, make sure to take lots of pictures!