Oct 2015 Archive, part b

I do a lot of the Art Thing. :P
Examples: (commission info, though I'd be willing to whip something up for you for free- PPC discount :P) (I have a lot of examples linked in this post too)

If you like my style lemme know!! I would appreciate a link to wherever his written description is too.

I can't draw, sorry, so I can't help you with that, but you might be able to model him in the Skyrim character builder and then take a screenshot of that. I only mention it because I nearly did the same thing for Aaron, but the lighting in the game is really bad. From what I've seen of Skyrim, a clear shot of his face should be easier to get.

I'd be happy to beta the Harry Potter mission!

Unfortunately, I know nothing of Time Lords beyond regeneration being a thing (really need to start watching that show again), so I can't help you there. :(

Musicland
(1935, dir. Jackson, W.)

Having seen various instruments in orchestra, here's a suggestion as to how they might work together in that sort of group:

Violins: Anything a violin can do, more violins can make better. They, along with the other stringed instruments, are the team players of the musical world. They're flexible, and an orchestra's complement of them can create some incredibly strong spells.

Woodwinds (Flutes, Oboes, so on): These guys do the orchestral odd-jobs. There usually aren't as many of them as there are of the violins, and they do better with the less overt magic. They round out an orchestra. Also, orchestras usually tune against the oboe, as it gives the most perfect A note.

Brass (trumpets, horns, et cetera): These guys do one thing and do it well. Their power is incredible, and is more geared towards destructive uses than the rest of the orchestra. If an orchestra wants to add sheer force to a spell or to use it to knock down a building or something, they can't do much better than give big roles to their brass section.

Drums: Drums are the rare-but-powerful kind of instrument. There's usually only one per orchestra, though when a Drumline is put together, however, it's an awesome sight/sound. Drums set the beat everyone else plays by, and their powerful tones permeate all the music. They go more for boosting their allies than direct attack, although use of cymbals carries great destructive force.

Piano: Discussed in an earlier post. They're another one-per-orchestra instrument. A piano's incredible versatility can back up a whole song.

Harp: Yet another one-or-two-per-orchestra. A Harp's magic is soft, but utterly pervasive. It's a bit like gravity, really.

Here in Brazil we have a percussion instrument called berimbau. It's a one-stringed instrument composed of the following parts: a large wooden bow, a steel string and a hollowed out and dried gourd. You would also need a wooden stick, a small coin or rock and a shaker.

To play it, you need to hold the bow in one hand between the two middle fingers, while holding the coin/rock between your index finger and thumb. You must also rest the gourd, which is found at the bottom of the bow, against your chest. In your other hand you hold the stick and the shaker.

To produce a sound, you strike the string with the stick. The shaker accompanies the stick. You can also move the coin back and forth throught the string to change the pitch. Finally, moving the gourd back and forth from your chest produces a wah-like sound.

This instrument is traditionally played during the practice of capoeira, an afro-brazilian martial art/dance.

They are used in several musical productions, after all.

When exactly are you setting this? I mean, if it's a medieval-ish High Fantasy setting, then 80% of what we've been talking about becomes anachronistic. It's all very well us talking about, say, a band of enormously muscular barbarian mercenaries all wielding jazz clarinets and dressed like Acker Bilk, but in a medieval setting there are no clarinets. And we're all sad.

What might be interesting, from a conflict setup point of view, is to set your story during the 1950s, with the rise of rock and roll. Then you basically have three camps:-

#1: The rock and roll mob, the young upstarts struggling to get recognition for their work from the older, more established magicians.

#2: The classical orchestral musicians, who are a bit more conservative and close-ranked than the egalitarian rockers and see themselves as guardians of an ancient tradition.

And finally, #3: The folk music crowd, on bagpipes and tin whistles and bodhrans and all the trappings of really ancient musical traditions, who just want to get back to nature and possibly drink some mead.

That's what I'd do, anyway. =]

I think everyone else has got how a piano actually works down, so I'll go more with how they might be used, along with player personality stereotypes. If you already have an idea of how pianos will work, then feel free to ignore the following two paragraphs.

Pianos would, I think, be a really versatile jack-of-all-trades type thing, as well as a day-to-learn-lifetime-to-master instrument. They're really powerful, but not good with battle, because they're complicated to play and really, could you imagine lugging a giant piano out into a battlefield?

Pianos would, however, be far better for civic use, because of the wide variety of things they could do, and when there's no war, there's usually no immediate deadline when you need to get the spell completed.

Piano players are, of course, associated with elegance and class, and sometimes snootiness. I think that they'd be loners and pretty rare, because usually there's only one piano in a given musical group, and pianos are expensive.

I think I mentioned it elsewhere, but I'll reiterate on this post so no one has to hunt around.

While individual instruments have different strengths and weaknesses, magical songs will do the same thing no matter what plays it. The only thing that differs is degrees of success. For example, a violin will do very well when hypnotizing someone, while a tuba... won't.

So here's where you guys come in! Think of your favorite songs and imagine what magic they might make. Feel free to go crazy: effects can range from hypnosis to creeping vines to shock waves. Songs can also vary. Bach? Sure. Daft Punk? Sure. Gregorian chants? Sure. Anything goes: I can always tone down or amp up an effect if I think it's necessary.

Have fun!

-Alleb

Ohhhh, I wonder what power a uke would have. x3

Um... The uke has four strings (GCEA) and you play it by holding down the strings on the frets to create higher notes. It is similar to a guitar. There are two for,s of playing, one/two string picking, and strumming. On my left hand, the one that holds the notes, I generally get large callouses on the edge of my pointer finger (I have one right now, it's exactly where you'd tap a screen on an iPad) and smaller ones on the edges of the middle, ring, and pinky. The thumb holds up the instrument and helps create enough pressure to make a clear note. The thumb gets extremely sore after playing.
On the other hand, the playing hand, it's extremely common to get blisters on your thumb and on the pointer finger, the two that do the most on that hand. If you get a blister it's hard to play while you have the blister.
Also, fun fact: ukulele means jumping flea

Please accept this handy-dandy article on Akan drums and healing traditions.

Now, to answer your question: I played piano for about ten years, but have fallen out of practice because college. In order to get the best sound out of the instrument, you have to relax your arms (especially the wrists) and curl your fingers a little. Piano music covers a whole range of emotions and moods--majestic, spooky, joyful, sad, romantic, elegant, even angry. My private teacher told me that I had to feel where the breaths were in the piece, if that makes sense to you.

I also sang in my school choir since eighth grade. After concerts, my chest and throat were always kind of sore. Singing is all about breath control and using your diaphragm, not your throat. My high school director was also on us about showing some enthusiasm during concerts; he referred to our neutral expressions as "axe-murderer faces".

So as you may (or may not) know, pianos are precussion instruments. The noise is created by having hammers drop on strings. (Kinda like guitar strings, but a bit stronger.) There are usually 2 pedals on a piano, the damper pedal, which lets you play in more muted tones, (good luck finding one that makes a substantial difference,) and the... sustain pedal? Something like that- which removes the damper, so the notes go on and on.

I usually think of the piano as the catch-all instrument; it's easy to use, but it forces you to learn how to read notes. I have had times where I've slipped up and played the note next to the one that I meant to play, so that's a thing to look out for. And the worst things about them are: one, they are never tuned properly, two, when they aren't tuned properly they sound just wrong enough to bug you, but not much else, or notes make a weird buzzing noise, and three, you can't take them with you.

Also, your villain.

Long, flexible fingers are very helpful when playing the cello, because of the sheer range of notes that one can play. You play it sitting down, with your fingers in various positions on the fingerboard, depending on what notes you want to play, then you drag the horsehair bow across the strings, similar to a violin, but a cello is bigger and held differently. Most cello players have learned at least two different clefs (bass and tenor). Some know more. It's a very versatile instrument, and even the basics can be taught in about a thousand different ways, and general consensus is that it's very difficult to play, and will definitely destroy the nerves and joints in your hands (back injury also looms rather threateningly from all that hunching you have to do to reach the high notes).

Cellos can be associated with harmony, good fortune, healing, and pleasure, particularly when appearing in dreams.

The players themselves, at least in my experience, are a snarky bunch, imaginative, practical, and tend to be the least impressed by anything that happens to the orchestra. They're also high achievers, and rather lonely.
To cellos, violas seem uptight and aloof, bass players are bat-feces insane (but awesome), and violinists are either chill or hated enemies - there is no in between. All inter-ensemble rivalries go out the window when the band shows up - that rivalry is INTENSE.

(Disclaimer: All of the third paragraph is based on generalizations of my own, admittedly limited experience. Please nobody take offense!)

Anyway, hope that helped. Good luck with your novel - I'm participating in NaNo myself!

I sing. I was part of my high school chorus, people at church have wanted me for the choir, and I've never met anyone, online or off, who didn't say they liked my voice when I heard it.

Now as for my own voice, I'm good at talking and singing very quickly and very loudly. As for the drawbacks? Well, try talking for like half an hour. Mouth get dry? Short of breath? Same with singing. I also know how to play a keyboard, although I can basically only play one track at a time. I can figure out most songs by ear, though. Anyway, what you really need with a keyboard is dexterity and knowledge of exactly what key you're playing in. Get your ring finger just one key off, and the whole thing sounds a discordant mess.

But all that's beside the point.

YOU'RE MAKING A MUSICAL MAGIC SYSTEM. I cannot begin to describe how amazing that is, please please please tell me more.

(also I've been marathonning Doctor Who and my brain is running like the Doctor's mouth)

Ocarinas can make it rain, summon horses, open telepathic links with your friends, turn day to night and back again, take you back in time, teleport you places...
Now let's talk about the violin. I never played it particularly well myself, but I knew a man who was, to say the least, quite good at it. He mentioned that there are two ways to play a violin - the classical violin, and what's known as the fiddle.
They're the same instrument, but not many people can play both ways.
Classical violin is mostly associated with sadness and mourning - slow performances with a ton of vibrato. The fiddle is much more cheerful - a dancing instrument, lifting the spirit. And it takes a lot of mastery to play both well.
As far as how it works... well, you have a bow, made of wood and horse hair, and you run it over the strings on the body of the violin. The vibration from that is then amplified by the hollow in the body. You choose notes by putting your fingers on the strings near the top of the neck of the violin. You can tune the strings with a number of pegs at the top of the violin. Vibrato is where you wiggle your fingers on the string, which mixes notes together a bit.

Piano is a lot easier to play if you have long fingers; means you can stretch for some of the more difficult chords. And you'd better hope your fingers aren't slippery when you play, or that's asking for a disaster. :P

I don't know about other players, but for me, I learn my pieces by muscle memory, so if I mess up with my fingering, it can throw me off pretty badly. I've learned to hide my recoveries over the years, but just one slip can be scary.

French horn is played like other brass instruments; you put your mouth on the mouthpiece, purse your lips, and make a raspberry noise. Since the horn has a small mouthpiece, you have to purse your lips more than you would for, say, a trombone.




This here is a nice shint single horn (top) and a double horn (bottom). The double horn has a thumb key, whereas the single horn has a thumb hook to hold the horn. Since the double has an extra key, that means a lot more tubing, and it's consequently a lot heavier than the single horn. Single horns tend to be the go-to instrument for beginning horn players, since the double horn has a lot more key combinations to memorize for the different notes. Not to mention the double horn can be played as either an F horn or a B flat horn, while the single horn is F only.

(Also, random fun fact, the French horn was actually invented in Germany. :P)

There's also a triple horn, which I know combines F, B flat, and alto F into one instrument, but I've never played one myself, so I won't get into discussing that one. :)

This one's for hS, because he ruined my plans of drawing the Death Star. =]

(Previous art can be seen starting here.

You just ha to say that, didn't you? I was already planning on doing that and now you're going to make it look like I'm copying your idea! *shakes fist*

hS

This one is a series, so I'm just going to link the TV Tropes page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/ThePrayerWarriors

This is... horrible. A bunch of godmodders go to different continua and 'purify' them (Read: Converting them to Christianity) or kill them because they're 'Satanic.'

If this isn't a trollfic, and I highly doubt it is, it's written by some ultra-right wing nut. If anyone wishes to spork this abomination, you're gonna need something powerful to take the godmodders. My personal suggestion? Portal them into Hell itself. They want to fight the Devil so bad? Let 'em try.

My Little Pony: Kaiju Rumble (MLP:FIM/Godzilla): http://www.fimfiction.net/story/161705/my-little-pony-kaiju-rumble
Twilight somehow nearly dies in the events of 'A Canterlot Wedding,' and is granted the powers of Destoroyah, Godzilla, and Spacegodzilla for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Suffice to say, she's replaced. Kill it with Oxygen Destroyers. (Actually, that's not a bad idea..)

Equestrias Tyrannosaurus Rex: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/194631/equestrias-tyrannosaurus-rex
A talking T-rex gets sent to Equestria. Other than that ridiculous premise, the wording and formatting is awful, and the canonical characters are pretty out of shape, too.

Rise of Tyrannobeast: http://archive.primalcarnage.com/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=3268
Probably the only Primal Carnage badfic in existence, this was basically the result of an awful writer putting up a crappy story and getting the living hell trolled out of him. The Stu is... actually rather plain-A T. rex with Giganotosaurus arms. But he's the least of your worries: OCs are EVERYWHERE, the English language is totally butchered, and there's a ton on non-canon events going on.

For you, Mother: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/152312/for-you-mother
Derpy gets executed for some reason, so Dinky somehow gets imbued with dark magic and starts brutally murdering ponies. Spelling and grammar are all right, but Dinky-Sue is just... horrifying. Bring anti-magic and Bleep products. You'll need 'em.

Transformed: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7513938/1/Transformed
Rainbow Dash turns into a carnivorous pony-dragon hybrid, going on a murderous rampage and devouring ponies. Pinkie also goes psycho, and the two somehow fall in love. Also, there's a monster hunter pony OC who needs to be dealt with, too.

The Quest for the Holey Grail: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7984354/1/The-Quest-for-the-Holey-Grail
This is, without a doubt, the WORST fanfic I have ever seen. You guys remember my idea for alternate mini types a while back? This... thing is why I suggested it-to make the swarm of creatures that will result from this a bit more fun to write. Characters are thrown together with no explanation, grammar is thrown in the trash, and absolutely nothing makes sense. *Breathes* Don't go into this alone. You NEED help for it.

"Avatar: The Legend of Keyx Book 1: Earth" - Orphaned at a young age and forced by an evil overlord to fend for himself, Keyx, a human boy, must overcome obstacles and find his destiny to protect his new friends on their journey to save the world... The first chapter is hard to get through but if you give it a chance it gets good as you go on. Somewhat lore friendly, i tried to make it merge into the world, sorry if it doesnt
Apparently, this is a sort of sequel series to both AtLA and LoK. With elves. And talking animals. And bad grammar.

"Five Nights At Freddy's OC x Animatronics" (NSFW, NSFB) - Tyler's job at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza was scary but exciting... [NOT FINISHED]
Bonnie rapes the main character. In the first chapter. And it only gets worse from there.

"Naruto Life as a Host Family" - Naruto after leaving with Jiraiya uses an old seal to travel to the world of Monster Musume No Iru Nichijou where he becomes the host family for the girls, while continuing his training to defeat the Akatsuki and bring Sasuke back.
So basically, Naruto gets Kimihito's personality and replaces him in a retelling of Monster Musume - and does a host of irrelevant things besides. Also, questionable SPaG. Voyd and I are planning to tackle this one personally, btw!

"Breakdown" - Dixie tries to bring together Krocodile isle and DK island. But is brutally murdered. Tiny doesn't take the death well. She move back to her birth island where she meets someone she never expected to see again. (BEING REDONE)
And the murderers are three female Kremling OCs. Make of it what you will.

DW gets hauled off to the mental institution

Okay, I know anyone who is even slightly familiar with D.W. from Arthur is really annoyed by her behavior and the fact that her parents never seem to punished her for ANYTHING, but this is simply insane.

It's two paragraph long, but it definitely should have way more paragraphs, seeing as the first one is a HUGE block of text and the second one also is, though to a lesser degree.

Then there is the D.W. bashing. Even taking in account just how annoying she is, it is far too much. And why the hay is Arthur recording D.W. to "humilhate her in front of the entire city"? She may be his annoying little sister, one that gets way with far too much, but she is his little sister nonetheless, and there enough tender moments between the two in the show to prove that they do love each other despite their quarrels.

Then there is the disproportional retribution of D.W. taking to her imaginary friend, mouthing off the Tibbles and Buster and throwing a tantrum (a.k.a somewhat normal behavior for a FIVE year old), and then being promptly called a psychopath and crazy. Not only that but she actually gets sent to a mental institution, as the title blantantly says.

Oh, and Arthur also uses Glaurunging chloroform to knock her out. Yeah.

Children of the Luck Dragon and the Moon > By: Braveheart2015
Are you ready for high school? Nicky, Stella and Bella are!
My Little Pony - Rated: Fiction K - English - Romance/Humor - Chapters: 9 - Words: 3,237 - Reviews: 5 - Updated: Sep 25 - Published: Sep 3 - Status: Complete - id: 11486659

My comment: What the h₁éḱwos am I reading here?

That we don't mission RPF any more.

Both of them deal with the Dresdenverse, and the first one is a crossover :

- " Blurred Lines". A crossover with Twilight, featuring a Stu Warden, and a cheap imitation of Dresden, is going to his new assignment in the North-West. I only read the first chapter for now, but it's already a train wreck all around.

- "WhatYouWishFor". It could have been a good idea, showing the first time Harry worked with the police of Chicago, but this story goes just as well as the title suggests.

P.S. : If it's not inconvenient, could I get other Boarders' opinions about the second one, please? I'm thinking about picking this one when I'll try to get Permission.

Yikes. Real Person Fic is weird enough already without the whole mutant thing.

I have a contribution of my own. This used to be on Unclaimed back before I did my epic cleanup (which might be due soon again...), and since it wasn't deleted I preserved the information in OneNote. So here it is again, "Vongola XI: Our lives". Whoever first posted it said it best:

Let's see... She's the daughter of the Decimo, which is Tsunayoshi Sawada. She is as strong as her father, and oh look, she also has guardians that are either the son or daughter of one of Tsunayoshi's guardians.

Des sighed. He stroked Khatalelet’s back, muttering under his breath.
Who is Khatalelet? The fire-lizard’s name apparently is "Khataltelet".

Doctor who the mini-Reaper screeched a greeting in reply and began to gesticulate widely.
I can see some sense in gesticulating widely, but I’m not entirely sure whether you didn’t intent to write "wildly".

... fortunately, Anakin, Obi-Wan and Jenna have already left the elevator, so they didn’t hear him complain.
Should be "had" (past perfect).

HG

I would've enjoyed this mission except there were twontimes when you said Time Lords had perfect memories. The first time I forced myself to ignore it, but the second time had me literally shouting at the screen. (My throat is now sore, and my cat is terrified.)

Anyway, just look at the trouble the first Doctor had remembering Ian Chesterton's surname. (And that wasn't deliberate teasing, because he still had trouble getting it right talking to himself after Ian had left.)

Then there's the second Doctor's famous line about the Daleks: "I know the misery they cause, the destruction. But there's something else more terrible, something I can only half remember."

In case you think this only applies to the Doctor, just look how absent-minded the Time Lords are in "The Deadly Assassin". They've even forgotten most of their own history.

This also continues into the new stuff. Look at all the effort it takes before the Doctor finally recalls the planet Raxacoricofallapatorius in "World War 3".

And, of course, Time Lord memories can also be temporarily wiped by Timey-wimey stuff, as in "Trial of a Time Lord" and "Day of the Doctor". (Maybe Time Lord agents should get temporary amnesia when fics have timeskips or tense shifts!)

So, while I can imagine the Librarian promoting the myth of Time Lords having perfect memories, Des should've challenged him on it. ("Did you forget how easily your people forget things?")

Uh...

Sorry, for ranting on like that, but I can get a bit obsessive about Classic Who. The rest of the mission was good.

It's good seeing more of fleshy Desdendelle, and his reaction to the LMM mess, and being sent in such a stupid mess. Would he happen to be interested by some White dragon tea? (Oh, the crest on the boxes? Well, it's not exactly as if Hou-Ting can complain now, right?)
As for the Librarian... *begins whacking his head with my canne* I'll let you know that even a single live of the "faker", especially her human one, is worth all of your thirteen wastes of oxygen.
(Seriously, this guy is always so fun to dislike, and I'm really curious of what thing he showed to the Reader to earn her pity like this, hope you'll write this.)

A Star Wars/Doctor Who crossover sounds like it could go any number of interesting/awesome places. It's such a shame that characters like her have to muck it all up.

It's also a shame that Des is all broken up over Rina's death/disappearance/whatever the heck happened. Would some Bleepolate and a hug help? *politely hugs agent!Des* *also smacks the Librarian for being a jackass*

The Librarian's going to start calling people mongrels next, if he hasn't already.

On the subject of the actual mission, good job. It's very solid, and it's nice to see the Librarian be slightly less of an ass. He might not care much for Rina, but I do think he likes Des, at least on some level.

Hoom, hoom. Let's see...

Agents:
Let's start with Aiko. Since I don't know very much about the Digimom franchise, I'm afraid there's not much I can comment on in regards to how well it merges with canon. I was a tad disappointed I didn't get a good sense of what she looks like other than 'blue eyes blonde hair', but since that's not the most important thing we're looking for, I'll let it slide.

However, her personality section, I didn't feel like I really got an idea of who she is. "Due to her experience with her home fic, she dislikes ... Suvian children of canon characters (they make her look bad by association), and shipping in which either party (or a character “in the way”) is replaced/thrown wildly OOC, or where the designated third wheel gets killed off." These are both extremely common in fics; I don't think I've seen a single agent who likes these clichés. The dislike of "AU badfic (especially darker AUs)", however, makes a lot more sense, considering her backstory. While that, and the part about her relying too much on other people to be happy, are nice little nuggets of information and her personality, I'm left feeling like there should be a bit more to her.

On Henry: Ehhh. He looks like a decent character, but I find his backstory questionable. At age 19, he could have conceivably begun training as a Healer (thus explaining his utilization of healing spells), but instead, you say he was originally being trained as an Auror. While I can see him possibly picking up on a small handful of healing spells from his family members, the fact that he uses healing spells more than anything is... odd. Especially since they're generally supposed to be kind of difficult to perform. I could buy it if he was originally a Healer in training, but since he was an Auror, it just doesn't add up.

You did give me a bit better picture of what he looks like, so there's something. "Always seen wearing identical red and gold plain robes." is a sentece fragment, by the way, which leads me to...

SPaG
This was... not very good. Along with the aforementioned sentence fragment, here are some of the goofs I spotted.

"It was thankful that the students there had enchanted frogs to guide the way,"

I think perhaps you meant "It was a good thing that the students there had enchanted frogs".

"His troubles suddenly came to an end when he banged his head on a door, having distracted by the thought about a goodfic."

It looks like you're missing a word here. Perhaps "having been distracted by", though then the sentence would become even wonkier.

"So he waited a few minutes to see anyone was already there."

Another missing word; this should be "waited a few minutes to see if anyone was already there".

And that's just a sample; I don't want to go searching for everything I noticed and put them here.

I didn't notice as many SPaG errors in the second prompt, but I did notice something that started bugging me: consistency. You used !? in the first prompt, and ?! in the second. You'll want to make sure you're consistent in how you format thing.

The Prompts
I don't really have much to say here; I did like the second one more than the first, mostly because you did a pretty good job of showing Aiko's franticness in how she was flinging stuff everywhere, rather than just telling us she was panicked.

The first prompt, though, I felt was just 'eh'. You had a lot more of telling and a lot less of showing. For example:

"“Wow, how often do you see two non-canon children OCs in the same place? Guess both of you were Sues back in the day,” Henry said somewhat thoughtlessly."

We can see for ourselves that Henry's comment is thoughtless, so you don't need to inform the readers as such.

"At this point Henry figured it was best to concede defeat. These girls sure could scary when they got angry."

This one actually jarred me out of the story, because the way it was written gave me the sense that Aiko was more sad-upset than 'angry-upset. So when what I was told differed from what I was shown, it threw me off.

Overall, I think you've got a lot of potential, but for now I'm going to have to say Permission Denied. Here's to wishing you better luck next time.

And... speaking of next time, you might want to wait a bit. When your last Permission request is still visible on the front page, that tells me you didn't take enough time to think over your prompts. And, well, it kind of showed here.

So be patient, polish it as best you can, and you'll be able to present a much better request next time. :)

According to my woefully outdated and full of dead links mission timeline, the DW's debut mission Dochainn Nam Blàir Trauma Of War takes place on June 1st. That mission ends with Mortic and Elanor finding out the Cats are in HQ.

As to when the Sues arrived? I... have no idea. It may be possible to deduce a passage of time in Crashing Down; I can take a look today, but no promises that it's do-able.

hS

What canons are involved?

You can email me at harry heath 99 at that place where the mail is hot. And no, it's not a showing of Magic Mike.

((hot damn that movie was niiiiiiice~))

My e-mail is samurai_ireland@hotmail.com

- Irish

Should be able to click my email. ^_^

i like that film if only because it is so ridiculous. Seriously, has no one learned anything from Film One? The characters keep making the same kinds of mistakes, only this time on a much larger scale. And yet I can help but enjoy the stupidity of the characters.

Okay, putting my hand up here: I loved this film to bits, it's the one I've been wanting to see since JP itself - the one where there is a working dinosaur park. I would gleefully watch a whole series of 'we built yet another park; it didn't work out' films. I loved the numerous nods to the first film (and decided for myself that the T. rex had to be the same one from the original film - before checking the Internet and discovering that yep, she is ^_^), and the... y'know... everything. Despite the 'duh' moments (#1 offender: 'we can't find the I. rex in its pen! Let us walk inside and open the doors, because cameras are haaaaaard!'), it was a ridiculously awesome film.

But. I. rex. It, uh... was basically a massive cluster of Chekhov's DNA. It can go IR-invisible, which was referenced once (okay, I guess it was vaguely relevant because they couldn't track it? But they managed to keep on top of things pretty well). It can camouflage... once, and I didn't even notice it had happened, except that someone yelled it. One of the best things in The Lost World (the book) was the camouflaging Carnotaurs - they were only a short sequence, and no-one even got roared at, but they were genuinely chilling. Things can be scary without roaring!

But I. rex... well, like you quoted, 'more teeth'. And that lost quite a few ways to make it scarier by being, you know... quieter and sneakier.

Still a very awesome movie, though.

~

So here's a question, then. If you were a struggling dinosaur park, whose guest numbers were flagging - what would you cook up to bring them flooding back? A hybrid (and of what?)? Some sort of event (come on, people would flood in to watch T. rex hunting flocks of Gallimimus)? Realism ('You think you know Deinonychus... you ain't seen nothing yeMURDERCHICKENOFDOOM!)? A concerted effort to find some particular dinosaur's DNA? What's the best plan, here?

(I. rex clearly isn't it. 'Let's build a socially-inept hybrid of all the worst things!' Yeah, no.)

hS

Amrod died, and the published Silmarillion is wrong. It was omitted because Christopher apparently couldn't see how to integrate it into the narrative.

Spoilers, maybe?

Apollo 13 is still my favorite space movie, but this is very good and worth seeing.

If anything, I think Martian suffers from having too many really interesting characters. At the end, I felt like we didn't get enough time with any of them, and the pacing seemed off. I also thought the decisions made by NASA got increasingly risky and thus harder to believe.

The beginning is most excellent, though. Pretty much everything up though establishing contact and communications with NASA.

Also, the references. ^_^ In our theater, there was a fun progression of me, Phobos, and maybe a couple other people laughing when Project Elrond and Glorfindel were first mentioned, then a bunch of other people joining in when the movie explained that it was a LotR joke. In this way, we identify the TRUE nerds in the crowd. {; D

~Neshomeh

I have read the book and wasn't particularly impressed. It... wasn't very interesting, I think? It might be the writing (or the translation), but I just couldn't really connect to it.

I was on the fence about seeing it but I've seen too many positive reviews now to justify not spending the money to see it in theaters. :D thanks for the recommendation!

... As soon as it's released in theaters here. I want to see what it looks like in 3D, and for once, the French translation doesn't bother me much.

[Amazoogles] Wait... no, it's not out until November. So what's the SEE?

Personally I'm waiting for the inevitable EE boxed set to buy them all at once. Probably a while after it comes out, because money.

(Also, hi Hellga!)

hS

The disguise generator directly maps each part of your body to part of the disguise. So, for instance, the lower-rear portion of an Entwife disguise was mapped to Acacia's buttock, and the arrow stayed in 'the same location' when she took it off.

This explains why regenerations take away your ability to change back: a regeneration changes every cell in your body, so the mapping suddenly makes no sense. Either your body is no longer mapped to anything, or all the correspondences are scrambled. The former would make it impossible to take the disguise off; the latter would reduce you to a puddle of goo if you did.

But the mapping clearly doesn't require you to have a similar body-part to map to: you could disguise as a spider without having eight limbs. If, say, you had a missing hand, a disguise could give you it back (presumably mapping to the end of your wrist) and make it fully functional - for as long as you have the disguise on. Same goes for nerve tissue.

So that's my theory: a disguise is a full conversion, and can give you anything you please.

hS

Disguises are like being in another body for a bit while keeping your own mind. Key words are 'for a bit'. Disguises are a temporary thing. The only reason Tawaki, Tadkeeta and (more recently) the Aviator got to stick around as Time Lords is because they regenerated, and that means an entire new (and permanent) body.

In the situation you're describing, yeah, the disguise won't include damaged nerves unless for some reason it was set for them. It's not a permanent solution, though; for that you want Medical.

Since I've already used all the colors that looked remotely readable to me on my archive site's background, I think the best solution is going to be hosting the actual RP content on Google Docs. That way, the colors will all be on white background, and hopefully more visible as a result.

(Also, yes, good job, you all figured out I used the hardest-to-read color for my own part. I'm not doing this to toot my own horn, okay?)

hS (and anyone else color-blind that I'm not aware of): Augh. I can't believe I put the red and green ones right next to each other. I apologize for the flagrant stupidity there. I can move the colors around so the similar ones don't appear in the same scene, but do you have any suggestions for different colors I could substitute to make all the parts more easily discernible? I know, as hS pointed out, it's generally easy enough to tell who wrote what, but I'd still like to make the crediting of the writing as anal-retentive explicit as possible. If possible.

—doctorlit actually loathes Google Docs because of how unprofessional it looks, but keeps finding himself using it anyway because of how darn useful it is.

---

Wobbles looked at the footage.

Then she looked at the A/V Division's assortment of cameramen, lighting techs, directors, producers, editors, and sundry others.

Then she looked back at the episode of Pretty Pretty Magical Wobbles XV: Bravest Adventure!!

"Let's just never speak of this again."

Most of the text is easy enough to read, but Tungsten Monk, doctorlit, and firemagic (the yellow, light blue, and light purple) made it very hard, and I found my eyes just kind of sliding past all the words. Like, to the point where I couldn't read all the way through. :(

-Sergio and Cyba look pretty identical, as do firemagic and SeaTurtle.

-More generally, if you asked me to guess which of (Sergio, Cyba, and Sevenswans) or (firemagic, Desdendelle, and SeaTurtle) I was looking at, the answer would be a literal guess.

-I'm not too keen on reading either Tungsten or Shattered Sanity against that background, either.

(Also, I think it's usually TungstenMonk, with an underscore.)

But, y'know, I think I could probably deduce who wrote which bits based on... who the agents are. ^~

hS

...That we'll need to brace ourselves for a badfic explosion, the proportions of which we've not yet seen. In any case, I have a tradition that I started in Fallout 3. The first deathclaw I see, per install, I have to punch. Anyone else have weird Fallout traditions?

Welcome.

Have a +3 cold iron shovel! Super-effective against demons and fairies.

I pinched it from the Tanz der Vampire fandom; hopefully Krolock doesn't mind… *nervous laughter*

Anyway, have fun with the community! Glad to have you onboard!

Have a live Yi qi, a Monstrous Nightmare tooth, and an umber hulk action figure!

Welcome to the board and here is a whirple light pen.

*high-fives* Here's a Chocolate Frog, a composition notebook, and a box of pens! Also a photo of Leader Erika, so you have something nice to look at when you feel beaten-down. :)

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

I'm also relatively new to the PPC. They're (actually, that would be 'we're' now, wouldn't it? Cool) all fantastic people. Except for that Dorano character - she's a strange one...

Have some Bloffee. You'll be needing it.

Hi there! I see from your response to Des that we both like Yugioh and Harry Potter. What are you favorite goodfics from those fandoms?

Have a Rorschach Book, which can change into virtually any written text in existence. It works kind of like the Room of Requirement. Basically, you hold while having your eyes closed, think about what you wanna read and then blink on purpose three times.

Here's your starter Pokémon:

Iiiiiiit's Diglett!

And your starting item is:

The Candle (aka. Blue Flame Candle) from The Binding Of Isaac: Rebirth!

The Candle is a very, very good item: every time you use a non-contact move, you make an additional 60BP Fire-type Special attack with a 20% chance to Burn the target, and it's affected by any and all abilities. However, it's not a particularly brilliant fit for Diglett. While it works well with Earthquake and can do additional chip damage, the problem is that Diglett is a Pokémon geared towards taking out very specific threats in the Little Cup meta, which is basically Chinchou. Diglett's Special Attack is also straight-up garbage, so even if you invest in full Special Attack (and frankly there's no reason why you would) then you're not going to be able to kill stuff off with Candle damage alone. Sorry. Both 'mon and item are good, they just... don't go great together. =]

Heya, and welcome aBoard! As your newbie gift, take this plate of freshly-made SPaGhetti!

Since Des already covered the basics, I'll just leave you with a smile, and I hope you like it here!

Let me give you a pot of my special brand of coffee, so black it can suck the light, my chocolate supplies are running low.
How did you discovered this community?
Did you read the Original Series and the Constitution?
Did you read some spin-offs, and which ones if you did?
Could you also present yourself, even basically, and present us your fandoms, please?

Fancy seeing you here and things. You should read the Constitution and the Original Series. We also have a wiki; links are all on the top of the page.
Here, as a newbie gift, have this cup of Lapsang Souchong tea. No, the leaves are not going to eat you.

Oh, also. What are your fandoms? Your preferred pronoun? What is the meaning of the goggles?

Applying eau de Clickable Email now...

For classified reasons, though, my personal computer is on lockdown until 5 PM daily, so I don't know if I can get to the files concerned until after that time. Regardless, please send me the link and I can look over it again as soon as I can!

I'm willing to throw my stick in the pile. I like reading other peoples stories.

Just give me a bit, I'll shoot over an email.

Also, yes, I have read 120 days. Horrid fic made for nothing but shock value, but the last chapter made me stop and think. I would not recommend reading the fic for that last chapter, but for what it is, it was very interesting.

(P.s. Before it was full of fedora wearing neckbeards, Scape? So, G3?)

There's really not that much to know.

Twi's a Princess, Discord is a good guy, Dash likes books now, there's a human dimension and a literal shark jumping.

At least that's what I got from a friend of a friend of mine.

It will change into your favorite type once it's in our mouth. Enjoy, and welcome aboard!

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

And as for your question, there's a thing called a Pocket Fictionary which is sometimes used in missions where the agents don't know the continua concerned. I'd recommend that first - otherwise, you can always get another agent (or another Boarder on a meta level) who does know the continuum in question to help you out.

Here's your starter Pokémon:-

Iiiiiiiit's Rhyperior!

And your starting item is:-

Toxic Worm from Risk of Rain!

Toxic Worm is a pretty good item for physical attackers like Rhyperior, since it's basically Poison Point and Poison Touch bundled together in an item - you have a 30% chance to Poison an opponent if you successfully land a contact move on them or vice versa, which means that you can get in just that little bit more chip damage to make your opponent dead. Offensive sets can be a little hampered if you're skipping a Choice Band, though. Here's my recommendation for it:

Rhyperior @ Toxic Worm
Solid Rock
92 HP / 252 Attack / 164 Speed
Stone Edge
Earthquake
Thunder Punch
Megahorn

Other Boarders answered your questions, so let's skip to the gift.
You can take the blue bag of light-sucking black coffee, or the red bag with light-sucking dark chocolate. Your call.

DoI sorts through fics to determine whether agents need to go into them in the first place, and DMES&R runs experiments on Sues to figure out how they work. (We do have a Canon Library...somewhere...)

Also, hi, newbie! Here's a box of peanut butter and dark chocolate granola bars!

Take this plate of freshly-made SPaGhetti!

In answer to your question, I'll have to point you to Scape's post. Agents generally don't get assigned canons they don't know, and when they do, they're either assigned to do the job with someone who does know it, or they seek out a canon expert to help them out, And if all else fails, there's always the Pocket Fictionary.

But, erm, yeah, like Des said, if you plan on using this to write a spinoff, you need Permission first.

Everyone already covered everything else, so I'll just leave you with a "Hope you like it here!". :)

Have you read the Original Series, The PPC Constitution and the relevant FAQs on the Wiki? What are your fandoms? Do you have a favorite PPC spin-off?

Welcome, etc. (Tired. Someone else will probably ask the usual questions.)

Unless it's being done for comedic effect, agents know the canon they are being sent to. As a rule of thumb, in every agent team there is at least one agents that knows the canon(s) involved — if, for example, Lacksi and Macksi get sent into a Star Wars x Star Trek fic, then if Lacksi doesn't know SW, Macksi does and vice versa. Alternatively, the Pocket Fictionary is a thing. It is also popular to have agents contact friends, acquaintances or just random persons for help if they get a mission to a canon they don't know.

Also, question (might be on the paranoid side. Again, tired, apologies if I'm reading things into your post or offending — definitely not my aim here): you're not planning on writing PPC missions without Permission, are you now?

~A very tired law student

Generally, the PPC agents are canon experts who are good at figuring out what can and can't work. However, there are exceptions: the best thing to do is make it funny. Put them in a queue for a million years to find the information via a garbled phone call that sounds like it came from inside a rusty baked bean tin on the dark side of Mars. =]

Hells yes, I'll be there with bells on!

I may or may not participate, though. I'd love the opportunity to do a field run with my agent pair, but I'm not sure how comfortable I feel with them just now. I suppose we'll see when Halloween rolls in.

And those days just cleared up for me so I'm in.

That. . .is when my most important college app is due so I may or may not be able to participate but I'd definitely be interested! Where will this be happening?

...I'll unfortunately be ridiculously busy with IRL things throughout the rest of the autumn term, so I can't make any guarantees.

Which is a shame, because I have a few characters who would've loved to be there. And not just in my PPC writings, either...

(Possibly literally if Ami goes as Star Swirl the Bearded.) I won't be bringing any of my old OCs, just so you know. I'm saving them for next year's badfic game instead.

Considering I'm also doing NaNo this year and am still fleshing out the ideas and characters, and have another OC who would be fun to bring in as well, I'm in favor. It sounds like fun.

~DF

I might/might not bring a superheroish OC I have in mind into the mix. Will see if uni leaves me enough breath.