Jul 2015 Archive, part b

... we knew you well. Actually, we didn't; we knew you briefly. But in that brief time, you touched our hearts (and, in one case, hair).

Yup, that was a good day :)

- Irish

As soon as I graduate from high school, I'm going to be over to a Gathering like a really fast snail! And I mean one of those really ultra fast ones from Turbo or something!

We will now sing Master Bilbo Baggins' (Bag-End Under-Hill, Hobbiton, The Shire) heartfelt lament, 'Attercop, Attercop'.

Or maybe we won't, and we'll have a group photo instead. ^_^



(This constitutes an alarmingly high percentage of all the pictures to be used in the report.)

hS

I just sent it to live out the rest of its days on the farm with Tonks.

Was very nice to meet you! I'll Hufflepuff badger hS into doing the Report . . . probably sometime this year. Well, maybe.

It's no good trying any kind of AU if your story is literally 'wouldn't it be weird if [they were at high school/Boromir was an elf/Kirk had wings]?!'. You need a story.

The High School AU has the effect of placing all the characters on the same level. In Les Miserables, most of the characters never meet each other; several of them are dead while the others are still children. Many of the others connect in ways defined rigorously by their social status. So if you wanted to explore how Enjolras and Javert would get on if there wasn't a revolution on... well, you can't. Javert's a policeman, he doesn't talk to radical students.

But if you transpose it to a high school? Maybe Javert is some kind of prefect or something, and Enjolras is head of the Young Communists Society - but now they have to share classes, and have lunch in the same place, and get the bus in together. You can force two people who would never associate in canon into close proximity, simply by rewriting the entire background. ^^

(They would get on like a house on fire, of course - in the Pratchett sense. Flames, people screaming... ^~)

hS

...I'd be happy to look at it tomorrow, if my schedule allows it that is! ;)

I see you sent me it, so I'll get on it now.

My e-mail address is hidden from the spam bots on my wiki user page.

HG

Email is clickable. Assuming nothing changes, I'll be available today. :)

There are a couple helpful editing guides in the wiki. I suggest you read them.

Also, you couldn't have dropped me a message in my talk page or something? There is no need to push threads off the main page for something so banal.

First off, it's good to see both you and your agents out and about again, so to speak. I've enjoyed your spinoff in the past and your characters have traditionally been very solid.

That being said, this story felt a little uneven to me. I thought the conclusion was quite good, but the bulk of the mission itself felt a bit lacking. I feel like part of that was due to long stretches of the story being very MST-like in structure. Badfic line, agent quip, badfic line, agent quip, and so on. As Nesh said in one of her posts, seeing inside their heads or getting a bit more description would have been good. I also wasn't crazy about the lack of significant interaction between Library and JF, but I can rationalize it as they're still getting used to one another in-universe.

I won't really get into the formatting stuff. Other people have already touched upon what I would have mentioned (the blending of badfic quotes with mission text and so on). I'm curious to see what it looks like on the Dreamwidth site.

The conclusion was pretty solid though, as I mentioned before. I feel like the story starts picking up once the agents start bumping off the various Sues. The level of interaction between the agents and the canonical characters feels good; I particularly enjoyed the bit where Ron says "Damn right!" after Library brings up the repeated bashing of him. The final scene following the mission felt a bit insubstantial in comparison. I personally would't have minded if the story had ended when they all portalled back to HQ.

I would say that I enjoyed this story, unevenness notwithstanding. I would argue that it could do with some tightening, but it definitely had its moments.

I enjoyed reading your other missions back when I found the PPC, so I’m happy to see more of Library and JF. Specifically I liked the understated way the fairy was disposed of; and the charging of Patience and Lydia was glorious.

Alas, although the scene with Remus and the Counts was very well written, it felt wrong to me, because I couldn’t see anything other than a replacement in this Remus. His condition is heritable, he fursplodes when he is angry, he and his half-werewolve daughter eat raw meat, he leaves for America with an American half-vampire and her father – come on, he is obviously from Twilight!

Typos not already found by SMF:

JF‘s sneakers squeaked as she desperately tried once last time to stay out of the bathroom.
You probably meant "one last time".

She thought for a moment that Remus was going to attack her, but his grip on his land loosened,
and she felt relief flood when he asked, “How can I help?”
The grip was probably "on his wand".
Also, I feel like something may be missing in "she felt relief flood when he asked".

For this, the two for you are sentenced to death.“
You probably meant "the two of you".

Before Lydia was able to launch herself at Library, she was hit solidly in the chest by a large fireball and soon burned to a crisp. She twisted to look back.
I’m sure that you didn’t intend to say that Lydia "twisted to look back", but she was the last female person mentioned, and assuming that the previous "she" referred to Library only makes things worse.

Library left with Phillip, giving him a slightly less condensed run-down of the PPC before they arrived at the door to Personnel, where she left him, and then to the coffee place she had learned about from Denny.
Again, I feel like something may be missing in the last part of this sentence.

HG

'Blast' is moderately literal here: I made the mistake/commendable decision of reading through all of Library's previous missions to get her and July back in my head. Might've been a bad choice - it kind of burned me out before I reached the new one.

I went into this with a vague feeling I'd seen it before; I'd swear I remember a Library-JF mission. But this swiftly confirmed that I hadn't. ^_^ I liked the... I guess lack of interplay between JF and Library: JF in particular let everything Library said bounce right off her. I really felt for Library in that last line: "JF is terrible, and I truly mean terrible... er, when it comes to water." ;)

Not a whole lot to say, really; my head isn't in a very mission-reading place right now, but given the historic nature of this one, I couldn't let it pass without reading and commenting. Well done for finishing it!

hS

(PS: So, er, what was his surname? I don't get it.)

Concrit-wise, I feel like there was a lot of badfic and what the agents were doing was just kinda sketched in. Also... er, I think you missed a target. The Counts got burned up, and Library shot Patience, and Lydia was both shot and burned... but what happened to Sevena (which is an incredibly dumb and annoying name)? She seems to vanish before the agents fry the fairy.

I also noticed a few formatting errors and such, but if you're moving it to Dreamwidth, maybe they'll get fixed along the way, I dunno.

Anyway, I think the important thing here is that you finished this after so long. Congrats! {= D

~Neshomeh

I love the moments when it drops into JF's thought processes. It's like she sees the world in surreal pretentious badfic-o-vision, I love it!

I'm also rather glad we got a son-of-P* agent out of this mission. I like the original rather more than I perhaps ought to, and maybe Phillip can have some of his parent's nicer qualities.

I especially love every time you have a canon switching back into their proper personality. You make them feel so Rowling with just the few lines some of them have! Well done!

And I went and found some things as I read along:

"Library swallowed for a moment. “I’m not not sure Mrs. Weasley would be able to... pass as being Sirius, even in a costume.”" - There's an extra "not" there.

"relying on the Words was, Library was finding, beginning to prove to be a headache." - there's an extra space before "beginning".

"The fairy asked what was wrong, and after receiving permission, began to heal the scratches, putting" - same thing, this time before "putting".

"they followed the Sues as a safe distance" - should be "at".

"a story with a character who has Mary Sue-like traits can be internally consistent" - This time the extra spacing comes after "has".

"After all, an assassination wasn’t very distinct from murder, and in some cases wasn’t all, depending on the definition one chose" - I assume you meant "at all"? ^^

"here Lydia scowled, brushing her hair over said pointy years" - You meant "ears", right?

Thaaat's all, I think. The charging scene was hilarious, and the mission didn't seem dated or anything to me! XD

Hoom, hoom.

Activity: I know you, no knee-jerk reactions, you've been around.

PPC knowledge: Your agent profiles are problematic in this respect.

James' recruitment story makes no sense. First of all, if an agent can't find a plothole a canon character's been shoved into, they have no business being out in the field doing solo missions. Any decent agent would not have told a bit about the PPC, much less made a deal with them, unless they planned on recruiting them, are on the verge of charging and killing them, or will neuralyze them afterwards. Since you say Emma meant to 'pacify' him, I assume she was going to kill him, which means she should have never accepted his deal on the first place, and if she was planning on killing him, it means his character was bad enough to not be recruited in the first place.

Fic to spork: Yeah, that's a doozy, aright.

Writing ability (creative): Um... your prompts are fine. I didn't find them particularly interesting, but that might be because I had a bad day at the army. Your agent profiles aren't. The Sue's behaviour in James' backstory doesn't make sense — I haven't seen lots of Sues that let bits upstage them like that; I've already mentioned the recruitment process; and Emma's background seems borderline Sue-ish to me (mainly because recruiting a random someone off the Internet is a very stupid thing for a secret society to do).

Writing ability (technical): much better than the previous attempt, and you obviously got your pieces beta'd for SPaG. You do have a couple problems (I spotted at least one tense shift, and there's stuff like "into the PPC Headquarters" — the 'the' shouldn't be there), so maybe another beta is warranted.

That said...
Rina Dives appears in your control prompt. This, in and of itself, is good — I like intertextuality! What is bad is that she is OOC. Furthermore, I have it from Iximaz that you did not let her see the final product before publishing it. This is a faux pas — if you borrow other people's characters, you are obliged to let them check for OOC and the like.

So: Permission Denied. Your characters need more work, your SPaG and/or beta'ing process should be touched up, and that last issue bothers me immensely. While you have made progress, you are still not ready, methinks.

Duh...

NO!!!!!!!

Help me Santa... Help me Jesus Christ... Help me... SANTA CHRIST!!!!

This is... just... oh, just terrible! C___C

She endures 500 years of torture, and then she runs away from Elrond because she doesn't like his rules? Barf. As if Aragorn would be any less strict about behavior in the field, too. In his life, you do things right or you get killed. Stupid biddy.

That said, this appears to be one of those annoyingly boring fics that mostly just copies the plot of the movie line for line. I hope something canon-breaking actually happens in the story, or you're not going to have much to PPC.

~Neshomeh

"Family handed her over to Sauron when she was a young child."

Kill it. Kill it with fire.

I'm actually part way through an interlude that sort of touches on your question. Albeit in my case, I'm looking at alternate canonical versions of the same continuum rather than one single continuum.

Like hS said previously, there could be any number of possible results provided the result made for a good/interesting story. I don't see something bad necessarily occurring unless you start delving into paradox territory.

So, you have Agent A: an original character from Continuum X (let's say it was Middle-earth, for the sake of the following example) who got recruited by the PPC.

Agent A's backstory says that they exist during the events of The Hobbit and that they lived in Laketown at the time it was destroyed. If they were to get a mission into that continuum, during that time, in that location, then they might well meet up with their past self. I think I am following you so far.

So, what happens? Well...there are options.

They could end up dodging their former self while doing the duty in order to avoid a paradox. That could be hilarious.

Or, they could enlist their help in a "come with me if you want to live" style scene. Then they Neuralyze their past self and put them back on course to be in the PPC. Maybe going so far as to push them into a passing plothole and ensuring the stability of the timeline.

Or, the proximity to their former self could be an irresistible pull that threatens to suck them back into the world of their origin.

Or something else entirely, so long as it's funny.


-Phobos

Never has Smiles and Tears seemed more appropriate.

We have informal names for some regions of Pluto and Charon.



Oh yes. I'm serious.

"One does not simply fly 3 billion miles to take a photo of Mordor, the dark spot on top of Pluto's moon Charon."

hS is overwhelmed with fannish glee

Yes, there are mountains on Pluto. The BBC says they're as big as the Rockies. And... they're made out of water-ice. ^^ Space is weird. Remember the ice-volcanoes <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b2-IsVH5OtrMALHcBska0FCxqdCG5i55SeUl52J3Y/pub">back on Titan? Those would've melted these mountains like Earth's volcanoes melt rock.

So yeah, we'll be climbing those when they've got names, count on it. ^^

hS

Rosetta took a picture of Pluto.

Beyond the Belt stars or will star every operational spaceship we have beyond the inner limit of the asteroid belt. At present, that's eight vehicles:

-Voyager 1 (red-hearted Voyager above)
-Voyager 2 (blue-hearted Voyager above)
-New Horizons, at Pluto
-Dawn, at Ceres
-Cassini, at Saturn (not shown)
-Juno, en route to Jupiter (not shown)
-Rosetta*, around a comet on its way through the solar system
-Philae*, Rosetta's lander (not shown)

(*Right now, Rosetta and Philae are actually inside the orbit of Mars, but they joined their comet outside the Belt and will be going back there. So they're still in.)

Whenever there's news from the outer system, I'll be thinking about using these guys to share it. Because why not? It's fun! ^_^

hS

Telemetry data is coming back from New Horizons!. Photos to follow!

Whooo's a cute widdle dwarf planet? You are! Yes, you are! Oh, Plutokins, it's soooo lovely to be able to see you up close!

...astronomy fangirl? Me?

*innocent whistling; pointed ignoring of shelf full of astronomy books*

If all's gone well, New Horizons is now whirling away from Pluto at nearly 31,000 miles per hour. We won't hear from it for a few more hours, though - it's too busy taking photos!



And with appropriate gratitude to Jonathan Coulton:

They invented a reason
That's why it stings
They don't think you matter
Because you don't have pretty rings
I keep telling you I don't care
I keep saying there's one thing they can't change

I'm your moon
You're my moon
We go round and round
From out here, it's the rest of the world that looks so small
Promise me
You will always remember who you are

hS

A plothole is... well, a hole in the plot! Sometimes they're literal holes, which missing characters fall down. Sometimes they're temporal distortions ('time warps'), such as a story which suggests you can fly from Coruscant to Tatooine in five minutes. Sometimes they're geographical aberrations, such as the ever-popular magical forest which shouldn't exist, or a spatial distortion (which is just a different way of naming a temporal distortion - indeed, I usually go for 'temporal-spatial'). Sometimes they're less physical: a Suvian with hair made of literal fire is clearly using a plothole to keep from, uh, burning, but that doesn't mean there's a literal hole somewhere.

What they aren't is a manifestation of a scene change, which I guess is what you were using them as. Scene-changes aren't holes/problems with the plot - they're a natural part of writing. Very few stories don't have any skips at all.

PPC agents usually move along through the story by one of... three or four methods.

1/ They have to travel everywhere on foot. So if the fic says 'ten days later', the agents follow the characters for ten days.

2/ They get dragged through scene changes. 'Ten days later' throws them forward ten days.

3/ They portal to avoid (1).

4/ When the story produces a temporal-spatial distortion, they hitch a ride on it. So if the Fellowship claims to reach Moria in a day from Rivendell, the agents follow closely in order to ride on that effect, rather than walking the actual distance.

(4) is the only one that can really be called 'falling through a plothole', and from your/their description, I don't think that's what you were doing.

Does that help?

hS

From a New World to a Nightmare
When an adventurous 12 year old gets pulled into the fantasy world of Middle-Earth, she finds herself in the midst of new dangers and threats. Even with the help of her new friends, will she be able to defeat these evils and make it home alive?

For once, a LotR Sue who's not a Tenth Walker. Instead, she's transported to Bookverse, early Fourth Age. But she's been turned into an Elf, and Treebeard, Legolas, and Gimli need her help in dealing with a new evil. So still a Sue then...

I find Naruto irritating enough that I don't know what else to expect other than fanbrats thinking "Harry is cool. So are boobs. So is Naruto. So that means Harry + Naruto + boobs = SUPER MEGA AWESOME COOL! I'm smart. I got a C- once."

Just make sure to hit "Preview" before you publish, alright?

My advice would be to put the ideas somewhere you'll remember them. I just tuck them in a spare corner of my brain, but writing it down might work for other people. Revisit them later. If they're still seeming irredeemably terrible later, then discard them if you like.

I understand your need for validation, and I'm not saying that in a "but now I'm going to dismiss it" way. I understand it pretty viscerally. It might be a spectrum thing, it might not, but I always feel this pressure to be *helpful* to people in some way. I know my writing depends on me talking ideas over with people, because that's how I refine ideas. Yours might as well.

I *know* the urge to do something new and exciting. Brains jump around. Most of my ideas aren't that great either. I can't help you with it, but it sounds like you need to have a talk with your brain and figure out whether you want new or whether it wants new.

And sometimes "oh no, my writing is awful" is just the curse of writing, but it does still hurt. :/

New and crazy doesn't have to automatically mean bad - but it doesn't automatically mean good, either. You seem to come up with a lot of ideas and just run with them. Maybe it would be better to focus on really exploring and fleshing out an idea, rather than just throwing it out there?

Also, new ideas are good, but you seem to want to do something that'll leave an impact. Which I think you should focus on doing through good writing and memorable characters, not wild ideas.

Against his better judgement, Bertie Wooster sets out on his most perilous mission yet...

I did a Skulduggery Pleasant/Portal one once. And I'm currently working on a Calvin and Hobbes/Fairy Tail fic with a friend, which is turning out to be rather cool.

Apart from that... I've got the vaguest idea for a Bernice Summerfield/Artemis Fowl one, which is more obscure than weird, since it could easily work out.

   "Welcome to Imladris I Haven't a Clue. We are all here at this council to discuss an ancient evil that has been awoken. A shadow long forgotten has risen again out of the distant past. If unstopped it will bring untold horror and destruction to all in Middle-earth.
   "How can something so old cause so much suffering? Let's meet the teams."

---

"Éowyn's my sister." SLAP! "She's my daughter." SLAP! "She's my sister-daughter."

---

F/X: SHOP DOOR

ARAGORN: Hello, anybody there?

LEGOLAS: Hello. I'm Legolas and this is my friend Gimli.

GIMLI: Yes, and we are your Bona Adventurers.

ARAGORN: Well, my name is Aragorn, son of Arathorn, and I—

GIMLI: Ooh look, Legs! It's Mr. 'Orn.

LEGOLAS: Oh, yes. Mr. 'Orn, how bona to Elbereth you dolly old eek.

ARAGORN: Thank you. Wait a minute. To Elbereth?

GIMLI: Yes, it means to Varda.

LEGOLAS: That's your actual Elvish.

---

Legolas by Laura Palmer

Legolas was riding along the woods and one day he found a body whaped in plastic...

---

And for a non LotR one...

"Silly Songs with Erik" has Phantom of the Opera characters performing VeggieTales songs. And it is awesome. ^_^

~Neshomeh

I think one of the strangest was a Star Wars x Code Lyoko x Star Trek. Nothing made any sense of that, and I am pretty sure the story counts as badfic as well.

Faker of the Rings (rated T), by Arashi Leonhart. Fate/ characters doing the plot of Lord of the Rings. Script format. Damn hilarious and highly recommended.

I was around three years ago, so we may have met. Either way, welcome back to the PPC.

*rummages through bag of holding*
Here, have a Delibird Present! Be careful, there's an 80% chance that it will explode, and a 20% chance that it will heal you. Use with caution.

Welcome back, ish! I just arrived in May, so we haven't met. Have a six hole ocarina and songbook! Super easy to play, and lots of fun! I hope you stay this time 'round!

Welcome back! Stick around!

I wasn't around three years ago, but it's nice to meet you anyway.

Granted, I wasn't here three years ago, but still. XD

Have a starter Pokémon!

Iiiiiiiiiit's Excadrill!

And your starting item is:-

Ouija Board from The Binding Of Isaac: Rebirth!

Now, this can be useful item on a physically attacking Excadrill, because it means that none of the holder's moves make contact. Contact moves also do +20% additional damage, making it like a mini Tough Claws. It means you don't have to worry about Ferrothorn sapping your HP, for one. However, there are more useful items out there. You should probably stick with your Life Orb. =]

Have a shovel enchanted with Moon Saber! Smack someone with it, and you heal by the amount of damage you deal!

Here, have a head that's always screaming! :D

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-QFTdFC8IRSE/VM9lLj4AJKI/AAAAAAAACKw/RT1MGLFseng/w640-h360/640px-S2e4_screaming_head.png

Well, mainly I remember your name, but good enough. Hi! Welcome back!

/hands Returnbie Gift of Gummyblee Lightning Bolts and Swiss chocolate. Not Swiss Bleepolate, just regular Swiss chocolate. Might as well./

~DF

I do! Welcome back!
I think we started writing a crossover fic together and then dropped it, for... reasons?
Anyway, as a welcome-back gift, have this cup of confused Lapsang Souchong tea. It's not quite sure whether it smells like a campfire or not, so please, be gentle with it, aright?

Hey there, and welcome (back) aBoard! I only showed up in the past year, so that'd be why you don't recognize me. :P Have this plate of SPaGhetti as a gift!

I like how this outfit looks simple but when you look at it a little closer, it's got lots of details (the trim, the pattern of the green fabric, and yes, THOSE SLEEVES) and you seem to find something new each time you look at it again.

Say, may I ask how long it took to make the costume? I could use a frame of reference if I ever make Skaer'morys's outfit in the future! XD

I adore the golden inlay (I think that is what it is called.) And where did you get that green material? The way it catches the light is really quite striking. A very elegant dress, worthy of a Baron.

Masterful work, Ix. You should be proud.

{People making cool costumes based on something you cobbled together.}

Oh yeah. That's all right, then!

Seriously: very nice. I think Baron hS is going to feel quite upstaged at council meetings. (Or he would, if he bothered to dress up at all...)

Next I want to see Desdendelle as a half-crow, Scapegrace as a tatterdemalion, and Kaitlyn as a combat nurse. I... don't think I'm going to get any of those. ^_^

hS

(PS: Any objection to the first picture here, and the raiding one, going up on Lady Iximaz's Cyclopaedia page? Visuals other than maps and heraldry are one of my ultimate goals.)

(Also actually finishing updating to deal with the Riding. That, too. Have to get on that.)

*wants that dress*
:D

But what do you think you will wear when on actual quests? Full plate armour, or chainmail, or even box armour? And do Plort have uniformity in their armaments, or since everyone is paying for their own equipment, it is as the wearer wants?

The skill and effort that goes into the more ornate cosplay/costume projects always impresses me, and this is no different. It reminds me a bit of Merida's dress from "Brave," only with more decoration.

Good job!

It's amazing!

I'm not an expert on fashion, but I really like the stitching on the back and the amulet/necklace is a nice touch, the pattern of the fabric makes me think of leaves in a forest. Also, love the hair, and... oh, is that a ring I see? :D

I used to have a Halloween costume that looked kind of like that!

It seems like nobody is going to voice any new opinions. So, what now? A vote? A discussion of what opinions that were already voice? Something else?

Just a regular disagreement, really.

But, anyway. I'm of the opinion that a wiki is for information, so the page should be a catalog of assassination methods, as complete as we can be bothered to make it. That way people can look up what's been done before and/or use it to go browsing for ideas.

HOWEVER, I'm also of the opinion that really obvious stuff like "the agents shot her in the face" need not necessarily be there, because it's a safe bet the obvious, mundane stuff has been done before. I shouldn't think we really need a wiki to tell us that.

Perhaps as a compromise, one of your criteria could be "first time using a unique canonical feature," which would include stuff like Silenthunder's pushing her off Caradhras (probably; I share DawnFire's skepticism that no one's ever done that before) without the need to add in everyone's bows and swords and whatnot.

~Neshomeh

Honestly, I say just let the page contain whatever people want to add. It's one of the least informational pages on the Wiki: it's just for fun, so let people add their shove-off-mountains and stab-in-faces and shoot-in-foots, if they're proud of them.

Frankly, I think we have enough pages throughout the Wiki that "need" to be maintained as new missions come out, and I don't fancy this one being added to that list. (I didn't even know I had my own assassination on this page until I saw it on there just now.) Let's leave this one as a silly, informal "throw it on, if it please ya" page, and not create a need for regular debates about whether an assassination is or isn't notable.

I agree with the listed terms. Assassinations happen in a majority of missions, and attempting to list every method is simply unfeasible and more hassle than it would ever be worth. If an assassination is listed on the page, it needs to be due to unique circumstances, a notable target, or extraordinary creativity from the agents.

One of "notable" assassination methods (the current page) and a catalog of all assassinations. Briefly described, of course. That way we have a compilation of interesting methods, and a handy reference list that'll give all sorts of cool data, like the most common method of assassination in different continua. It will help keep us original, and think of new ways to assassinate Sues.

That being said, making the new list would be pretty hard. Someone would have to go through all of the missions and record the Sues' demise, and in a certain order. If such a page were made, I would suggest that a post be made asking all authors to make a list of their killed Sues and the ways they died. That would hopefully eliminate a fair share of active Boarders, leaving the inactive and those who simply didn't see the post. Do we have an up-to-date list of all PPCers?

I suggest that you arrange the methods of death as I try to show below.

Methods of death:

- Common:
- Impalement (Fic a, Fic b, Fic etc...)
- Heart Attack (Fic a, Fic b, Fic etc...)
- etc (Fic a, Fic b, Fic etc...)

- Ironic:
-Eg: Drinking the wrong Grail (In FATE/The Last Crusader, Sue Indianita Jonahness drank from Fate/Stay Night's Fuyuki Holy Grail instead of the wooden cup from Indiana Jones)

- TOS stuff
-Example a
-(Fic a, Description a)
-Example b
-(Fic b, Description b)

- Rare things
-Example a
-(Fic a, Description a)
-Example b
-(Fic b, Description b)

I hope I can make myself be understood.

You already know my stance on this, I'm just restating it here for everyone else.

What follows is the second, revised-and-updated version of a new thread I tried to post on the help forum yesterday. If what I put up yesterday eventually goes through, I'll add the new stuff from this in a reply; otherwise, this will be my second attempt.

---

Mentioned this briefly in the 'new server' thread, but since I think it's unrelated, I'll post it separately:

Over at DiscApp #199610, we've been seeing increasingly intrusive ads. I fully understand that advertising is part of having a free service, but I do think that at least some of what we're seeing isn't as intended by the YourWebApps team.

Things we have noted, with quotes from forum users:

---

*Full-screen adverts appear quite frequently, and exhibit some very intrusive behaviour. This can include unclosable ads which have to be 'back-button'ed out of:

(1) "I just got a full page ad (I'm on mobile [Android]) three times in a row. There is no x. It's for some kind of antivirus thing, supposedly. When I hit the back button, the popup saying that my phone 'has a risk' disappears, but the thing underneath remains and some sort of loading bar fills up. There's no way I'm clicking on it, so I don't know where it leads. When I hit the back button again, I don't end up on the page I was trying to view (which often loads fine right before the ad comes): I'm at least one page back, and have to navigate back to the page--going forward generally just brings the ad back".^{[DawnFire 1]}

(2) "Just got that full page malware/antivirus ad twice in a bloody row while trying to see Nesh's post above. Exactly the same as what I described in the first post, but twice instead of thrice. [...] antivirus ad again just now. It definitely dropped me back a page when I hit the back button. This is... a pretty high concentration, actually. Normally it doesn't happen so many times in a row... Or maybe I just get annoyed and take a break from using the Board faster."^{[DawnFire 2]}

(3) "Antivirus ad again just now. It definitely dropped me back a page when I hit the back button. [...] I double checked that going forward brings me straight back to the ad; I tried closing the tab and opening a new one--same thing."^{[DawnFire 4 & 5]}

(4) "What's also frustrating is on the phone, adds randomly appear (and yes, I supposedly have them blocked), and they're so huge they fill the entire screen, and for some reason there's often no X to click, forcing me to reload the page. When there is and X, it just takes me to the ad's main site."^{[Iximaz 1]}

(5) "Ads have also become more obtrusive. I've noticed that the site is using more side scroll-in ads that cover a good chunk of the links. They can also sometimes repeatedly layer themselves, meaning that there is still an ad there even if you click the "hide" tab. I had eight copies of the same ad layered on top of themselves at one point."^{[PoorCynic 1]}

(6) "On both [Windows 7 and Android phone], there's also a half page ad that looks like it's for Facebook. It's annoying on mobile, because when you move down, it flickers out of sight and then comes back until you x it. On the laptop, it stays constant until xed, and is a banner at the bottom of the page. The x doesn't redirect in either case."^{[DawnFire 1]}

(7) "Loading times aren't that bad, but ads are killer. To the point where I stopped using my computer to read the 'Board - there was just too much risk, I either had to have NoScript and Adblock, and even then I worried. So on my phone (iPhone), about 1/3 of the time, I get an ad that covers the entire screen, and can only be removed by refreshing the page and hoping it doesn't pop up next time."^{[VixenMage 1]}

(8) "And now my laptop's being flooded. Seven identical ads all stacked on top of one another in one go kicked it off, and now every time I go to the main Board, I get a side-scrolling ad (or several) to deal with."^{[Iximaz 2]}

---

*Automatic redirects, which mostly seem to be seen on phones:

(9) "I avoid checking the Board on my phone whenever I can because I get ad redirects or the App Store randomly opens, and it's probably the most frustrating thing I've had the displeasure of encountering."^{[Iximaz 1]}

(10) "Relatedly, sometimes the site runs ads that will automatically redirect me to the App Store if I'm browsing via iOS."^{[PoorCynic 1]}

(11) "Moto G running Android 4.4.4. I definitely get auto-redirected sometimes, plus things that pop up and want me to do something or go somewhere else that can only be got rid of by reloading."^{[Neshomeh 1]}

(12) "Just got redirected *three times* to the Google Play Store [on an Android phone], for a 'Wizard of Oz Free Slots Casino' app. Not even kidding. I didn't click on anything besides Irish's post, but a redirect page (just a URL) came up and then I was redirected to the Google Play app. Now, I will give you that I watched a clip of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" on YouTube either yesterday or the day before; that's the only connection I know of, and it seems pretty random otherwise. When I hit the back button, I ended up first back at the redirect page (which didn't redirect me again) and then on Irish's post when I hit it again. Of course, I was promptly redirected in the same way twice more from his post until I hit the reply button."^{[DawnFire 3]}

(13) "I can confirm that there most certainly are auto-redirects, at least on the iPhone."^{[TheShyIon 1]}

(14) "(iPhone) 1/3 of the time, I get redirected and the App Store opens. What I usually do to combat this is as soon as the content of the page loads, hit the "stop loading" button on the URL bar. Not always, but usually, this stops the ad from loading. [...] I still read the posts that interest me, but the subject lines have to clear a pretty high bar of interest for obvious reasons. :P This has been the case for about… I dunno, at least the past few months. Several months probably."^{[VixenMage 1]}

---

*The problems appear to be worst on phones:

(15) "For whatever reason, it is significantly worse when browsing on my phone or tablet. My computer gets the pop-ups or redirects occasionally, but mobile devices seem to get them a lot - I've basically given up reading the Board on my tablet. I've also had the problem of some ads filling the whole screen and not having an option to close them, but only on my tablet."^{[the Irish Samurai 1]}

(16) "I use my phone to check the board fairly often when I'm on my break, and these redirects occur, I'd say, at least a third of the time when I click on a post. At worst, though, they appear at double that rate and make it nearly impossible to navigate the board since the redirects create a queue of at least three blank web pages before sending me back to the page before the one I was trying to view."^{[Fasoula 1, with confirmation by Iximaz and Pippa's Ghost]}

---

*Some users have reported what appear to be direct viral attacks:

(17) "Twice now I've had a new tab created for me saying that my computer has a problem, and that it's very serious. The ad looks official, and the only way to close it is to use Task Manager and shut down your entire browser."^{[Alleb 1]}

---

The full-screen adverts may be intended to be there, I don't know, but I suspect they're supposed to always have an X button. I'm nearly certain the X button isn't supposed to act as if you'd clicked the advert, though that may be linked to it being on a phone. Based on what Tamara said here, I'm pretty sure the auto-redirects aren't supposed to be there.

As I said, I know that some advertising is an essential part of keeping YourWebApps free, but I'm almost certain some of this behaviour is not what you intend to be happening. In the interests of keeping the service running smoothly, I figured you'd like to know what was going on.

One final quote which may help you to investigate the situation:

(18) "Also: this isn't constant, the ads. There are always the ones in the place designated for them--sometimes these are really large and can distort the page layout--but the majority of the time, I'm able to use the Board without seeing the full-page ads. Maybe even 8 or 9 times out of 10."^{[DawnFire 1]}

hS

Seven identical ads all stacked on top of one another in one go kicked it off, and now every time I go to the main Board, I get a side-scrolling ad (or several) to deal with.



So much for the laptop being my safe haven. :/

But after having my computer infected by a virus thanks to an uncloseable pop-up banner even if I didn't click on it and closed the browser right away with Task Manager...

I decided I wouldn't take chances anymore, ever. Ad blocker, with additional element hiding helper addon in case something slips through.

Or in case the site shows a big "Disable AdBlock" banner. I either block the hell out of that banner too or, if that doesn't work, go to a different site.

Also, to me the Board loads really fast to me (less than five seconds at most.) I suspect that the reason is the excess of ads - they bog down the browser. Preventing them to load frees up bandwidth for the actual site to load up.

So, I might be an evil unsupporter of Youtubers and similia, but I'm not going back.

To the point where I stopped using my computer to read the 'Board - there was just too much risk, I either had to have NoScript and Adblock, and even then I worried. So on my phone (iPhone), about 1/3 of the time, I get an ad that covers the entire screen, and can only be removed by refreshing the page and hoping it doesn't pop up next time. 1/3 of the time, I get redirected and the App Store opens. What I usually do to combat this is as soon as the content of the page loads, hit the "stop loading" button on the URL bar. Not always, but usually, this stops the ad from loading.

I mean, I still read the posts that interest me, but the subject lines have to clear a pretty high bar of interest for obvious reasons. :P This has been the case for about… I dunno, at least the past few months. Several months probably.

At best, it's a minor annoyance on my computer. However, twice now I've had a new tab created for me saying that my computer has a problem, and that it's very serious. The ad looks official, and the only way to close it is to use Task Manager and shut down your entire browser.

Granted, I've had the same browser (Firefox) and OS (...Windows 7, I think?) for the past few months, with no problems. And I only use my desktop for browsing on the Board, so I wouldn't know how it is for any other combination.

I don't get those problems with my computer, but I avoid checking the Board on my phone whenever I can because I get ad redirects or the App Store randomly opens, and it's probably the most frustrating thing I've had the displeasure of encountering.

What's also frustrating is on the phone, adds randomly appear (and yes, I supposedly have them blocked), and they're so huge they fill the entire screen, and for some reason there's often no X to click, forcing me to reload the page. When there is and X, it just takes me to the ad's main site.

I know Darkotas has had these problems as well, which is partially why he's been asking me to relay posts while he's at camp: too much reloading involved eating up his data.

Over here. She says:

DiscApp 199610 loads quickly on both my computer and IPhone. As far as we can determine, the new server is faster than the old server. I would need to know what OS and browser he is using to cause the issues you describe. On the iPhone, there is only a banner ad and he would need to click it to be redirected to the App Store. There are no auto redirects.

(Sorry for messing up the link last time, don't know what was going on there.)

If you want to chat directly to find out if it's a problem at their end, you can; or I can relay messages.

hS

On June 29th,, they apparently migrated disc.yourwebapps to a new server. That probably explains the load times. (Previously we've had problems with loading the Board's css, because it was hosted on Freewebs; since I moved it to Google, I don't think that's come up).

The cover-everything ads are annoying, I agree, though I've not seen them layered. There seems to be no way to turn them off without paying $92 per month for premium access, though.

I'll mention your observations about loading times over on the support forum - I've noticed it a bit as well. For that matter, I'll mention the layered ads! There might be a problem they don't know about.

hS

If you want any help with it, my agents are ready at the go. :)

Another show that revels in its own inability to explain what the hell is going on. The heart soars.

Could you somehow post a picture of it for us to see?

'Tis a victory for us all.

I've gotten to pet a few wolves before, that was cool.

Have some fun facts about kangaroo attacks!

We'll see how I do. Ix knows how to contact me.

I've wanted to binge-watch all the episodes, but I only made it as far as "Steven's Lion" before I had my laptop taken from me. It’s all over my Tumblr dash, though, so I know about more than a few things about that show. Pearl is best gem, btw :D

I think one of my agents may pick up on the show as well pretty soon, since I want to do a Steven Universe mission sometime. Probably Lapis, since she already shares a name with one of the canons... XD

I've adored Steven Universe since the Mirror/Ocean Gem episodes; though to be fair, that was when I finally discovered the series. And to say the least, anyone who hasn't seen it yet SHOULD. It's the best thing to come out of Cartoon Network in a very long time!

In fact, I will go so far as to say it can go toe to toe with the likes of Gravity Falls and Samurai Jack as one of the all-time best animated shows of the late 20th/21st centuries.

I myself am partial to Garnet, with Steven himself not too far behind. And while I myself don't like Jasper due to her douchebaggery, I hate Peridot even more. Why? Because by all accounts, she shouldn't be a threat. Allow me to explain:

When I first saw her, I laughed her off as a joke; I mean, I don't underestimate any Gem I see on the show but...really? I was supposed to be intimidated by her? She looks like the illegitimate lovechild of a Linux and some hardware goggles! She has no place being some all-powerful being.

I love Steven Universe, I've been watching it since... gee, Frybo, I guess!

I really adore Lapis Lazuli, and can get very irritated by people acting like she's just some poor victim of circumstance woobie. She's probably one of the strongest characters on the show, physically and mentally, for goodness' sake!

I cannot wait to find out more about the backstory. I particularly am wondering what role the Gems play in human folklore and history - are there Gem-inspired monsters scattered throughout folklore? Do the Gem armies occupy a space similar to the Sidhe courts in mythology?

I'm watching the show on the Internet cause my dash won't shut up about it. Did anybody else think Jasper was a dude for the longest time before they learned more about the show? 'Cause I totally thought Jasper was a guy.

As for favorite characters, I can't decide between Connie and Pearl, though I'm willing to let the show surprise me once I get to later episodes. (Garnet is also pretty awesome. :D)

Oooh, shiny mini-gems~! "Stephen Universe" "Stephen" and "Stephen Bomb"

I was able to follow it all right, but I would have liked a little more character interaction, not that there was necessarily room for it in the mission. Also, I didn't really understand the Warframe stuff, not that it was really necessary to follow the mission.

It'd probably make more sense if I knew anything about either FNaF or Warframe.

Nice touch with Canon Love via fan song. *files idea away for later*

For us international types, there's a seller on Amazon who has a whopping 1211 copies (now that I've bought one) in stock, $US 44.

Elcalion, purchasing

The people who make the other Discworld game - BackSpindle Games - have been granted the license until the end of this year. So if you want Guards! Guards! - or, for that matter, the just now available to pre-order 'Clacks' - you have a slightly longer, but still very short, window of opportunity.

I have never played (or, until now, heard of) either game, so I'm not going to recommend or otherwise them. Obviously, as Administrator of OFUDisc... well, you know the rest. ^_~

hS

So, doesn't that mean Valon and Kala are technically in third place until your next mission is out? Not that it matters much, since I'm sure you'll be posting within a day or so, but y'know, accuracy.

~Neshomeh

Because basically it's just been me making the decisions so far, since I've been the one putting in the time and effort to rewrite the department pages to make them actually useful.

Anyway, criteria:

1. Were they the first/only agents in the department or a division in the department?

2. Do they have the highest mission count in the department? (That's actual missions; I don't count interludes for this purpose.) Second- or third-highest also works.

2.5 If it's a really small department, do they have any published missions at all? (This does not apply to the DF, obviously.)

3. Have they been demonstrably active in the department a long time? (I'm thinking of agents like Nume, whose service record is backed up by my own presence in the community. I hesitate to count agents whose writers create them as having been around forever; I kinda feel like that's cheating.)

4. Did they take on a Legendary or some other famous badfic?

5. Are they well-known for some other reason, like being a PPC Lust Object or, e.g., Luxury?

So, if you've hit second-place for mission count, then yes, you meet the criteria. Go for it!

~Neshomeh, who fully believes in transparency (if anyone bothers to ask).

I mean, vote! You have my vote.

I don't know either, what determines the agents promotion to the page, but if it was up to me - I'd add them. Both Valon and Kala are very enjoyable to read and they should get the recognition! :D

Would you like me to adopt you as a Little Sib?

I'm fairly certain I've graduated from being Skarmory's, and you... you could use some help, no offense intended.

If you have any questions, shoot them this way first, aright? I've offered my e-mail address plenty of times, but if you need it again, it's DBooker67 at Google's mail service.

'Cause you SHOULD be looking at this. It's up to date.

~Neshomeh

Also, you can link to your stories on your agent pages, or update the Current Events page and Year 2015.

But if you need anyone else with canon knowledge, my offer from before still stands.

But you know I'm always available! ^^ (URL is clickable)

Skarmory should have my e-mail address.

... but I can probably still help.

I also have some comments regarding this thread (which I'm mentioning here rather than just answering there because it's about to fall off the front page), if you're interested.

My e-mail address is samurai_ireland@hotmail.com

- Irish

But I can still beta in other aspects, if you want me.

I liked it, but it looks like your beta missed a few points:

• It took a moment for Michael to realize what she met — should be "meant".


• Mia was already at the console, looking at the words. — So why is it Michael who tells her the Sue is a Mermaid, not the other way round?


• That’s why I’m in the DF, where Sues come every day and I assassinate them for a living! — The DMS might have something to say anout that.

(I was also worried when you had Mia killed the Colonel like that, but then it turned out that's what I was supposed to feel all along!)

Something I recommend you do, that might be helpful, before dismissing an idea, find someone to bounce it off of first. That's kind of what you are doing here, but you are being too hard on yourself. Everyone has ideas that are hit and miss, and it kind of reminds me of a quote from Thomas Edison, paraphrased since I cannot remember the exact one. When asked about failing multiple times before succeeding with his light bulb, he responded along the lines of I did not fail 99 times, but discovered 99 ways not to build a light bulb.

Really what I am trying to say is, just because the first attempt at an idea did not work the way you wanted, do not dismiss it as bad. With this idea now, it has potential, but it is too skeletal to really know for certain. It needs more to determine how it would work. If you are hesitant to go too much further in depth with the character, because you think it will be a "bad idea" and you want to work on it still, you can hit me via e-mail and you can run it by me. Of course, my ability to respond will be severely hampered over the next two weeks, but you can still try.

If you do want to use me to further work out this idea or others, my e-mail is border name without brackets at Google. And that actually goes for anyone else interested in hashing out further ideas. I spent about two years in various workshops, so I would be happen to listen to any ideas and provide input.

...just badly implemented ones.

So, according to that Monster Girl Encyclopedia, the whole reason for a kraken's existence is to kidnap male humans and basically hold them prisoner, raping them for the rest of the man's life. Gulp! Now that could cause a lot of juicy, interesting conflict, especially considering the PPC's official policy on rape as something agents just plain aren't supposed to do.

So maybe Medical and FicPsych have got Stephanie permanently pumped full of libido-suppressing drugs, but there are still going to be a lot of males who won't feel comfortable near her just in case the drugs wear off. And some straight women will hate her just in case the drugs wear off and she rapes their boyfriend/husband/slave/whatever.

Build the story around that conflict, and it might work.

I don't see anything bad about the idea you have right now, other than the fact that it's very small. Here's my suggestion: flesh Stephanie out some more. Give her a personality, a life, some quirks, some hobbies, and some flaws. Think of a character arc for her, with ways for her to grow. Then, I suggest a test drive. Try one of the 46 (I believe) Permission Prompts-- select one at random or just pick one. Take Stephanie out for a whirl and see how you like her.

You say that 90% of your ideas are bad, but I disagree. I think you're second guessing yourself too much. You said you cut off a thought immediately, because you thought it might be bad, and you're extremely uncertain about it at a very early stage. The thing is, right now you only have a tiny idea, like a little seedling. You can't know what it will grow to be, but you're already worried about it. So that's my advice-- nurture the seed a little. Let it grow up enough to see what it's really like, and then make a careful, thoughtful judgement on what you want to do.

And here's another little piece of advice, one I'm still struggling to adhere to myself. Don't throw away your ideas: write them down. Keep a little folder on your computer for the ideas you have. Jot them down whenever you have them, then look at them every so often. Even if you don't think they'll work now, later on down the road you might like them.

Keep your chin up, Voyd-- I like your writing, and a few bad ideas aren't always... well, bad. They teach you what will work, and what won't. And because you've been open about your problem (which isn't the easiest to do) we can help you.

Remember: "Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light."

If you are asking what to do with the character, here's what comes to mind for me. Even if you create a character you are uncertain about, at least give some more depth to the character. It certainly will not hurt.

What times are good for you?

(Hah hah, "times" like there are multiple times in a week when I can sit down for games.)

I usually wait until games get cheap used at GameStop, but considering how high used copies of Brawl still are, I probably won't wait much longer. I do have a 20% off coupon . . . Anyway, I'll let you know when I get it.

Also, does anyone need/want to do tradeback evolutions in Pokémon? I've pretty much got all I can at the moment, but I don't mind using my game as a work pony for others.

Seba
0903-2846-7300
Pokémon X, Y, Alpha Sapphire; Smash 4 3D; Mario Kart 7.

Online Smash is rough, Voyd. It's where the god-tier people play, not mere mortals like you or me. I'd be happy to go a few rounds with you and potentially give you some tips, though.
Since I've already got you, I'll just add eatpraylove for now.
Oh, and I also need to get online with you in Pokémon so I can get your full Friend Safari.

Sara
0576-5807-4247
Animal Crossing New Leaf, Ocarina of Time 3D.
(I will get more. Soon. Probably Smash Bros or Alpha Sapphire first.)

Oh, and if anybody else with New Leaf wants to visit my town, my Dream Address is 5300-5004-3839. Please come check it out! I'm super proud of it!

Seriously, people using this tactic merrily avoid everything I throw at them, and there is exactly zip I can do to stop them. Just... dah.

but it was totally worth it. And I don’t even know much about Gallifrey.

Some typos:

“Close. Type 77,” announced the Guardsman, still looking the screen.
There’s probably a word missing before "the screen”.

The Guardsman begrudgingly gave her his tools and stomped over the the terminal, not looking at the Reader.

A TARDIS is a marvel of engineering—as beautiful as it is precariously perched on the brink of total dimensional singularity.
I don’t understand the techno-babble, but I’m not entirely sure whether this should not be "the brink of a total dimensional singularity".

HG

My knowledge of Doctor Who is pretty cursory - just the kind of stuff you pick up from watching the show mostly to ogle David Tennant. This makes me want to really dig into the history of the setting, so I can understand all the subtle nuances going on right now. Because I am absolutely certain they are incredibly and fascinating, but I think I'm missing out on a lot of them.

One weird thing I noticed - on page eleven, there are a couple of references to the Notary as being male. Either she regenerated and I didn't notice, or you might want to go back and edit that.

Having seen The Hobbit, or enough of it to know better, I would like to formally retract my previous defense of Peter Jackson before this falls off the edge of the page.

(Also, was that really that long ago? Good grief.)

That's not the word I'd use...

I have to wonder where I was for the Hobbit announcement. December 18th... might've been out of action for Christmas, I suppose. Still, though, it seems unusual.

As for the Interpretive Dance... :D Welcome to the PPC!

hS

(PS: I should note for my own sake that the original, Saphie-penned Constitution is linked from the Wiki page, and can be found here. So it is archived, I promise...!)

(PPS: Given what I'm posting later today, this is a VERY apt thread. Thanks for it! The past makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.)

...in my honest opinion, the restoration pictured below is, uhm, disappointing:



I mean, sure, there isn't any denying that Zhenyuanlong has feathers, but my main issue is the way the plumage is depicted, among a few other things. To explain, here's a dissection of the above picture, as taken from this Tumblr post on the matter:



The list of issues pointed out by the source post are as follows, in quote:

1.) Wing Structure. Whilst Zhenyuanlong had a complicated arrangement of primaries, secondaries, coverts, and retrices, here the feathers on the arm are represented as a simple fan.

2.) Pronation. Even though this isn’t Jurassic Park Velociraptor-like full on bendy wrist pronation, this posture is still unlikely and will cause wrist breakage.

3.) Leg Feathers. Here Zhenyuanlong is depicted with vestigial Microraptor-like hindlimb feathers, whereas the actual fossil lacks any feathers around the hindlimbs. This may be a taphonomic artifact, but speculation isn’t a good way to go for a reconstruction.

4.) Shrinkwrapping. It may be a matter of texturing, but the feet of Zhenyuanlong are horrendously wrinkled in this reconstruction. This is not that major a problem for the rest of the body.

5.) Posture. The right leg is bent at a crude, almost painful angle. This certainly calls into question how the hips of this thing even work.

6.) Coloration. Having this flashy coloration may not necessarily be the best choice for an active predator. On the other hand, this may be intended to be for display. In either case, however, the colour is not what we would expect for this animal.

To add to some specific points, and in concurrence to all of them:
* Like modern birds, deinonychosaurs had primary feathers attached to the second finger (look at the fossil of Microraptor, for example). Either the artist behind the restoration did not research the fossil find or I need new glasses, because I don't see any primaries on the second finger. The primaries are now common knowledge for a significant number of palaeo-artists on the Internet, as this comic wittily demonstrates. More seriously, the notion of large primary wing feathers and their supposed interference with forelimb function is discussed in depth here.
* Apparently, the shrink-wrapping as described in the Tumblr post applies only to the feet; in modern birds, the foot musculature is pretty minimal (I had fried chicken feet in Indonesia once, and they didn't have that much meat on them). I did notice that there isn't much padding in the right foot, however, so maybe that's why the feet look so awkward. A Dr. Scholl's sole cushion would've likely been necessary for a ground-dweller to support its weight, like in the feet of ostriches, for example.
* Regarding the feather colors: I think the paleo-art circles have an inside-joke term for color schemes like this: Sparkleraptors. From what I've heard, it's often garishly colored dinos like these that turn people off from the notion of feathered dinosaurs in the first place. As noted, it's also not a new thing, either - Archaeopteryx is always depicted as being colored like a tropical bird in old dinosaur books (which is especially jarring when all the other dinosaurs are elephant-gray, mud-brown, moss-green, etc.). Most meat-eating dinosaurs would likely go with more subdued color schemes as in modern predatory mammals, and vivid colors like a bird of paradise would probably be a seasonal thing for the sake of showing off to mates and such. For the technically minded, here's a detailed explanation on dinosaur feather colors, which should be helpful for portraying plausible color schemes for at least the feathered ones. (Note that Ripper's blood-red plumage is actually quite reasonable according to the article, since carnivores like him have only structural colors and melanin to work with.)

All that being said, the artwork itself is gorgeous once you get past the technical flaws (though I had to struggle to do that, being the palaeo-nerd I am). JP notwithstanding of course, feathered dinosaurs NEED to be a thing in modern prehistory media. And to those who say feathered dinos look stupid, go anger a goose and then we'll talk. XD

Would you have believed it before seeing it? Perhaps the writers felt that it would be too unbelievable?

Where are they getting them all? ^^

What does make me sad, both for poor Zhenyuanlong suni and for science journalism, is that picture. It just looks... scratty. Does Z. suni not know how to groom itself?

Also, it appears to be suffering from a horrible disease of the primaries. The fossil pretty clearly shows feathers running down at least one finger (as is the case for... every bird ever, I think?), but the art has the feathers stopping at the wrist in order to give it little clawed hands. Of... which the nearside one appears to be bent the wrong way, though that might just be the angle.

It's always cool to get another feathered dragon out of China, though. ^^ And the name-drop might even be vaguely right - V. mongoliensis is from that part of the world, after all.

('It is unlikely that it could fly'. Um, yeah, it's a couple of meters long, it'd need rather more radical wings than that to get airborne. But that's scientific journalism for you.)

hS

That is beautiful. *freaks out*

*puts on blast shield*

I can't possibly guess what's going on on mobile. However, since some people are reporting really nasty ads on their (presumably Windows) laptops, while others aren't. I think it's possible that some portion of the people who are getting annoying full-screen stuff on their laptops have some kind of malware. This is just a friendly reminder from your local know-it-all nerd that it can't hurt to check for viruses etc. when ads are suddenly more annoying. For true paranoia, download a virus scanner (such as Malwarebytes) on a different computer, save it on a flash drive with an unusual name, and run the program from safe mode.

On mobile, though...hoo boy. Better bug Sean and Tamara about fixing the mobile problem.

If this many people are having trouble with it, though, maybe we could implement T-board anyway? The wiki says that the Other Board (which also works fine for me, btw) started as a refuge from a spam attack, after all... It's not terribly slow for me, either.

Actually, option one would work for me. I haven’t seen any of those intrusive ads that try to make me download viruses in months, and I don’t even use ad-blockers. I suspect that some quite complex algorithms are involved with this kind of ads, and that location matters. I’m apparently save for now, but of course this may change every day.

If it doesn’t come out that doing our own thing is either too complicated or more expensive, I wouldn’t like to give my money to YourWebApps for something they should do anyway.

I’ve been on forums, and for some situations, their style is a good solution. But for the PPC Board, I prefer to be able to see everything new by simply scrolling down the page.

So, the T-Board it should be. But I’m not sure how much work is involved in setting it up and maintaining it, and what will happen when the people who did this find something else to do.

(Sorry for being late. I’ve been ill for some days.)

HG

Starting with a slightly off-topic one: I enjoyed reading the Plort story at the beginning :)

Back on topic, regarding the proposed courses of action:

1) Not really much to say about this, as it's basically what we're doing at the moment anyway. On the upside, it's very easy to implement. On the downside, as you noted, it doesn't actually seem to offer a solution.

2) I don't think much of this option - it just seems very expensive for what we'd get out of it. And I'm not even sure it would solve our current problems.

Yes, it says that we won't get any ads, but I don't have a problem with the ads that appear at the top each page. What I've got a problem with is the pop-ups, and the auto-redirects that are almost certainly trying to get you to download viruses. I don't think that these are part of the intended function of the Board, and if they aren't meant to be part of the Board, then I'm not convinced that upgrading will make them go away. Personally, I would expect webapps to protect users from malicious content, regardless of whether they're paid members or not. If it turns out that the only way to get protection is to pay a (high) monthly subscription... I'm thinking maybe it's time we jumped ship?

3) From what I've seen of others, I dislike the forum style. I much prefer the current thread system, where it's nice and easy to follow multiple diverging tracks of a conversation (which tends to happen a lot). The forum style only really seems to work, for me, if you get an initial post and then a series of replies just to that post. When you get replies to the replies, and chains of conversation evolving, it just seems to become very disjointed if you're trying to read through it all - like trying to read a Choose Your Own Adventure novel as a normal book. I know that last time this was discussed, there were many proponents of a forum style Board, but I am not one of them.

4) I remember being very impressed with T-Board when it was brought up before, particularly how easy it was to jump around within a conversation thread, and the way you can expand long replies without having to load up a new page. That made it a lot easier to use on phones.

If I remember rightly, it was also possible to view it in different ways (some sort of preference settings or something?) so that it could look either like the current Board, or a forum. Which hopefully will be able to keep everyone happy with the layout.


In general, I'd still rather that the Board was a free service. I can just see introducing a need to pay being a hassle - if we work on donations, what do we do if we come up short? If we start charging a subscription, who has to pay? What if people can't afford it for any reason*, or if they're young enough that they'd need their parents' permission, who think it's a waste? If we do end up going with something that costs money, we really need to shop around as much possible to get the best possible rate, and then try and come up with a fair system for actually getting that cash.

I also haven't had any problems with ads for the past couple of days, and I was using the Board from my tablet quite a bit last night. Is this just random good luck on my part, or is everyone else noticing an improvement too?

If it turns out that things have cleared up, I'm content to go with 1), if we do decide to go somewhere else, I think 4) is our best bet.

- Irish

* I'm pretty sure that last time this conversation came up I'd been recently made unemployed. I can assure you that if I'd been expected to pay any amount of money at that point, I'd have just walked away.

1. I do use ad-blocker on my desktop. It's a computer safety thing; sorry, PoorCynic and other YouTubers! I do check the Board on and off at work, depending on how close to the end of my family's data cycle we are, and how much data is spare. The ads are cyclical on my phone. Sometimes, they're rare (like now), and I use the data plan freely. Other times, the ads hit hard, in which case I keep off the internet browser entirely for a while, waiting for it to die down. (Interestingly, the Board is always fine when I check it on wifi networks; the ads are only a problem when the data plan is turned on.)
   
   So the ads are an occasional issue for me, and since they seem to be an even worse issue for others, I'm not a fan of "wait and see." In fairness, we should still hold on and see how Tamara and Sean respond, assuming they do in a timely fashion.
   
   2. $90 per month x 12 months per year = $1080 per year. The U.S. government officially lists me as "working poor"—I could probably chip in about $20-$30 of that per year, and even then, I would miss it most miserly. If the community, as a whole, is able to afford this . . . ugh. It still feels like such a money sink, even if we can (says the guy who buys food that Safeway puts on clearance).
   
   3. Honestly, I don't hold the same reservations about a forum-style Board as some others seem to. I think we would get used to it pretty quickly. I mean, I really only see a few topics we would even have (Permission-related posts, badfic/mission reports, OT discussion, RPs/Board games . . . heh heh, "Board games"), so I don't think it will be that hard to get through them all in a fairly short space of time. (If you think about it, we already have an entire separate board used almost solely for role play. I'd say we might actually get more happening if we had them both at "home base.") So, I guess I'm saying that it makes little difference to me whether we stay on the current style of Board or the Proboards variety.
   
   4. I just read what Tomash and Dann were saying about this before I started this post, and I have already forgotten it, because I do not speak electronics. I think it would be an easy transition from the current Board to the T-Board('s successor), so I would be fine with doing so, even more fine than with moving to a forum board, perhaps. Again, my contribution to a fund would be limited to twenty-fivish dollars a year. (And also, we would need to go to some kind of rigmarole to keep my parents from seeing a mysterious charge on my finances their son refuses to explain. Like, someone else pays my part directly, and I send them cash in the mail as reimbursement.
   
   —doctorlit sounds so cute, talking like he knows all these computer words

Hosting: T-Board is not hosted on Dann's server. It's hosted on the free plan of a cloud service called Heroku. This plan would be unsuitable for hosting the Board since it imposes a 10k row limit on the database, which we will outgrow quickly.

Dann may or may not have a server available. I don't know anything about that server, so I can't comment on it. If there is a machine, we can probably host there, and we'll be good until Dann gets hit by a bus or some other such catastrophe. Cost in that scenario is between $0 and about $10/year, depending on whether we want a domain name or not. We might consider having some kind of money stash for new hosting around anyway if that works out.

If Dann is unavailable, reliable servers can be had for on the order of $5 ($10 if I'm misestimating resource usage) a month. Again, we'd have to pay for a domain if we wanted a *.com (or .org etc.) If we don't want to do that, we can probably leech of the dynamic dns services, which hand out things like ppc.nodns.com.

Software: The code has some minor bitrot, mostly because the web framework I'm using has released several new versions since the last time I touched T-Board, and Dann or I would have to update the code to work with the new framework. This is a day or two of work tops (*), but could take a few weekends, since I have an internship at WhatsApp this summer.

Last time I showed off T-Board, there were concerns about the lack of anonymous posting. T-Board is structured so that everyone that posts needs an account. You can put anything you want in the Author field, but if you post under something other than your username, it will show as "Author text". This is sort-of the case now (IP addresses), but T-Board will make it more explicit. This would be a somewhat major change (your posts in RPs and things like the shipfests will be attributable to you), we should discuss. If we decide that we want anon posting back, I'll have to figure out how to integrate that with the registration library I'm using.

Since Reddit wasn't tossed off the table, I can try to explain how moving there might work out for us in another post.