Jan 2015 Archive, part a

And to think I just got used to writing 2014. Oh well. As for resolutions, I'll shoot for actually getting my first mission out.

Hoo boy, can I just take a moment to point out how amazing the present is?

We have robots that clean up our living rooms, computer programs that can simulate worlds hundreds of miles wide and an intercontinental web that allows people in California to regularly interact and share ideas with people all the way in the UK. We might not be zooming through chrome cities in our hovercars, but the world right now is kind of amazing. I very much look forward to the coming years.

But as for this year I resolve, for starters, to start writing again (and perhaps to actually put in a Permission Request for the first time in... what, two years?). Also, more personally, I resolve to get my own place, and travel to somewhere I've never been to, perhaps not in that order.

................oh, right, I totally forgot about those resolution thingers. Well, if anything, my only resolution was to get my WoW priest to level 100 today, but that won't exactly be difficult, so... I got nothin'.

Well, I guess missioning Little Miss Mary and Rose Potter might also count.

Also, wow, black belt? That's so cool! In what?

I've kinda never made those.

I guess I want to save money for a gaming PC.

Anyway, lookin' good so far, everyone! Might as well throw in my lot since I started this thing! :D

From RC #227:
Rashida: She'll will be hosting the event, so she won't bring anything. Not that she'd want to, anyway...
Falchion: The coprolite mini-Boulder, shit ruond. He had it wrapped in an airtight package because the smell would be overpowering otherwise!
Sarah: A glitter-stained crowbar. It originally belonged to her mother, but she gave it up once her homefic was killed.

From RC #133,316,666:
Rayner: The severed horn of Not!Sombra, the MLP Character Replacement from his first mission with his new partner.
E.V.L.: From the same mission, a necklace ganked from the fic's Sue, with an alicorn-shaped pendant.

@Iximaz: If you'd be happy to help, I'll gladly take two more slots! Eight Boarders means at least 16 agents... Man, this will be a doozy! (Though to be fair, the gift-exchange event at the party I attended had at least 28 people involved...)

Awesome, let's do this!

Chris: a photo of Meganium and Mareep being cute
Ami Seeker: four bars of Bleepolate
Trainee Miguel Correa: cyndaquil the mini-Missingno (ghost form). If minis don't count, he'll give one of those neat iPod cases that look like Game Boys instead.

I'll throw my DIA Special Response team in here and see what happens.

Emiranlanoamar, AKA the Guardsman: An Improved Outer Tactical Vest, ballistic plates included.

Naya'Keegan vas Iktomi: A Lancer VIII rifle with the user manual, spare parts, and maintenance kit.

Terabyte: A CD set of Mozart's operas.

The Librarian is too much of a jerk to bring presents, so Agent Des will probably bring a packet of Stygian Tea inside a genuine adamantine box - the box is probably worth more than the tea - for both of them.

I have a bunch of agents and non-missioning folk, but let's go with these guys:

Narav: one pelt of a color-changing lioness CAF
Lana: a zweihander with ice-related magic
Riaa'lzhor: a set of rune-engraved throwing knives. The runes do nothing, but they look neat.

Is it because any more would be too much to handle? Because I'd help coordinate if that's the case. Anyway!

Rina and Randa will be bringing an egg Dogwig laid in a present marked as 'FRAGILE', complete with incubator obtained from the DoSAT.

I'm not sure if I still count as a newbie or not... I think I've been around a month (or two? hard to remember) or so now.

As for gifts, have a transparent kitten!

Hellos, and welcome to the Board!

As a welcoming present, I give you a box slightly used Christmas lights. I'm sure that most of them still work!

What would you say that your favorite Broadway play/musical is? I'm personally a huge fan of Wicked.

I want to thank you all very much! Such a warm welcome, and such a plethora of fantastic presents!
I think I'm going to like it here.

Awesome, you've done the required reading. :) Let's see what I can give you...

*rummages through closet*
A-ha! A box of red pens! Hope they all still have ink in them :P

Welcome to the PPC! Here, have a bola slingshot crossbow handcart with a *slight* calibration issue. Glad i'm not the newest boarder anymore. (no idea why I did not like that fact in the first place though...)

Hi, hello, greetings, et cetera! Have this cup of tea, with the accompanying scones and jam - just don't let the leaves eat you.

No need to apologize for the post, especially since it's based on the FAQ. It's always nice to see newbies show up, so have a juice box and a chainsaw. Because what could go wrong with indiscriminately handing out chainsaws?

Have a bag of holding for all the other gifts--don't worry, it has pockets so you won't lose anything inside. Your fanfic critiques sound fun; any particular fics you've gone after?

Have a shovel and a vial of scorpion-woman venom! Don't let this in your bloodstream, you'll be paralyzed for several minutes.

Have a Golden Snitch, an eight-bit Triforce, and one of my own shed feathers (Careful, it's sharp!)!

Have a snarling pocket-humpback whale! If the urple bow around its neck becomes too much, feel free to remove it.

So, hi! Welcome to the PPC! Hope you like it here!

please say you're a Brood War veteran pleasepleaseplease

Welcome to the Board, Ô first newbie of 2015! Have some of my hydrophobic water to commemorate the event. Not suitable for adults 18 and over.

Bio student, eh? As a physics major I have to admit that I don't really understand what you guys do in class. Memorize stuff? Write essays?

Broadway, huh? Have a copy of the Grimmerie, though there aren't any gurantees on readability. Anyways, I hope you enjoy your time here!

"Was that the last one?" asked Falchion.
Rashida checked the list. "Yes, actually, I believe it was the last one. So yes, thank you for attending. Now, run along back to your RCs. I'm tired..."
"Wait, wait! Guys, the countdown's about to end!" Sarah cried excitedly.
"We've got thirty seconds to go," said E.V.L. "Just give all of us this one chance?"
Falchion gave his partner a pleading look. "Rashida... This is our first time hosting this event. And we're so close to the finale. At least let us celebrate the stroke of midnight."
Rashida facepawed. "Okay, fine. Just leave me out of it..."
"Actually, I wanted to give you something too. Wait, wait! Ten seconds to go!"
The party goers looked at Rashida's digital sundial, unanimously counting the seconds until the clock showed midnight.
"Nine!"
"Eight!"
"Seven!"
"Six!"
"Five!"
"Four!"
"Three!"
"Two!"
"One!"
"HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!"
Everyone who was in the mood to cheer did so, throwing confetti, cakefetti, and other assorted miscellanies all over the place. Falchion thankfully resisted the urge to throw Spikes as well.
"So... About that gift?" asked Rashida.
Falchion nodded, pulling open a nearby drawer with his beak, and took out several small, black balls, which he offered to her. "I wanted to give you these."
She took them in surprise, turning them over in her hands. "What are they?"
"Dark Balls. A type of Poké Ball from my home continuum - the fourth movie of the anime specifically. I got them from the training mission with Chris and Ami. I told you about a while ago." He nodded to them before continuing. "They were originally used to capture some legendary Pokémon, but I was thinking that they could be modified to quarantine any CAFs we may eventually rescue, so I figured, well..."
She looked at him, her red-pink eyes wide. "You wanted to... give these to me?"
He looked at her with a disappointed expression. "If you don’t want them, well..."
To his complete surprise, she hugged him. In front of everyone.
"I never received a gift from anyone at the PPC. I don't know what to say..."
"You're welcome," replied Falchion. "And Happy New Year to you too."
"Yo, birdie!" Rayner called out to them. "When we're done, can E.V.L. and I stick around for a bit? You may need some extra help to clean up all this confetti!"
If Falchion could have blushed, he would have. "Oh, right... I forgot you didn't like having confetti all over our RC..."
Rashida facepawed again. "This is going to be a long 2015."

[END]

**********

A/N: That took a *lot* longer than I thought it would, but it looks like this RP is officially complete. Thanks for participating, everyone! Hopefully, next year's Gift Exchange won't take two months instead of one. XD

She was far too nice to steal someone else's gift (and most of them looked kind of weird anyway), so she levitated the final package over to her. She untied the bright yellow ribbon and draped it loosely around her hat.

"Ami...?" Miguel began.

"What? It might come in handy someday." She set the box down, then knelt and used her hooves to open it. "Ooo, cookies! I think they're chocolate chip, too! Wait, they're oatmeal raisin...no, chocolate...What the hay is this?"

Fiorano stood up and walked over to the pile, where only two presents were left. She closed her eyes and grabbed randomly. She picked up a thin package, and, after tearing it open, held out a bar of Bleepolate. "Uh. OK then."

Rashida nudged Falchion with her wing. "Your turn, you stupid bird..."
"Huh? Oh, right!"
The Skarmory stood up, strutting towards the pile, and wondering if he should pick anything. Then he noticed a glint of something metallic...
"You know what, I might as well save myself the trouble of trying to open a present," he said with a mischevious smirk. "Rina, Randa, can I have that watch, please? Hopefully, that'll give you ladies the opportunity to nab a certain something..."
Sarah had to struggle to hold in another fit of giggles.
Rashida meanwhile huffed and rolled her eyes at her partner. "Un. Believable."

"Keelah, what is that thing?" grumbled Naya as she fumbled with the underside of her helmet. "Hang on a second, I just have to..." The quarian pushed a button and twisted a valve under her helmet's chin piece. "There we go. Much better."

The Guardsman, who had pulled a respirator over his face, chuckled at his partner. "Closed off the air intake valve, eh?"

"Yeah. I'll enough air for another hour; I don't feel like scrubbing my suit's olfactory filters today."

"Naya, I believe it is your turn." said Terabyte, raising a finger.

"Oh, is it? Well, then let's see..."

The quarian woman stood up and examined the remaining gifts. There were several small boxes, one oddly-shaped lump, and a long box. She settled on the latter and returned to her seat. She united the strings that held down the box's lid and carefully opened the lid lest another malodorous mini pop out of it. A glint of polished wood caught her eye. She lifted the lid a little further. In the box sat a rifle made of a handsome light blue wood featuring a gold-and-silver hammer, trigger, and sights. Naya carefully lifted the weapon out of the box with both hands.

"My word... now that is what you call a gift," whispered the quarian. She span around in her seat, making sure there was nobody in front of her, and squinted down the rifle's sights while keeping the weapon pointed at the ground. "Iron sights... not bad. Not too heavy, either..." She returned the rifle to her lap and ran a finger along the decoration on the rifle's stock. After a moment, Naya rose her head and addressed the room. "Just a question, though: does the previous owner of this weapon know what this thing fires? It's not muzzle-loading, is it?"

"Who cares?" said the Guardsman. "Look at the thing. It's beautiful!"

Ami, Chris, and Miguel edged away from Ari and the mini-Boulder. "Is there a way to politely tell someone their present's making you nauseous?" Miguel whispered.

"Probably not," Ami whispered back. "We'll just have to deal with it for now." She nudged Chris' arm. "It's your turn, by the way."

Chris picked a large, square present with snowman wrapping paper from the bottom of the pile. "Oof! What is this, a block of iron?" He opened it to reveal a thick book titled "The Unabridged Guide to Poisons." "...Well, that's morbid."

"Useful, though," said Miguel with a shrug.

Cepha glared at Des. "Well, how exactly is Amara supposed to know that? There's no label on the box or anything! And anyways -"

Fiorano coughed. "Uh, not to interrupt, but it's your turn."

Cepha made a hmph sound and walked over to the pile, grabbing a thin box out of the (now significantly reduced) pile and tore it open, holding up a unicorn horn. "Uh. Kinda a morbid gift to give, but all right."

Ari stood up. "Oh, it's my turn now, right?" She walked up and picked a sealed box. "Wow, this is shut up tightly," she muttered as she pried it open. "There we go, and - what is that smell Why -" she covered her nose as a mini crawled out.

"I thought the crowbar was from me!" Sarah piped up indignantly. "We'll, my mom, technically, but still!"
E.V.L. ignored her complaint as she stood up and stalked towards the pile. After a few moments' deliberation, she picked up a rather large box. A rather glitchy sound came from the inside.
As soon as she returned to her place next to Rayner, she opened the box - and out popped a pixelated ghost!
Rayner practically jumped out of his skin. "What in Equestria?!..."

"Is it out turn now?" Rina asked, standing up. "It is? Okay!" She pointed at Tera. "Crowbar, please!"

Randa smacked her lightly on the arm. "Hey now, you can't be wasting our present on yourself," she chided.

Rina pouted. "Oh, fine." She picked up a little box instead. "How about this?" She handed it over to Randa, who tore off the paper in one swift movement. Both girls' eyes went huge.

"Is this what I think it is?" Randa asked, holding up a replica of Dumbledore's pocket watch.

Rina could only squee.

"You, machine. Hand over the scarf."

Terabyte, who had been alternating between practicing to tie the scarf around its shoulders and feeling the fabric slide between its digits, froze in mid-motion and slowly looked up at the Librarian. Its camera-eyes dimmed and its three-fingered hands tightened around the fabric, then relaxed.

"Acknowledged," said the geth as it slowly undid the knot at its neck.

Upon seeing her partner visibly disappointed with this turn of events, Naya leaned towards the robot and coughed: "Takebacksies."

The geth turned to its quarian partner. "Message not received."

From Terabyte's other side, the Guardsman said: "He stole it from you, so you're now in play. You have the option to pick a gift from the pile or you can... steal someone's gift."

Realization flitted across Terabyte's face-- insomuch as emotion can be read from two luminous camera-eyes and a set of metal plates that might be considered eyebrows-- and the geth carefully folded up the scarf and walked over to the Librarian. The sentient AI gave the Time Lord the scarf, took a step back, then extended its right arm. "You, Gallifreyan. Hand over the scarf."

Terabyte looked back at its partners, then back at the Librarian. "Please," it added.

“Here,” Des said, “catch.” After making sure the safety was on, he nonchalantly threw the rifle to Rayner.
He turned to Cepha. “You really can't appreciate it, can't you? First things first, that box is pure adamentine. Have you any idea how much this thing is worth? Some fantasy world races would kill for a box like that one. Second, these aren't just “dried leaves”, dammit! It's Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe-quality Stygian Tea, which is, bar none, the best tea in the whole multiverse.” The bearded human pouted. “So show some respect.”
The Librarian, meanwhile, got up. “You, machine,” he told Terabyte. “Hand over the scarf.”

Rayner's mild interest in Miguel and his friends discussing their new present was cut short by his partner poking him again with her tail.
"Hey Pony Boy," she muttered in a clearly uninterested tone, "it's your turn."
"Huh? Oh, right!" He stood up and brushed back his multicolored hair, grinning in triumph.
"Y'know what, I might as well throw this gift-giving conga line a curveball and steal from somebody." He turned and pointed at Des and the Librarian. "The rifle, if you please!"
E.V.L. gave him a look that practically screamed, "What in Cocytus are you thinking?!"
"In case I need to off a Sue without making too much of a mess," he explained. The ex-Ficubus, unsurprisingly, did not look relieved at all.

((For realsies this time.))
Miguel Correa glanced at the index card labeled "10" in his left hand. "Oh, it's my turn," he noted. "Chris, Ami, do you think I should introduce myself? I don't know anyone here besides Falchion, and..."

"If it makes you feel better, neither do we," Chris replied.

"It's kind of exciting, actually," Ami said, giggling. "Like we're meeting celebrities!"

Miguel laughed, too. "Thanks for the perspective, Ami." He picked a medium-sized box with snowman wrapping paper from the bottom of the pile. "Well, this looks interesting."

He opened it and was met with three very familiar smiling faces--Totoro (and his two nameless buddies), Mei, and Satsuki. "YES! We got some Hayao Miyazaki movies!"

Chris and Ami perked up instantly. "Excellent! How many?"

"Lemme check..." Miguel turned the box around and counted the DVDs. "Whoo, almost twenty. Which one should we watch first?"

((Hey, Skarmory. Just a heads-up: I done goofed and accidentally attributed the Grandine rifle to Des in one of my replies. Make sure to change it to the Lancer!))
- - - - -

As Amara puzzled over the tea leaves, Terabyte stood up and wandered over towards the coffee table. The robotic agent stared at the gift pile for a couple of seconds and grabbed a soft-looking package. The geth returned to its seat and, with machine precision, unwrapped the gift without tearing the wrapping paper. The robot lifted a faintly glowing red scarf out of the package and admired it.

"A scarf!" exclaimed the Artificial Intelligence as it ran its mech-digits though the knitted fabric. "It is very... pretty. I like it," said Terabyte as it tied the scarf around its neck.

Behind her opaque visor, Naya arched an eyebrow. "I think that's the first time you said you found something pretty. Keelah, that's so weird."

The Guardsman fake-wiped a tear from his eye. "Lookit, Naya. Our machine intelligence of a partner is learning the meaning of beauty! I'm so proud of him!"

"Don't ruin the moment, you jerk," shot back Naya with a playful swipe at her partner's shoulder.

Cepha poked Amara in the side. The former Witch glanced up from where she had been knitting (what she had been knitting was indeterminable, given that she was using her hair-hands and regular hands at the same time.) "What is it?"

"It's your turn to go up and pick." Cepha nodded at the pile.

Amara set down her needles and walked over, staring intently at the presents before picking up a box and heading over to where the RC 1.877, 97, and 8888 groups had been sitting. She tore off the paper and held up a metal box. She pulled the lid off and frowned. "A metal box full of dried and shredded plants?"

((I'm going to ignore Eatpraylove's post. Seriously: not cool, dude.))

“Why am I even here?” asked the Librarian. He was sitting in a corner, as far away from everybody else as possible, having decided that leaning on the walls wasn't a good idea after having some Sar-plasm stick to his coat.
“Socialisation,” Des reminded him as he browsed the pile of gifts. The Librarian huffed, and Des gave him a doubting look before returning to the pile. He sat down, closed his eyes, and put his hand on a random gift. He picked it up – it was long and not quite light. Tearing the wrapping off, he revealed a vaguely ellipsoid rifle.
“Well, well, like I didn't have enough of those.”

Miguel cleared his throat nervously. "Hello, everyone, my name's Miguel..."

"Hello, Miguel," half the crowd responded in their best Alcoholics Anonymous voices.

"Very funny. Uh, I'm working with Chris and Ami--" he indicated his partners "--and I hope I get to meet some of you later, once I know what I'm doing." He took a random large gift from the pile and opened it. "...A Guide to Poisons? Wow, that's morbid."

"Useful, though," Chris said with a shrug

Tera looked at the crowbar. " Doubt I'll be able to copy that trick."

Lana grinned. "Ah, that one's mine. Got it off an ATLA fic, if I remember right."

Narav considered the gameboard before moving one of his High Lord figures a few squares forward. "Ah, I believe I'm next?" He loped over to the pile and plucked out a small rectangular package out of the pile before walking back. The Canim, noticing that Theia had made her move, captured one of her Steadholder pieces and opened his gift, holding up a CD set. "Hm."

Lana and Riaa looked at their numbers. "Us now, I guess?" asked the drider. The two walked over and each grabbed a present out of the heap. Riaa tore hers open, holding up an oddly-shaped pendant, while Lana unwrapped a heavy camoflage vest. "Huh. This looks durable," the former Smoke Knight noted.

[A/N: If any of you recognize the gifts belonging to your agents, feel free to respond to the recipients with their reactions!]

Sarah burst out laughing. "That crowbar belonged to my mother! I wasn't there to see it, but from what I heard, she was able to store it inside her cleavage! Don't ask how that works, seriously..."
A number of other players burst out laughing, the rest of them murmuring amongst each other in a mixture of confusion and amusement.
"All right, my turn!" Sarah cheered, stepping up to the pile. After a few seconds' deliberation, she picked up a rather long package, moved back to her place next to her brother, and opened it up.
"Brrrr, is it cold in here or is it just me?" she asked, picking up the two-handed sword whose blade seemed to exude some kind of frosty vapor.
"Careful!" Rashida snarled before her partner could swing it around. "You could take someone's head off with that!"

Agent Theia looked at her number. "Guess I'm going first, then?" She asked. She stood up from where she'd been playing ludus with Agent Narav and prodded Tera.

"What?"
"You're number 2, aren't you?" Theia nodded at the slip of paper in Tera's claws. The two agents walked up to the gift heap. "Well, let's see then." She looked at the variously-shaped presents and grabbed a gift wrapped in paper with pictures of cheery zombies on it and went back to her spot, moving her Steadholder piece up to the skyboard.

Tera frowned at the heap. " So I shall take... this one! " She grabbed an oblong present and headed back to where she had been working her way through a small hill of holiday cookies.

Just looking at their Recent Activity... how does a page like Jackunzel (the Jack Frost/Rapunzel pairing, it turns out) end up with 500 comments, and 42 attached pictures, and 20 linked fanfics? The wiki itself only has 500 pages - how on earth is there that much activity on just one random page?

No, seriously. Honest question. I understand the PPC Wiki being large - we have a unified fandom which may well be unique, come to think of it - but this is... surely nothing more than a list of popular crossovers? How do people even find it, let alone decide to post endless comments?

hS is a baffled hS

Seems to me this is a question for people who are fans of this crossover universe. There might be some here, you never know, but someone else's fanon wiki isn't really the concern of the PPC at large. According to the RotBTD wiki, it's big on Tumblr. Maybe look there for support?

(And by the way, hi! Nice to see you here. ^_^ Sorry I didn't greet you in your intro thread; I was busy when you posted it and I never quite got back around to it.)

~Neshomeh

I mean, we write all these violent psychopaths, but they all spend their time focussed on their jobs. We know that there's a Department of Internal Affairs, and we know they've been expanding recently - but we don't have much information as to why. There must be agents being locked up to necessitate the existence of a jail, right?

So what could you do, with access to all the multiverse's Stuff(TM)? Political power in your home universe? If you could get a Sue to serve you and use their reality-warping powers on important people, you could pull it off (think of whichever Thursday Next book it was that happened in). Selling addictive drugs? I'm sure something in a Sue's body must qualify.

And if you go outside the realm of strictly Sue exploitation, you've got Morgan's little breakdown, or even something as simple as mass-producing invisible yarn. So maybe it's best to stay focussed on your original question...

As Cassie said, exploiting the stuff we're here to oppose would get you punished - if you were caught. So the trick is not to get caught...

hS

Also, who are you? Just in case you're a newbie, have some extra-buttery popcorn!

At one point the entire PPC was doing that, under the leadership of the Mysterious Somebody. Materials harvested from Suefics were being sold to canon worlds to create revenue for the PPC. Given what else was going on and linked to it (see: The Reorganisation), it shouldn't come as a surprise that all such things were eventually clamped down on with extreme prejudice. Anyone caught doing such things now would likely be severely punished.

Fixed. But if they're going to keep doing this, I'll seriously consider moving the entire site over to Google's recently-released HTML-capable Drive addon. I don't want to do that, because of the amount of work involved, but at this point...

Thanks, Cassie, for letting me know.

hS

The continuum is quarantined because the author has asked that no-one write fanfic about it, and we in the PPC respect that. Writing about a creature from that continuum - even a miniature version - would be writing fanfic of it. So no.

hS

If I edit anything more significant than, say, removing a category, I go to a blank page with the URL having action=submit added to the page name. The edits are still saved, so I shrugged and kept going.

It sounds like you're having some kind of connection issue.

While we're on the subject of the wiki, though, could I ask you to please stop editing for matters of simple word choice? One of the first things I learned in my editing internship was never edit unless you can back it up with the rules; you let the author use their own voice as much as possible. For instance, on the Mary Sue page, you recently changed "does not" to "doesn't" and "there's the rub" to "there we have the main problem". The first change doesn't do a thing to aid clarity and actually de-emphasizes a statement I was trying to emphasize, and the second merely replaces an informal turn of phrase with a formal one. Not only are those kinds of changes unnecessary—the first in particular, and the second because PPC Wiki should not be as dry as a textbook—they're also mildly insulting when they're done on pages I wrote. I know I'm not perfect, and I don't mind edits that improve clarity or straighten out backward phrasing, but editing simply because you would have used different words to say the same thing is not cool. Please don't.

~Neshomeh

Depending on what you chose, you might have to come up with a visual appearance for some really weird concepts--we have punctuation showers and Words already, but what's a line break going to look like? A tidal wave of hyphens?

Of course, I'd need to consult with Randa on letting someone borrow her agent... If there was a mission I'd give you, it would probably be the one with the Sue who turned into a loin. It's short and, best of all, you wouldn't need to worry about pretty background art due to the lack of description the setting got. ;)

Also, lucky you! I already have my RC's floor plan mapped out- all I'd need to do would be scan and upload it.

...in script format. I'll post here with the result some time later this week.

...the thing is, my missions are so ridonkeybonkulously (is that even a word?) long that making comics of them could take months, if not years. For example, the first one - and the most likely to be adapted for the sake of character introduction - is 87 pages long, and in comic form it'd practically be a graphic novel!

My collab with eatpraylove may be short enough to qualify, though. If she's okay with it too, that is.

First of all, though, do you and/or your friend have permission to write PPC stories? You'd need that to write a comic about your agents, too, since it would still be a thing set in the PPC universe.

That said, two questions:

1. Do you have samples of your work posted somewhere we could take a look?

2. What exactly do you need in a script that you wouldn't get working straight from the text of an existing mission?

Finally, a word of caution: Others have attempted to make PPC comics in the past, and aside from Generic Surface, which was made with photos of Lego sculptures, none have succeeded that I'm aware of. Writing a mission is a lot of work, and illustrating one would be a lot MORE work. I hope you know what you're getting into!

~Neshomeh

The light-creatures from In the Forest of the Night - the Here, according to the subtitles - are Vashta Nerada.

Both species have a strong connection with trees - the Vashta are ubiquitous in arboreal environments, while the Here identify themselves as the lifeforce or spirit of trees. Both are nearly-invisible specks in the air, not pulled down by gravity. Both are capable of rational thought, at least in large numbers, but can't communicate except by convoluted methods (memory chips, psychic crazy girls). And, of course, the episode titles of 'Forest of the Dead' and '(In the) Forest of the Night' are pretty close together.

Yes, the Vashta Nerada were malevolent, while the Here protected the earth - but both acted in response to a threat to their habitat. In the Library, they were living in processed wood, which can't have been very comfortable for them if they're intimately connected to trees. People wandering around reading the books was a threat to them. Back on Earth, the solar flare would have wiped them out; they weren't protecting humanity per se, so much as their own ecosystem.

And of course there's one other related species (in the new series): given another five billion years of evolution, the Vashta Nerada will learn to inhabit and 'awaken' the trees they're linked to. Ultimately, their line will lead to the Forest of Cheem, and to Jabe, who was present when the sun finally overwhelmed the Earth.

hS

Coming to you live from the dimmer recesses of my brain and bits of a mostly-forgotten physics education, may I present:

The magic of Harry Potter is actually a quantum field effect with observable results in a macro-scale universe.

Hear me out on this. The Potterverse is a strange, strange place at the best of time, but one of the more consistent bits of weirdness is the idea - patently wrong - that "Muggle technology" doesn't work at Hogwarts. Okay, I get that J.K. probably meant "Muggle science" by that (which doesn't really work either, unless - ah, but that's a discussion for another day), but she used a specific term and I'm running with it.

See, Muggle technology does work in the Wizarding World. We see the great spinning gear setups and locking-bars of the vault doors at Gringotts - mechanisms that work in harmony with magical defences, including whatever the Thief's Downfall is and a dragon (of the non-literal-five-headed variety). Hagrid has a dirty great crossbow firing bolts the size of a small tree, and crossbows (even hand-draw ones) are complicated bits of kit. The Flying Ford Anglia seems perfectly content in the grounds, though I'm not too super-duper sure that that one counts since it's kept going by magic kind of sorta maybe a bit but the headlights work and guh weird.

So, we know that mechanical stuff works. We also see in the films that Luna's knackered Converse (her trackie bottoms tucked in socks, alas, remain unpictured; anyone getting that reference deserves prizes) don't dissolve or anything, so we can safely assume that modern materials like plastics and so forth aren't subject to the effects. However, I'd wager that with the advent of portable electronics - presumably battery-operated torches, Walkmans, boomboxes, digital alarm clocks, and so forth, I mean, it's set from the early-Seventies to mid-Nineties - stuff started going haywire. Why?

Field interference.

See, if we look at magic as an observable phenomenon able to be replicated under laboratory conditions, which it is, assuming there's a wizard in the lab, it becomes obvious. "Magic" is some sort of deeply weird quantum field - and since every field has an associated particle, that's what is interacting with the electronic artifacts brought into Hogwarts by Muggleborn students. If we also assume that magic particles - which I'll call "thaums" for convenience and because I, like everyone else here, am a colossal nerd - act like neutrinos, permeating the world around them and passing through like it ain't no thang. However, they disrupt other fields... like the electromagnetic field, for instance. Like the one you use to read this and parse it into knowledge, also known as brain activity.

Major disruptions would probably cause strokes and so forth, but there's going to be a subset of people who can use it for some biological advantage. But that brings up the old saw of "Why isn't magic evolutionarily selected for?" To which I respond: see previous sentence. Perhaps the rates of strokes and brain damage and so forth were too great in those hypersensitive to this field - something that, even after the advent of effective medical care (which, for all its faults, the Wizarding World got to long before the Muggle one did) - meant that for the longest time, the trait was simply unprofitable from a genetic standpoint. But then someone figures out a healing spell, and everything changes.

BTW, healing spells and stuff that directly affects living matter, like transfiguration? I'd wager that was the first stuff to be discovered... though probably after some kind of proto-Killing Curse. People are warlike. I haven't got that much more to say on that, tbh. It doesn't interest me

Now, though... now there are effective treatments. It's like a genetic defect that people live with, like a tendency towards sickle-cell anaemia or something, it just happens to come with the side effects of flying broomsticks and magical creatures (which I accept this theory does little to explain, though I'd wager they came first). Magic users are, through good old genetic altruism, allowing other magic users to survive and thrive, getting a hold of their powers so that their heads do not a splode. Perhaps that's what Merlin was, the last of the really sensitive wizards. Perhaps magic's slowly coming back, finding a level between Muggle and "Ka-Boom Oopsie There Go My Eyeballs" that's suitable for further recreation.

There's an awful lot of perhapses here, but I think it's okay.

Also, this is wobblestheclown, rebranded and revamped and hopefully less of an angry tosspot this time around.

=]

The mild one: Mia from Power Rangers Samurai has anosmia/hyposmia--extremely decreased or nonexistent sense of smell. This is why she is so bad at cooking. Her sense of taste is skewed and she doesn't notice when her food is burning because she can't smell the smoke.

The crazy one: Tommy Oliver is a paradox. A few years after he started as a Ranger, the Wizard of Darkness (a minor villain) created a clone of him, which ended up getting sent back to the 1700's. Since it was created through magic, this clone was immortal and unable to age, and was thus the same man who became the legendary White Stranger in 1880.

At some point in the late 20th century he was adopted by the Olivers, and returned to Angel Grove, where he proceeded to get turned into Rita Repulsa's evil Green Ranger. Eventually he was turned good, and the bad guys started trying to get rid of his powers. Eventually they got to the point where using his morpher was dangerous--the power drain started him aging normally.

First and foremost, Pinkie Pie is able to warp reality the way she does (being places before Rainbow Dash, pulling stuff from behind her back, et cetera) because the Element of Laughter is a hybrid of harmony and chaos magic.

My reasoning is as follows:
--Pinkie's reality-warping shenanigans tend to happen in hilarious ways and/or where they'd further a joke. Discord, while (mostly) malicious, uses his chaos magic the same way.
--Pinkie and Discord are the only two characters "shown" to have Offscreen Teleportation and awareness of the fourth wall (enough to crack it), two things considered impossible for normal ponies. (Discord's not a pony, but the point stands.)
--Neither character has a real explanation for why they can do all of that beyond "that's just who they are." If anything defies explanation, it's chaos magic.
--Discord was clearly (as seen in the flashbacks in "Twilight's Kingdom") around at the time of Star Swirl (or whenever the Elements were created), who's to say he didn't have a claw in their creation?

We know that both Bill and Percy Weasley got twelve OWLs. Probably Barty Crouch Jr. also got twelve OWLs, although Barty Crouch Sr. may have talked about something he wishfully imagined. There may have been more unknown students who got twelve OWLs, and there should also be students who failed some OWLs, but had originally started to study twelve subjects in their third year. Why, then, did Hermione Granger need a Time-Turner in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, if it wasn’t just for conveniently having time travel available when it was needed?
 
There are seven obligatory subjects:  Astronomy, Charms, Configuration, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, History of Magic, and Potions (not counting Flying, because this is only for the first year). In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Chapter 14, Neville asks about Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, and Percy talks about Divination, Muggle Studies and Care of Magical Creatures, giving us a total of twelve subjects for the third year. Do we really know all optional subjects, or may there be at least one neither Percy nor Neville mentioned?
 
In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Chapter 4, Hermione shows Harry and Ron the books for all optional subjects: Arithmancy, Care of Magical Creatures, Divination, Study of Ancient Runes, Muggle Studies – and there she is conveniently interrupted by Ron. This is such a common trope that it practically shouts “There’s another optional subject not mentioned yet! Prepare for future surprises. “
 
In Chapter 6 of the same book, Ron tries to discuss how Hermione’s classes for Divination, Muggle Studies and Arithmancy are at the same time on one day. Hermione reacts so annoyed that Ron never dares to discuss what else he might have seen on her timetable for other days. In Chapter 16, we see that Hermione has to sit double exams for Arithmancy and Transfiguration at Monday morning, and for Charms and Ancient Runes at Monday afternoon, but then Harry and Ron just give up and don't look at the other days, because there isn’t any point in asking how she’s going to do this. Is it possible that JKR deliberately avoided showing us full timetables because she knew that there had to be a sixth optional subject somewhere, but she had not yet decided what it would be?
 
We never see Hermione’s full timetables in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire either. Could JKR still not think of a plausible sixth optional subject, that wouldn’t be covered in other classes? Or did she forget that she had never actually said what it is?
 
In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 31, at the last morning of the OWL examinations, Harry sits in the common room, reading through the notes he had borrowed from Hermione. After the Astronomy examination, Hagrid’s sacking and the aftermath at the previous evening, Ron is sleeping long. But wouldn’t sleeping long like Ron be out of character for Hermione? Shouldn’t she be right there, sharing her notes with Harry to prepare for the examination in History of Magic? Where is Hermione if she isn’t sitting another exam for the still mysterious sixth optional subject?
 
In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 5, Harry, Ron and Hermione receive their OWL results. Hermione got ten "Outstandings" and one "Exceeds Expectations". Since she gave up Divination and Muggle Studies when she returned the Time-Turner, Hermione had tried to do something that had never been accomplished before: studying thirteen subjects during her third year.
 
So there is a good reason for giving Hermione a Time-Turner. No, it’s not for letting her try to get thirteen OWLs. It’s for teaching her these important lessons:
Magic cannot do everything.
Your Heart’s Desire may always be out of reach.
Even if you can add some extra hours to your day, it’s still impossible to learn everything that can be learned.
 
Addendum 1:
Uh, what? A newer edition of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince says that Hermione got only nine "Outstandings"? Did somebody complain that eleven OWLs for Hermione is WRONG and should be edited, because this would require her to have started studying thirteen subjects while there are only twelve subjects available?
 
Fanon says that time travel isn’t really such a big secret and everybody who studies more than ten subjects at Hogwarts gets a Time-Turner. This theory is very popular because people just love to use time travel in their fan fiction. JKR tried to shoot it down on Pottermore, saying that time travel is really very dangerous and really top secret, and that Hermione was really the only student who ever used a Time-Turner at Hogwarts, but nobody believes her. That’s what you get when you listen to your readers and throw years of planning and deliberately writing around the mysterious subject out of the window because after so many years you don’t remember why the plot of your second book requires Hermione to get eleven OWLs in the sixth book.
 
Unfortunately the Department of Inaccuracies, even if it existed, can’t do anything about this.
 
Addendum 2:
Look, Ron, it isn’t too difficult. It took me only ten years, and I didn’t even lurk on Hermione’s timetables. BICIMTG is "Basics of Interspecies Communication: Introduction to Mermish, Troll and Gobbledegook".
 
It’s sufficiently magic, not covered in other classes, not requiring an additional teacher we have never seen, and Hermione never talked about it because she was just too curious whether Ron would ever figure it out on his own. (Thanks to Julia H. of the Harry Potter Lexicon Forum for suggesting that Professor Dumbledore could teach Mermish and probably also other languages.)
 
HG

I realized something about the Others and the chidren of the forest. They're not elves; they're fairies.

How do I figure? They're the Courts Unseelie (winter) and Seelie (summer) respectively.

Also, on Howland Reed: I think he represents the old gods, in the same way that Melisandre and Aeron respectively do for the Red and Drowned Gods. Deeply religious, hugely magical, a true connection with his gods (he's a crannogmen, so he knows the secrets of the children), and (more directly related to Melisandre), he has some connection with one of the implied Princes that were Promised (namely Jon Snow). Regardess of whether Jon is Ashara/Brandon's son or Rhaegar/Lyanna's, Howland knows who he really is.

...yeah, I might be anxious to meet this guy in the books.

I think Reddington isn't Liz's father- he's only ONE of her fathers. He and Liz's adopted father were lovers at one point.

Totally nuts, I know. >_>

As for why Lupin never contacted Harry to see how he was doing, I'm fairly sure Dumbledore made Harry's location not only a secret, but protected him from being found by anyone, regardless of their intentions. That would also explain why Harry never seemed to get any fanmail.

More specifically, he's the tiny fragment of Sauron's power left after the Ring was destroyed, plus whatever he's managed to (slowly and painfully) accumulate in the six thousand years in between.

The proof:

-They both rule over orcs/goblins.

-They both rule kingdoms which are supernaturally attuned to them - Mordor is evil because Sauron lives there, and the Labyrinth is merged with Jareth to the point that his face keeps showing up in the scenery.

-Jareth uses songs as magic (mostly 'As The World Falls Down' and 'Within You', though the latter failed). Sauron comes from a world literally created by magic singing.

-Jareth's all about Words of Power ("Say your right words, the goblins said..."). Sauron, again, comes from a setting where saying the right words is one way to invoke (innate) power ("Naur an edraith ammen! Naur dan i ngaurhoth!").

-They both try to trick people into saying powerful words - Sauron attempts to convince Finrod and Beren to swear "Death to light, to law, to love! Cursed be moon and stars above!" to prove they're really orcs. That would not have been a good idea.

-They both have an unhealthy obsession with specific brunettes - Luthien and Sarah.

-They both have far-viewing crystals.

-They both have the power to change people into goblins - Jareth implies it'll happen to Toby, while Sauron may well have been involved in the original creation of orcs from elves.

-They both have an unhealthy obsession with shiny things - Sauron and the Rings, Jareth and, uh, endless glitter.

-They both transform into flying creatures - a vampire for Sauron, a barn owl for Jareth.

-Just look at them:



Yeah, the Dark Lord is trying the whole 'Hi, I'm pretty and I bring you presents, just call me Annatar Jareth' thing again. And once again, he gets taken down by a girl. ;) Serves him right.

(Does this mean Hoggle needs to go on a quest to throw a bag of glitter into the Bog of Eternal Stench? I think it rather does)

hS, bringing the crazy ^_^

I know, I know - you thought he was all about the gold. And yeah, he likes the pretty jewellery as much as anyone. But Smaug is actually a vigilante anti-hero: righter of ancient wrongs, punisher of the guilty for their heinous crimes against dragonkind.

In the First Age, when Melkor still ruled as rightful king over Middle-earth, the dragons had their beginning. The greatest among them were Glaurung the Golden - the Father of Dragons - and Ancalagon the Black, first of the winged variety. Smaug, of course, must be descended from both of them, since he's winged (and a dragon); he also clearly identifies with Glaurung, since he's adopted the same aftername - 'the Golden', or 'Glóren' in Sindarin.

In all the years of the First Age, there were two occasions when dragons were defeated in major battles. First, when Glaurung fought in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, he was driven back to Angband in disgrace by masked dwarves. Second, when Ancalagon sallied forth in glory in the War of Wrath, he was brought down in ruin by the bearer of a Silmaril.

So imagine how Smaug feels when, after millennia of brooding on these ancient wrongs, he hears that a mountain full of dwarves (Glaurung's bane) have dug up a glowing jewel bearing more than a passing likeness to the Silmarilli (Ancalagon's last sight). At last, there is a chance to exact vengeance for the great dragons of old - and, along the way, to burn down a city of scruffy mortals very similar to the one who (wearing a dwarven helm, mark you) slew Glaurung the Golden himself.

And so Smaug the Avenger flew down from the North in flame, and all burned before his righteous wrath.

hS

I have a whole bunch of headcanons about most of my fandoms! Some are more crazy than others.

One Harry Potter headcanon that I have has to do with the reason why no one reported for the Dursley's for child abuse. If the obvious neglect and abuse had been reported, he would have been removed from the Dursley's home from the British equivalent of CPS. But then that would have broken the protection that he had from being there- in his mother's family's house- and it would be entirely possible that Harry would be at risk from Death Eaters harming him. My headcanon is that the abuse he suffered was noticed and reported. But the British CPS didn't investigate for whatever reason; probably an obliviate or two, and probably cast by Dumbledore- all a way to keep Harry alive until it was the right time for him to die, after all the Horcruxes were destroyed.

My craziest headcanon is for the Marvel universe. I believe that Age of Apocalypse Blink is really Pixie and Nightcrawler's daughter. Pixie isn't seen in AoA; but both Pixie and Kurt are teleporters. A pink teleporter plus a blue teleporter equals a purple teleporter. Plus, Pixie's pink hair is genetic; her mother has the same hair color, so it's plausible that her daughter will have pink hair as well. Blink also has eyes that are one solid color, just like Kurt. It is also implied that Sabretooth is Kurt's father in the AoA universe; if Blink was Kurt's daughter (and thus Sabretooth's granddaughter) it would explain why Sabretooth took her in.

Those are the two big ones that I can think of at the moment. If I think of any more I'll post them later!

Welcome to the PCC! Here, have a pen with urple ink.

Here is a bag of holding for all your other gifts--it does have pockets so you shouldn't lose anything inside. Do you have any favorite Agents so far?

-Waves-
-Sets a table with tea, scones and jam-
-Points to various stuff in the Board header-
-Heads off to his freezing office-
-Returns, having forgotten his beret behind-
Hello there.

Have a singing warthog! If the urple bow around its neck becomes too much, feel free to remove it. *serves up SPaGhetti*

Have one of my own shed feathers and a complimentary kit of Spikes!

Nice to meet a friend of an acquaintance. Have some peanut butter cookies and a knit blue scarf!

Good Girl-falls-into-Middle-earth fic has been done in that sense, with Don't Panic by Boz4PM and (I think?) Time Will Tell by Bombur Jo.

I've tried doing it for Mirkwood too but that didn't go well, but I'm sure it can be done. Since Mirkwood isn't really on the route of the Fellowship the closest she'd get to the Quest is if she rides to Rivendell with Legolas. I think doing Girl-Falls-Into-Middle-earth for Mirkwood would actually be interesting if someone took the time and effort to research and extrapolate to create an interesting world for the Wood-elves of Mirkwood. There's a lot that isn't covered in the books, so there's a lot to discover. Especially if she isn't turned into an elf or something and there's discussion of turning her over to the Lake-men or the people of Dale. Then you can do even more world-building, since there isn't a whole lot about the era between reclaiming the Lonely Mountain and the War of the Ring.

I've always been a bit iffy on creative curses like "Flaming Denethor" or "Jadis in a block of ice." They always felt unwieldy in most situations. I'm pretty sure I've written a post saying as much sometime before now, but my thoughts have evolved a bit. I think writing that workshop on speech helped.

Characterization shapes how someone speaks (and a bit of vice versa). Dialogue and word choice are informed by a character's background and personality. That means by extension, characterization also shapes how someone swears. Hot-headed Laura Dukes and happy-go-lucky Rachel Calendar are not necessarily going to be using the same curse words at the same rate.

The vast majority of curses are quick, forceful expressions. Even the invented fictional ones typically are: shazbot, frak, frell, bosh'tet, and so on. Big elaborate curses like "Radagast on a bunny sled" only work if they seem like something the character would say. I typically associate such profanity with either very large hams, the vaguely eccentric, or certain period piece characters. I could hear Bertie Wooster saying something like that, for example. ("Great Radagast on a bunny sled, Jeeves!")

Such phrases don't feel right coming out of the mouths of most agents, who are typically contemporary young adults. As such, having them say something like "Scottish Dain on a battle pig" feels a bit too much like the author stepping in and inserting something they think is humorous just because they can. It's very forced, in my view.

...may have been to remind the Abused!Legolas writers that yes, Thranduil does have a good hart.

Seriously, though, Melian did apparently learn a thing or two from Yavanna; the moose were probably domesticated in Doriath. And also, Doriath did have fairly decent relations with Nogrod and Belegost before the unchaining of Melkor, so the battle rams and battle hogs might date back quite a ways. Certainly by the time of the Battle of Unnumbered Tears.

But anyway, I'm trying to find a way to work out the expanded role of Dark Island in the VDT film. "Seven Swords for Dark Island", perhaps?

I have a theory that Peter Jackson has an overwhelming compulsion to make Legolas ride on things.

Think about it. He kept it down during Fellowship by thinking really hard about the boating scene, and by working out the tension during the Moria staircase surf (which I don't think involved Legolas, but I might be wrong). Then in Two Towers he let himself go a bit - Legolas got to ride on a horse, naturally, but also went shield-surfing at the Hornburg. By Return of the King, nothing could satisfy PJ but letting Legolas surf an entire Mumak (after riding on a boat and, oh yeah, an avalanche of skulls). Only a vestigal respect for the plot forced him to keep Legolas off the giant eagles at the end.

But okay, films over. He figured he'd gotten over it. Positive thinking and all that. Then The Hobbit comes up. Okay, fine. Deep breaths, Peter. He's not even in the first one - it'll be fine. You can do this. Good, good, we're past Rivendell, into the Misty Mountains...

... oh gods, this Stone Giant sequence is just like the staircase surf.

And from then on, the compulsion overwhelmed him. Trees, barrels full of dwarves, rooftops, probably boats and orcs as well, Legolas jumped on everything in Desolation. And by the time Five Armies rolled round, he simply couldn't keep himself from throwing Legolas onto falling towers, into the sky for bat-joyrides, up a load of freefalling stonework as if it were a staircase...

(On the other hand, would it be a PJ!M-e film if Legolas didn't engage in increasingly ridiculous stunts? And anyway, he made up for it all with the 'whoops, empty quiver' shot. Orli's face, good grief)

hS

... a perfect trio of curses. "Thranduil on a moose! (Elk? Megaloceros giganteus?)", "Radagast on a bunny sled!" and now, "Dain Ironfoot on a war pig!"
This makes me very happy. Also I believe someone, possible hS promised some sort of reward for whoever wrote a mission and had their agents use all three.

Doesn't Thorin's group do the goatlike 'hop vertically up a mountain' trick?

Giant animals... well, let's see. Historically, both Morgoth and the Valar bred giant animals (Carcharoth and Huan, respectively). There's also the Kine of Araw, which were giant oxen; they lived around Rhun, but were supposedly descended from Orome's cows. I always figured they were aurochs. And there is actually a giant boar in Middle-earth - the Boar of Everholt, which lived in Firienholt in Rohan, and was killed by Folca the king.

All of which suggests a theory, actually. The movie megafauna are:

-Mumakil
-The moose
-The boar
-The goats
-Technically the 'bats', though I'll come back to them.

All of those hail from the eastern areas of the world - the moose is the westernmost, and it's still way east. We know that Dain (in the movies) has contact with the other families of the dwarves, who live out east. We know that Thranduil has trade with Dorwinion (he drinks their wine) by way of Esgaroth - and Dorwinion is on the shores of Rhun.

So to answer your question: there is strong movie evidence that large animals live in the eastern lands - around Rhun, and also to the south of Mordor in the case of the Mumakil. Most of that territory is under Sauron's rule (by way of Khamul the Ringwraith at the time of The Hobbit); those areas which aren't would be struggling for any advantage over the Eastern Shadow. So yeah, breeding giant war steeds might well be a thing they did. And when you've got a breeding program, selling bits of it off is always worth considering.

Though, since I don't recall seeing any sign of Thorin's goats before he suddenly jumped on one - maybe those in particular are actually automata dug up from deep inside the Mountain? They certainly didn't seem to come in with Dain's company...

~

As for the bats - those did not look like bats to me. They looked more like Morgoth's fearsome flying messengers, the vampires - which we know Sauron once had command over (at least in part), and could transform into... hey, he's still using Wargs, why shouldn't he have a vampire breeding program in place too?

~

And, creative curses? "Oh, were-wyrms!"

hS

("We've got were-wyrm sign!" Come on, I can't have been the only one thinking that)

And was nearly late for a meeting. >.> But on the bright side, I got most of the ranting I wanted to do about these films out of my system, so I can spare you guys and avoid arguments like the Great Radagast Debate of 2012. ^_^

~Neshomeh, not fond of these films at all. (Except Smaug. Smaug was really cool, and I was sad when he died.)

That was longer than I expected! Some quite tricky questions in there, but I did my best to answer them all.

hS

Death's Daughter by My Harlequin Romance reviews
Even since Chase began to rule the world, with Omi at his side, the underworld has had an overload of souls. Enter Ako, Death's daughter, to sort the whole mess out. Finished
Rated: Fiction T - English - Supernatural/Adventure - Chapters: 13 - Words: 8,473 - Reviews: 36 - Favs: 7 - Follows: 4 - Updated: Nov 3, 2005 - Published: Oct 21, 2005 - Status: Complete

Sue, CAF, makes up Shen Gong Wu, makes up dumb Xiaolin Showdowns, is Death's Daughter, inserts Death into the Xiaolinverse. Augh, my head.

This complex is all about a Tales Sue.

You say Dafydd isn't here any more, and you'd be right - but that story dates from 2005.

So I think Lúthien Maglorien will be receiving a backdated visit from her purported father. Now to decide who to partner him with for it...

hS

I found a Suefic on FFNet. The Suethor has read the Silmarillion, knows that a male elf is called an "ellon," and knows details of the War of Wrath.

So why, oh, why, did she write a Suefic where a modern-Earth human dies and reincarnates as Ancalagon's adopted daughter, and plans on romancing Smaug?

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10508024/1/Draconic-Supremacy

Uurrrgghhh. This is all kinds of wrong... oh, and the Sue's dragon form has lavender scales. Yeah. *actually shudders IRL*

Didn't Isaiah/the PPC at large already deal with a Sue who romanced (one of) the Twins and Legolas? The reviews compliment the first author on her use of the Silmarillion (and even offer concrit!), so you'd think she'd have acknowledged the whole elves-marry-once-and-only-once thing. (Assuming the same OC is shipped with all three of them, of course.)

The second one sounds like the summary for a parody Suefi...il she mentions Fëanor's descendants. Speaking as someone who hasn't read the Silmarillion (yet)...seriously? Seriously?

And we see yet another Boarder overcome the shackles of an old shame. Good work, Rina!

However, there are a few things amiss with the mission:

1) In this segment, it takes a while to figure out who said what in the middle paragraph:

"Ooh, I wanna be in Hufflepuff!" Randa said. Rina looked at her.

"...said nobody in the history of forever," she said slowly. Randa kicked at her. "Ow! Randa, you know I didn't mean that!" Rina rubbed her shin. "I like Hufflepuffs too, come on!"

"Hufflepuff," Randa said firmly.

I eventually figured out that all of the quotes in the middle paragraph are Rina's lines, but the paragraphing threw me off. (You have Rina react at the end of the first paragraph, then start a new paragraph with a quote, so I expected a change in speaker back to Randa. The "she" in the paragraph muddied the water even more. Only the context of the rest of the paragraph cleared everything up.) Please allow me suggest a fix:

"Ooh, I wanna be in Hufflepuff!" Randa said.

Rina looked at her. "...said nobody in the history of forever," she said slowly.

Randa kicked at her.

"Ow! Randa, you know I didn't mean that!" Rina rubbed her shin. "I like Hufflepuffs too, come on!"

"Hufflepuff," Randa said firmly.

This way, it's a lot clearer who said what.

2)
A horrible smell hit them just then; Rina peered out into the corridor. "Here comes Peter," she said, one hand pressed over her nose, "and he's covered in Stinksap." ...

Randa couldn't keep the grin off her face. "So, what have we learned here about proof reading?"

Rina stuck her tongue out.

Unless the Stinksap is something that a Harry Potter fan should know about, I'm guessing that it's the result of a spelling error in the Words. Please tell me what the context is.

Either way, not too shabby a mission.

Rina and Randa are right, by the way; that foreshadowing is kind of unsubtle. (Also, I was confused when Rina used the DORKS to restore her disguise. When did the disguise drop?)

And...oh my Din, you're doing My Inner Life? Can I help in any possible capacity? I want to help Hyrule too!

It's pretty awesome, and it shows a good deal of courage to go through an old shame and have to read it critically, usually with a stiff drink and a therapist nearby.

One thing that struck me was that the D.O.R.K.S unit disguised itself as a copy of Magical Me, which seemed odd considering this is set in the Marauder era and the book wasn't published until the autumn of 1992. But then I realised; that's exactly the kind of totally minor deviation from canon that wouldn't upset the Words at all but a PPC agent would definitely notice. Good job. =]

Rina's pain is so palpable I can't stop cringing. It makes for a unique mission, though, particularly the acknowledgments of when you did learn from your mistakes (and when you tried without understanding what actually made a Sue). Plus the resulting back-and-forth with the Agents is a lot of fun.

The mission was very fun to read, though as a lover of terrible puns I didn't mind the Sirius/serious thing too much. I definitely relate to Rina's pain, though, and it's times like this I am happy none of my fics ever got past first chapters (and were all deleted years ago.)

"Are you serious?"

"Yes, I am. Oh, sorry, I thought you meant my name."

Not sure if it's funny, but it's probaby an improvement over what you had.

Why yes, I am a pun enthusiast. Puns are supposedy the lowest form of wit... but wit is the highest form of humor.

I was actually reminded of my very first PPC mission while reading this - though to be fair, I sporked that 35-chapter horror story specifically to clear my name as a writer and to give Falchion a jump-start on character development. Yours comes off as more of a "Why not tackle an old shames for spits and giggles?" kind of deal, which isn't a bad thing.

And dear Arceus, "My Inner Life"? Oh wow, you have my sympathies. *virtual hugs* Godspeed, you two, and may you have Farore's blessing (and a firm grip on your sanity!)!