May 2016 Archive, part c

A six-agent, five(?)-Boarder mission into an MMPR Legendary that you intend to keep SFW despite the badfic's content? You are either ambitious or crazy.

One grammar error:
her pace and footing matching that of the other woman's
That wording is redundant: the "of" already signals possession; you don't need the "'s". Delete one or the other:

"her pace and footing matching that of the other woman"
OR
"her pace and footing matching the other woman's"

So, I wonder what regulations July will break for the greater good.

The ripping off of the name tag made me wince, but I assume that the new coveralls use Velcro?

Poor Nume, but I guess he deserved getting kneecapped?

Because having slept over what you said earlier, you damn well deserve one. :(

First off, given what I've been hearing that you'll be making this entire mission SFW, I'd be very interested in hearing about how you'll be handling that, because I was under the impression that Agony in Pink being extremely ultra-violent and NSFW/NSFB in general would likely have left very little room for writing material that didn't mention the sordidness of the subject matter. To write a SFW mission based on a very, very gruesome and horrifying badfic would be an interesting challenge, especially one as infamous as this. My guess is that it'd result in A) an exorcism and the unfortunate canon participants being sent to Medical, FicPsych, or both; B) at least one character replacement being killed offscreen or in a relatively clean fashion that doesn't imitate the level of gore seen in the fic itself; or C) both. Whatever the case, a dramatic, drawn-out execution scene with crazy deaths for every Suvian involved doesn't seem appropriate for such a drawn-out squickfest, and it would only make sense to end it off with a peaceful whimper rather than a gory bang. That's just speculation, though - the mission itself could take it in a different direction, who knows?

Interesting that July joined the military after running away from HQ. Having looked through all of the previous missions involving July and Library, I would be interested in learning of how she got drafted in the first place and her adventures as a soldier. That's likely a story for another time, though. Anyway, the fact that July kept several figurines and toys on her rack is a nice little touch, and to me it does smack of the notion that maybe she does miss visiting so many different continua and, somewhere deep down, she does want to go back, but her experiences there has made her deny that particular subconscious. Again, though, that's just a guess.

The reunion scene with July and Library (Calpurnia? Is that what she's known as now?) was very sweet, and I like how Library decided not to have a replacement partner because it wouldn't have been the same without the original July with her. The "Cal" nickname was a cute touch, too, and while I don't know if it'll be used more often I like that it cements the fact that even after all this time, they're still best friends - and their bond will need to be stronger than ever, all things considered.

Now, the meeting with the Flowers. This part specifically was what I got into trouble about in the first place. You were right in that July was the one who mentioned the Legendaries, and not the Flowers. In light of this, it was also totally wrong of me to straight-up request that the Flowers mention it. I wrote about a discussion of the "Sweet Apple Massacre" incident in one of my previous missions, and it was implied that only a select few people knew about what happened; there is absolutely no way that July would have been able to know of it. I was horribly careless, insensitive, and self-absorbed when I stated what I did earlier, because I didn't read the entirety of this work when I commented on it and my ego got the better of me that time. I cannot apologize enough for this mistake, and I will make sure to read the entire work before commenting as well as avoid bringing my own image into my feedback in the future.

With that being said, the entire meeting had a great sense of foreboding, especially the fact that multiple Flowers agreed to send July and Library into this abomination of a badfic, either because their own agents refused or they felt that these two were the most suited for the job. Probably both. At any rate it's good to see that the Flowers hold faith in some of their charges and that they hold July and Library in such esteem. And the part with July demanding that she do the whole thing her way, with no casualties or major trauma, is a great tieback to your stated endeavor to make the mission SFW, clean, and efficient. And the "Never Again Volunteer Yourself" bit was a funny little touch. XD

Now to the last part of the prologue. It was only fair that the agents get some backup, because this is a freaking Legendary, and if the Aviator's case is anything to go by, soloing a Legendary is a risky challenge at best. Fritz and Silas making a reappearance was unexpected but most welcome, since I loved reading of these two and I was hoping they'd come back for at least this mission. Their taking down Cupcakes was one of my favorite PPC readings and I would like to see how they handle something SO much worse. And of course, the Cafeteria scene. "Many governmental. So navy. Much military. Wow." was the line where I suspected that this was going to be golden - and "Very, very purposefully the wrong words" was where I cast aside all possible doubt. Starting up a mass brawl just to pick out Nume would totally be something July would do, and it's paid off beautifully. Grumpy Nume is grumpy as always, and July kneecapping him didn't help matters, but it made for a pretty neat interaction scene which showcases that even with their... problems... with each other... Nume is still willing to help, and that's what counts.

Finally, and most importantly, I am sincerely and deeply sorry for having been so unbelievably self-centered, inconsiderate, tasteless, and outright insulting. Not just on this occasion but during many, MANY previous instances where I posted and blurted out selfish, tactless words without thinking. I will do everything in my power from here on out to rid myself of this nasty habit, and I hope no hard feelings will arise from this incident, because dangit, I don't want any pointed at me.

And needless to say, I look forward to where this mission will go, and how everyone participating in all of this will (safely) handle the horror of Agony in Pink.

-SS

Despite the presence of the Board of Flowers - always a favourite of mine - and that amazing cafeteria scene with Nume, I still think the very best part of this is the interactions between July and Library. Exceptionally well done.

hS

I really liked the "cause a massive fight, then slip out of it just by rearranging your clothes" part. That was also quite the interesting way to sort out Cafeteria customers.

I wonder if the dustball is still going on now?



Anyways, Corolla's around in DoSAT and is pretty much as crazy as July is, so feel free to borrow her if you need more DoSAT techies or even mission backup.

I don't even know where to start! Um. The build-ups: very suspenseful. Even the first set of scenes, even though I knew that this is building up to "Agony in Pink," felt like they had such an impending wham for Agent July. (And, of course, they did!) The other was when July got "'allowance to do this my way,'" which got me all kinds of curious about what, exactly, you had going down. The scenes where July collects her first two team mates added to that buildup. The way she sorted Nume out of the cafeteria crowd was brilliant! The DoSAT scene especially had me perplexed at first, because I was only thinking about actively written agents. I didn't see Fritz and Silas coming at all, and it was super cool to see them on the page again. (Is Joe in on this, or are you just borrowing Fritz?)

Which leads to the next point of awesomeness: all the little nods you make to PPC continuity. From the obvious ones like Katie Cray and discussing the history of Legendary missions, to the subtle little nods to things like "Literally, Floaters" and Sally's dubious deputizing, make this whole piece feel like it's using the whole PPC as a firm foundation, and adds to its strength as a part of PPC history.

I love the reunion scene between July and Library. It's sweet, and shows that they care about each other, but without getting too dramatically emotional. Also excellent is the scene at Room One. You perfectly blended inter-character humor with the seriousness with which the Flowers viewed the AiP undertaking—the huge, but mostly unspeaking, crowd gets that point across all on its own, as does the Hyacinth's simple and straightforward delivery throughout.

And then, of course, there's that beautiful line I was gushing about in text last night. I'm not even going to to say it here in case some folks haven't figured it out yet, but yeah. It's still gorgeous, and I'm still gushing.

—doctorlit wishes he could clever like July

As far as I remember, your spin-off wasn’t actually my favorite back in the days when I read everything on the complete list of PPC fiction before joining the Board. But what I’ve seen from you since you returned – woah! There’s been a lot of development, either on your side or mine (or both). Over the past few years I learned a lot about the PPC and fandoms I didn’t know. I probably should go back and reread July and Calpunia’s story to see whether I can enjoy the diversity and originality more now. If I only had the time to do everything I want to do.

Nevertheless, even with beta readers of this caliber, some lines escaped the proofreading:

Out the door and back into the corridor, July fell into step next to Library, her pace and footing matching that of other woman's.
Shouldn’t this be either "matching the other woman’s" or "matching that of the other woman"?

We try to find two people each, and it should work out to hopefully enough.
Missing word "be"? I’m not sure whether this is intentional.

I think I might have accidentally on purposely sold myself to the US military ...
Shouldn’t this be either "on purpose" or "purposely"? Again, I’m not certain whether July making small mistakes in her dialogue is intentional.

Do look like a masochist?
As far as I know Nume, he wouldn’t leave out the "I"?

I’m looking forward to the actual mission, and how you’ll make this SFW.

HG

I know I've kind of been a sounding board for bits of this, on and off, but it'll be really interesting to see where this ends up going further. It's really nice to see July and Library together again, and I like the gathering of agents for unknown and nefarious porpoises. It's a great introduction to the mission and I'm really looking forward to reading more. =]

I'm almost looking forward to future installments despite my low tolerance for gore!

The Super Sentai series, specifically Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, Gosei Sentai Dairanger, and Ninja Sentai Kakuranger, of which Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers is based off of, belong to Toei Company

Not sure what you will be doing with Legendary badfic veterans, but I think it's a safe bet to say it will warrant an entry on our Awesome page on Tv Tropes. It also explains you were a bit frustrated by the way the fight in the Cafeteria almost turned into a foodfight.

Consider me hooked up for the sequel.

I am very scared for your agents now, especially given the subject matter they're going to tackle. Knowing the PPC, though, I'm sure they'll be able to pull through somehow. Best of luck with what's to come!

Also, a somewhat tangential question: Would "Sweet Apple Massacre" qualify as a Legendary? It's got its own KnowYourMeme article, it was first published in 2011, and the first 5 pages of Google results AT LEAST are related to it and the sheer revulsion directed at it. If it is a Legendary, well... Honestly, you'd think it'd have been mentioned during the Flowers' discussion on previously killed Legendary badfics, since in-universe the mission into it (which I'll address in a future story) happened sometime in April 2014. That's just my opinion, though.

First of all? Good job. No, great job.

Won't comment too much more other than to say it felt almost like a grand final season to a long-running TV show: bringing in a bunch of familiar faces to take down the Big Bad. I can't really explain it, other than to say I got a pretty good sense of grandness from the whole thing. I liked it.

Also, this line.

July glanced in the DAVD Head's direction. "Isn't this sort of mission supposed to be your department's actual thing? What with, y'know, all the violence?"

They all refused, the Big Thorn stated flatly.

This gave me some serious chills and did a great job showcasing just how insane this monster of a badfic is. Wow.

Definitely excited to see what happens next.

Welcome back! It sounds like other people have filled you in, so I won't bother. Suffice to say, it's been an interesting year or so.

Since everyone covered the big stuff, I'll just give you this fresh plate of SPaGhetti. :)

And congrats on the anthology! That's seriously awesome.

We went to Pluto!

Which I think means it's about time for another Ill-Advised Camping Trip, don't you? >:D

You'll be glad to know the two previous trips are archived for all eternity now, too.

(Also, welcome back! Also also, you don't have to, don't worry.)

hS

Well besides what was mentioned there were also PPC Hunger Games going on, I released a PPC story set on a ship, and the first part of Agony in Pink is also up for that matter.

Definitely try to stick around!

-July

We also have a Minecraft realm now, if you're into that. We cried a lot over several people dying, had a pokemon tournament, had two annual PPC hunger games, hS made a Dungeon Crawler, Badges and did something called Operation Oscilloscope. I also probably did something stupid that I can't remember. Other than that, nothing that you need to know.

Congrats on the anthology! As for what you missed; the PPC Pokemon Tournament, a handful of newbies and people getting Permission, Blank Sprite chapter 5, the Boarder formerly known as Data Junkie reintroduced herself as Delta Juliette, JulyFlame started work on "Agony In Pink," a whole big mess involving a ban and Iximaz leaving for a little bit, a Karaoke Night RP over on T-Board (still open), the Purim RP...and two new missions on my end, one of which ended on a non-violent note.

Congrats on the anthology deal! Please, you must drop me a link once it's available! I'm dead set on reading everything PPCers get published.

—doctorlit is super excited for you, yo!

It's been a wild, wild ride.
Someone trolled us, got their posts deleted endlessly, and quit after less than three days.
I don't know whether we, as a community, ought to feel good that the problem disappeared so quickly, or insulted that it was such amateur work.
I'd tell you EVERYTHING TO HELP YOU CATCH UP, but I haven't reached omnipotence quite yet, so, sorry.

What I can do is give you an imaginary gift that will leave no bearing on reality at all whatsoever!
Here, have a towel, for all that heavy sweating.
Don't go losing it, now.
Think of all the sweat hiding inside of you, just waiting to pop right out.
But you'll be prepared.
Welcome back!

As it were, I'm terrible with recaps, so somebody else will have to do that. But welcome back! Have this cup of monks' tea as a welcome-back gift.

There's so many things to make! It makes me wonder what brain bleach tastes like. For some reason, I'm thinking of lemons.

I'm certain you can get edible glitter; whether or not it's suitable for being baked into a soufflé does, alas, defeat me.

farewell...

Honestly, how is it that this year just so happens to be so densely packed with tragic, high-profile deaths?

"I think George R.R. Martin wrote the script for 2016."

It is a variant of my Gamertag. I like keeping things simple. I came up with it as a result of trolling someone who was spouting off a bunch of random paranoid conspiracy theories. So i acted as if I were some kind of highly advanced evil government ai. I kind of like the way it looked, so I stuck with it.

Once upon a time, a young lad needed a username. Said young lad was unable or unwilling ( I truly can't remember) to simply use his favorite animal as he had in the past, and so he looked for something new. He had a certain fondness for badgers and a love of Star Wars, and so he combined the two, and the name stuck.

At least, I think that's how it happened.

If anyone is still feeling the translation bug, I wish you luck with this one. If you'd prefer something easier, I have gone by a few other names, most notably WordWolf, Talven, and Talath. I seem to recall Talven being some form of the Finnish word for winter, and I think Talath is the Sindarin word for plain or tundra, so... Wolf of the Wintery Plain, maybe? It's about the only way I can think of to get something translatable out of all that.

My name comes from my MLP OC. (of the same name DUH) The basic premise was a hero pony whose talent was dark magic and all the trials and tribulations that would logically follow as Midnight would try to resist any temptation to go down the villainous path like Lord Sombra. Being unfairly persecuted by those who (Rightfully) fear dark magic would also be a thing that Midnight would have to deal with.

Mine came from a screen name I made up for an author avatar of mine (a very minor character) in a semi-fic blip I never quite got around to.

And as for how I came up with it in the first place? I thought it sounded cool.

July, the month I was born in. Flame, because fire is a very questionable and yet beloved friend of mine.

Since I started using this as a username it's been cut down in all sorts of ways.

When I was still pretty young it was condensed down to 'JF'. From when I was about 11 until 16 or so, roughly.

'July' eventually became the predominant version after I got a bit older, and people eventually stopped using JF entirely for the most part.

More recently others have started calling me 'Ju' as a shorter version.

In all those years I think I've only been called Flame like, once.

-July

Bonus Challenge: Go on, hS, try and Elvish it.

I didn't even know this many people existed!
How do we all fit?!

I created my screen name back in 2006 or so. I had just created a writing blog aimed at posting humorous non-fiction articles in the vein of Dave Barry. I decided to make homage to Poor Richard's Almanack by Ben Franklin and called myself Poor Cynic. The blog withered away to nothing, but the name stuck around.

I go by the name of supersonic805 on the LEGO forums. In roman numerals, DCCCV is 805. I chose that because while I still enjoy Sonic the Hedgehog, I no longer wish to be known by a name randomly generated as a suggestion. Besides, DCCCV is longer than three numbers.

Sort of like KittyEden does, only mine was worse. She was a Black Butler (an anime/manga series) Sue, a Fury, which was a species I made up that was like a demon (canon species) but more powerful, with wings made of unbreakable, flexible adamant (a material whose properties I invented as the need arose). Her lust-object was Sebastian (a demon, one of the main canons; the one everyone lusted after) but nobly set her attraction aside to help him and Grell (another canon) get together... Did I mention she was an RP character? She was fond of the phrase, "Your attack misses because I have/can..." Did I mention the people playing Sebastian and Grell had no interest in getting together? She had to dodge a lot of attacks.

Fortunately, I realized how terrible she was after one RP. I then elected to write under her name (Erin Alekto) as a constant reminder to never do that again. (I never wrote much though; I preferred reviewing.) But when I arrived at the PPC, an organization devoted to reminding people not to write like that, I didn't feel like using that name was necessary. But her name was the only username I used at the time. I experimented with combinations of letters, but couldn't find one I liked. It was getting late. All the names I came up with were starting to look the same: like pure gibberish. Out of frustration I paid a visit to the TV Tropes page for names that sound like they were invented by mashing the keys and my eyes lit upon the title: Cat-on-the-Keyboard Names. The rest is history.

I've come to like it a lot. It lends itself really well to cool-sounding nicknames: the snappy, gender-neutral "Key," the cute, punnable, femme-but-in-a-comfortable-way "Cat," and potential for more. Also, I only use it with the PPC, which means i have nothing but positive associations with it.

I have lurked The Board for a while, and my username reflects that.

When I chose it, I thought numbers-as-letters was cool.

My old (oooold) handle was SoulFinder, until I got tired of it and decided I wanted something better. I figure that without all the distracting physical details you basically get people's inner selves online, and I've always tried to be my authentic self besides, so I though just "soul" was appropriate. I went looking around for a cool word with that meaning, and I found this one in a Yiddish-English dictionary in my high school library. I cribbed it, and it stuck.

That's pretty much it.

~Neshomeh

I made it up a looong time ago, when I was still in High School and first got into Middle-Eart's lore...

What does it mean? Well, I'll let someone more versed than me in those languages, answer that for me!

A lesser god in Greek Mythology, Phobos (fear) and his twin brother Deimos (terror) accompanied their father Ares into battle. I picked up the name from the book "Gates of Fire", which is about the battle of Thermopylae. Phobos is the shield piercer. He breaks defenses better than any spear.

So, why did I pick that name for myself? Because, when I play games (Magic: The Gathering is the big one at the moment), I try to break my opponents defenses in that way. Make them afraid of what my next move might be. Make them afraid of what I might have in my hand or up my sleeve. I play a very mental game and my opponents make mistakes because of it.

If someone were to do a Quenya translation, it probably comes out as something like "Shadow on the Heart/Mind".

-Phobos, the Mind Killer

It’s as close to "Anonymous" and as far from "non-descript entity" as I could get, because I won’t tell you who I am, but still want to be recognizable.

HG is an aged, German, genderbent Hermione Granger who actually sports a gray beard.

Now, a little more interestingly - another username I use: EQSkyfall. EQ is sort of an abbreviation for equestrian (fancy word for 'I Ride Horses') and Skyfall is a character's name of mine :)

Let's just say that I took my first name and turn it into the English equivalent of it and use a variation of a somewhat translation of my surname.

I just took my first name and played with the letters.

El = either poetic word for star, or (by association with Elda) an Elf
Cal = shine,brightness,light
-ion = son/heir/follower

Taken together, means something like "Bright Elf son" or "Son of the bright star". I prefer the "star" interpretation.

As far as grammar, it's modelled on Eldarion/Ereinion, although not sure if I've gotten the adjective order correct (I guess Calelion would potentially be a viable alternative, but sounds a bit too Kryptonian. Besides, one of the rules of Elvish in-universe is "change the language to make it sound pretty" so I feel justified in going for the more euphonious option).

Huine is 'shadow, twilight', soron is 'eagle'. Hence, Eagleshade. It's not entirely proper Quenya, but it works for me. (And it's pronounced Hween-AY-sore-on, since that always comes up.)

As for why... it was my first email handle, and I got an email address to talk about the release of The Two Towers with a friend over the Christmas holidays. So I pulled out the Silmarillion and looked through the language index... and that's all there is to it.

hS

^^^^^ As for that thing: it's a Latinisation of my Tengwar monogram:



That's a small hyarmen contained in a large silme, so I used small h, large S. Et voila.

hS, owner of the sexiest name, muaha

... by a rock band, who were very popular in my country, Denmark, and virtually unknown everywhere else.

I don't recall exactly why I started using it; it's a very catchy little song, but nothing extraordinary. But it does have the advantage that no-one else uses it, so whenever I sign up for something it's always available as a username.

I've actually stopped thinking of it as a song and just think of it as my second name.

Techno-Dann has been with me for a very long time - it was my first online handle, and the PPC was one of the first places I used it... thirteen years ago? Gosh, I feel old.

It was... hmm. Superhero name as invented by an idealess (and very pre-social-justice) fifteen year old? "Dann" borrows from the Redwall series, as I'm sure people who've read Marlfox have figured. (First fandom cred!)

More recently, Delta Juliette started life as a name I used to start to get away from the very gendered reading I had of Techno-Dann. It's very much a zero-imagination name: my IRL initials are DJ, and I'm leaning towards a direct transliteration of my name when it changes - Daniel James will become Danielle Juliette. It's also quietly transfeminine - "Delta" being used in math and physics to denote change, and "Juliette" being a very femme name.

Anyway, my handle comes from this Yu-Gi-Oh! card. I liked (and still like) the name even though basically everything about the card is crappy.

I enjoy coming up with characters just for the sake of drawing them. Not even writing about them, just coming up with them and leaving them sitting around. Nova was one of my favorites.

I've made an article for it on the wiki, finally.

I picked the name because a) I couldn't think of anything better, and b) The Door Within has always been one of my favorite series. Even if the doctrine is a bit sketchy. It got me through one of those IRL difficulty spikes. Y'know, when you've just done the real life equivalent of leveling up and the new game mechanics are hard to master and the enemies just got a lot tougher.

Interestingly enough, Alleb is not my full screen name. Technically, it's Alleb Knight. But that just sounds pretentious.

Also, I remember being rather impressed by your name when you first arrived--it's a good one, very memorable.

-Alleb KnightAlleb

um,
Kitty was originally the name of my terrible OC. and then I took it as my own.
That's about it.

I should probably copy my answer for repeats of this thread, but meh, I like telling the story.

So! I'm a big RPG nerd, be it tabletop or MMORPGs, and the very first MMORPG I ever played was Runescape. This was back in the day when you actually got to choose your username instead of being forced to pick one provided by the game, and I decided there was no way I wanted to be CamelotOrc3327 or whatever the number was (The CamelotOrc bit really stuck in my mind; I don't think I'll ever forget that.), no way, no how. I wanted a name name, dangit!

The only problem was that anything resembling a real name would be caught by the censors and not be allowed, so I played around with some sounds and letters before coming up with Iximaz.

Look, I was twelve, it sounded like a cool name at the time. Stop laughing. :P

Iximaz ended up becoming my online name for just about everything else, and though I ended up abandoning Runescape in favor of World of Warcraft, I kept the name Iximaz as my account name there. Not to mention I named my hunter character that as well, in memory of the first Iximaz, who would spend hours shooting at hill giants from behind the safety of a stalagmite wall they couldn't seem to cross.

Good times, good times...

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of my favorite books of all time, and it's associated with one of my favorite memories from childhood (my older cousin trying to explain the Infinite Improbability Drive to seven-year-old me). Plus it has the words "Don't Panic" printed on the cover in large friendly letters. In honor of this day, I carried my towel with me everywhere, drew fanart over Snapchat and freaked out about the beauty of the Guide to everyone who held still long enough. I will restrain myself here because I'm a little tired out. I have photos I took of my towel and my stupid/evil fanart which I would very much like to show you, but I can't figure out how to add them. . . I'm guessing that Photobucket isn't as good of a choice as it first appears to be?

Oh, and since we're a fanfic (critique) community: Is So Long and Thanks for All The Fish the best author response to fanfic ever or what?

--Key

The world needs a little more joy.

Happy Geek Pride day!

I mean, I'm not sure if my aging computer will be able to take it, but I still find the changes they've shown so far to be very interesting and compelling. I like how clean the UI looks, and the idea of actions helping to boost research is really neat. Also, speaking as someone who has been scoped out of more than one Wonder, the idea of limited building tiles is growing on me. No more AI cities with 12 stacked Wonders.

I'm fine with the way the game looks. Civilization IV was super cartoony and I loved it. The one graphics-related gripe I have is in regard to how Theodore Roosevelt was portrayed. He looks way too hefty (although that might just be because they went with a reference of older Roosevelt).

Final note: this really shouldn't need to be stated ('cause it's YouTube and all), but don't read the comments. SO much complaining.

Yes, I listen to music while doing both, but more with writing than reading. I get stressed out when writing sometimes, and music helps keep me focused and relaxed. It's also useful for setting a tone for a scene.

When writing I prefer music without lyrics that matches the tone of what I'm writing, usually movie soundtracks or classical music. When I read I usually just find something in my music library that fits what I'm reading.

Sometimes. I can get lost in the story and just start seeing it while I read, but I also like to sit back and appreciate the language of the book.

Usually. It may not always be particularly bright color, but I'm pretty sure it's there.

Only fragments if I don't write them down. I keep a journal of the really interesting or weird ones, and ever since I started they've grown easier and easier to remember.

I've only ever had one, and it was more of nightmare. Suffice it to say being chased by velociraptors is equally terrifying the second time around.

Only rarely with people I know well, but with acquaintances or strangers I sometimes just need to get away.

Certain aspects of history, art, and a some more basic science.


Well, that was fun.

Do you read/write while listening to music?

Read, no; write, definitely yes - usually music without words, but not always.

If you do, do you read/write with a specific genre?

Sci-fi and fantasy - and I've actually written PPC missions to music, too.

When you read a book, do you pretty much fully hallucinate (can't think of a better word) and forget that you're reading a book?

This is a tricky one, so I'm guessing 'sometimes' is probably the most accurate.

Do you dream in color?

Always.

Do you remember your dreams?

I dream very regularly and this can go from knowing I was dreaming something but not quite being able to pull back precisely what once I wake, to remembering it in incredible detail and being able to insert it into my writing. Some dreams I recall upon having a sequel dream, which can be years later. Occasionally I lucid dream or, more frequently, semi-lucid dream.

Do you have recurring dreams?

Yes; I have even managed to map certain locations and regions that have built up over the years. Certain rules and abilities also recur and I have been known to jump back to a previous point in some dreams and do something different.

When doing social things, do you sometimes need a break?

Often.

Which school subjects come easily to you?

Biology and Chemistry.

1. Yes


2. Metal (GaMetal specifically)


3. nope.


4. yes


5. Yes


6. Recurring ones only


7. There is this one where there's this building above a river that leads to a waterfall and every time at 12pm the building falls into that river


8. Yes


9. 
   
   
   
   • English
   
   
   • Science
   
   
   • Math
   
   
   
   

Do you read/write while listening to music?

Sometimes. I find that a little music here and there can provide inspiration for a writing scene or something— as if I write to capture a mood behind a song. I can't read or write if the song has got lyrics that I can understand, though. It's too distracting.

If you do, do you read/write with a specific genre?

When writing action scenes, I usually listen to some sort of battle music from some game or the other. For example, a hand-to-hand fight scene might by inspired by, say, the latest DOOM's BFG Division.

For reading, I usually put something calm in the background. Nothing specific.

When you read a book, do you pretty much fully hallucinate and forget that you're reading a book?

Like moviemode? Yeah, that happens all the time. But I'm still, y'know. Reading. I never forget that I'm holding the book in my hands and reading words off a page.

Do you dream in color?

I honestly can't remember the last time I dreamt. Must've been well over 5 years or something. I did dream in colour, way back when.

Do you remember your dreams?

Well, if I can't even recall the last time I dreamt...

Do you have recurring dreams?

Guess not.

When doing social things, do you sometimes need a break?

Well, I can't exactly keep on talking to someone for hours and hours and hours, can I? In all seriousness, I'm more of an introverted type, but one who likes to chat. It's strange.

Which school subjects come easily to you?

Mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, languages, and history. I'm so-so at anything involving physical activity and I utterly despise arts and music.

Absolutely useless subjects. Why must my painting be graded and my music be evaluated? I don't get it.

Music is very important to study along with.

Tom Falater

Or not. Well-chosen answers.

1. Music is almost a constant when writing, less so when reading - but even then, I'm frequently listening to something.

2. Soundtrack music! Epic-ish, orchestral, no vocals - I want something I can feel without having words to distract me.

3. I'm about halfway there? I picture things vividly, but I don't lose track of the reality of the book.

4. Yes! I dream in color. Usually. I've had a couple very black-and-white dreams that I can recall, but black-and-white was part of their nature, not a normal thing.

5. Sometimes - depends on the dream, and the night. I'll often only wake up with fragments, scattered scenes and images.

6. I only very rarely have recurring dreams. I'll fairly frequently revisit locations from previous dreams (for example, I've got a fairly consistent not!Seattle running around my headspace), but exact replays are a rarity. When they do happen, they're frequently back-to-back, with more intense stuff - I'll wake from a nightmare, drift back to sleep, and the whole thing starts over again from the top.

7. I am a massive introvert, with a side of autism-spectrum! Social stuff is fun, but it takes energy, and some days I have less energy to spend than others.

8. Math and computer science, especially the more visual maths, come really easy for me - I had a graph theory course in college that everyone else complained about incessantly - I 4.0ed it without even trying.

1a. Yes! Very much yes.
1b. Not particularly - though sometimes I can get on a [insert band here] kick and try to find all their songs.

2. Sometimes. If the descriptions are done well enough, it can happen for me, but the feeling isn't all-consuming or anything.

3. Sometimes? Probably mostly, since I can't remember any dreams specifically being in black and white.

4. As stated above, mostly.

5. Yes! Usually centering on mazes/houses that I have to escape. I'll do it the first time, then get sidetracked on repetitions.

6. Yes. Very much so.

7. ... All of them? I never really had a hatred of anything I did in school (which probably makes me an outlier). I prefer working alone in most cases, though.

Do you read/write while listening to music?
Very rarely while writing, and never anything with vocals. Never while reading. I have a tendency to focus too much on the music and not on the actual task.

If you do, do you read/write with a specific genre?
I try to pick music that's thematically appropriate for what I'm writing. So jazz and blues for something detective-y and noir, for example, or ragtime for a turn-of-the-century tale. I might change the music depending on the scene as well. If the climax in big and dramatic, the music should fit that.

When you read a book, do you pretty much fully hallucinate (can't think of a better word) and forget that you're reading a book? (Like, you don't realize you're reading words. You just have the pictures in your head)
Sort of. I do imagine what's going on in my head, but I'm always cognizant of the fact that I'm reading a book. I will occasionally go back and reread sections, or even put the book down for a little bit to mull over the most recent event.

Do you dream in color?
Yes.

Do you remember your dreams?
Rarely. It's more common if it's a dream that pops up again and again, or if it's a dream inspired by something in the real world. If I read a bunch of books in a series or play one game for a long period of time, chances are I might dream something about those subjects.

Do you have recurring dreams?
As I mentioned in the last one, I do. Unfortunately, they're almost always nonsensical stress dreams. Typically I'm back in college, struggling with courses that I would have never taken in real life (typically high-level mathematics or something).

When doing social things, do you sometimes need a break?
Yes. I'm not good in large groups, particularly with people I don't know all that well. Eventually my social reserves run dry in such circumstances and I leave for the privacy of my own home.

Which school subjects come easily to you?
History and literature/English.

Do you read/write while listening to music?
Yes. I really enjoy listening to music while writing.
Specific genre?
Certain stories that I write have an album or song associated with them. I don't stick to one genre overall with my music but I do prefer something fast and exciting with a good beat while I'm trying to write.
When you read a book...
Sometimes I can become so absorbed I don't think that I'm actually reading anymore so I think the answer here is yes. But it doesn't happen every time so...
Dream in color?
Yes
Remember your dreams?
Sometimes. I'll go for periods of no dreams but then I'll start remembering them.
Recurring dreams?
Maybe? I dont really have dreams that REPEAT themselves but I do have recurring themes, locations, situations, etc. Kind of like sequel dreams.
Social things?
Yes! I'm definitely an introvert that needs to recharge.
School subjects?
Uh, writing and English I'm good at. I also am a steady hand at Statistics.

1: I don't really listen to music (I know, I'm such a wierdo).
2: When I'm reading I see the words but it's like there's a movie going on inside my head if that makes any sense.
3: Yes I do dream in color.
4: I remember most of my dreams, although only bits of some.
5: I have recurring dreams.
6: It really depends on the social thing. Sometimes I'll keep doing whatever it is, other times it might be too much.
7: I've never had a problem with school. I really hate remembering dates though.

Do you read/write while listening to music?

When reading? Absolutely not. It's impossible for me to concentrate on the Words if other Words are being thrown into my ears. Even lyric-less music is way too distracting, since my brain then tries to follow along with the notes.

When writing? I . . . can. I usually wouldn't, but sometimes if I'm writing a mission or regular fan story, I'll listen to something off a related soundtrack. Again, it cannot be something with lyrics, or they will distract me from the words I'm trying to put down. (I do remember in school I could listen to lyric songs while working on nonfiction essays and such, and it often made me work faster. But that's because I had no emotional investment in those . . . things.

If you do, do you read/write with a specific genre?

Again, same-universe soundtrack or nothing.

When you read a book, do you pretty much fully hallucinate (can't think of a better word) and forget that you're reading a book? (Like, you don't realize you're reading words. You just have the pictures in your head)

Very, very, very much. When I'm reading, there is no doctorlit anymore, no more background, only what's happening on the page—only it's not a page, it's a world.

A particularly jerkish student at my high school commented once, as I read an assigned novel at lunch, that I "read slow." (He should have said slowly, of course. Tsk, tsk, and at a prep school, too!) I guess the whole visualization thing makes me slower? Although I can't imagine that most people read by skimming; I prefer to believe he was just being a jerk, as per usual.

Do you dream in color?

*remembers dreaming about branches with green leaves being in the animal food fridge last night*
CONFIRMED

Do you remember your dreams?

*remembers remembering*
CONFIRMED

Do you have recurring dreams?

You know, it hasn't happened in years, and I don't remember the actual events anymore, but I do remember having sequels to previous dreams when I was younger, sometimes years apart. When I was particularly young, I kept having dreams about skeletal zombies being pretty much everywhere around me. Fun times.

When doing social things, do you sometimes need a break?

Psh. I need mostly break. With all the time I spend at work, I want nothing more than being home alone at my computer during off time. I'm at the point where I don't even want to hang out with family or friends anymore, just because it ruins my alone time. I do feel guilty about it, but I just really, really need to be alone.

Which school subjects come easily to you?

My best subjects overall were generally literature courses and science courses, although there were exceptions both ways. Organic chemistry, physics and biochemistry were terrible, because they're only barely science and wildly uninteresting to me. English classes for me were an excuse to get reading for homework, and then BS some nonsense for the essays/exams for grades. But sometimes, I would get a teacher who ruined it for me by wanting us to be far more analytical of themes and metaphor and such than I tend to be when I read. Reading is only for entertainment, people!

—doctorlit needs to start breakfast now

1. Yes, dear god yes.
   
   2. My Pandora seeds are Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, My Chemical Romance, and Paramore if that gives you an idea.
   
   3. Yes, Rick Riordan's works especially
   
   4. Well I do watch color tv, which has been proven to induce said dreams..
   
   5. Occasionally, like last night I ended with a Steven Universe future!au
   
   6. I rarely get the same setting as another dream if that makes anysense.
   
   7. Meh
   
   8. Most subjects come naturally to me, Math especially so.

1) Do you read/write while listening to music?
No. I've tried, but I end up getting too into the music and I can't concentrate on plotting.

2) If you do, do you read/write with a specific genre?
Not applicable.

3) When you read a book, do you pretty much fully hallucinate (can't think of a better word) and forget that you're reading a book? (Like, you don't realize you're reading words. You just have the pictures in your head)
God, yes. Call it an active imagination, but I can't help but lose myself in the world of the book. Discworld is a particular place I get lost, as is (more recently) the world of Worm.

4) Do you dream in color?
The dreams I remember are in colour, yes. I don't know if it's always true, though; it's a fairly small sample size.

5) Do you remember your dreams?
Not for the most part. I only really remember the nightmares.

6) Do you have recurring dreams?
Recurring nightmares, alas. Similar themes abound, at least, but the details do change because of the mutability of dreams in general.

7) When doing social things, do you sometimes need a break?
All. The. Damn. Time. I kind of envy smokers, because they get to bugger off outside whenever a given room gets too oppressive.

8) Which school subjects come easily to you?
In my experience, English and History. As I was told came easily to me by my parents, Maths, Physics, and Chemistry. You may notice there's not a huge amount of overlap. =/

1. I usually write while listening to music, but I don't normally read. If music's on I just... let it flow, dude. Far out.
   
   2. Everything I write fits into the 'badfic' genre, so, yes, I suppose.
   
   3. Er. I don't think I do?
   I mean, I see images but I'm never at any point not looking at words, y'know?
   
   4. Pretty certain I do.
   
   5. I don't normally remember my dreams, except for tiny snippets, which usually fade away after a while.
   On a related note, I had a dream I remember!
   I was looking at a mirror, and it was someone completely different in the mirror looking back, and I thought after some time: 'You know what, this isn't so bad!'
   Make of it what you will.
   
   6. I wouldn't know if they recur. I doubt it.
   
   7. Sometimes I need a break from social this and that, but not to any wild degree, I don't think.
   Still go to mate's birthday parties, and all, but I'm not particularly outgoing by any large degree.
   
   8. Ancient history, Biology, English, Studies of Religion, and I think I do pretty decently in PDHPE*. I never stress in it, or anything like that, at least.
   
   I don't have any questions, but I probably will have heaps later, and will direly regret not being able to remember them right now.
   
   
   *Personal Development, Health and Physical Education, assuming you heathens don't have it where you are.

Do you read/write while listening to music? If you do, do you read/write with a specific genre?
Never while I'm reading (see the question about books and hallucination; I often do the same thing while listening to music and my mind picks one to focus on), unless the story mentions a song which I don't know well, in which case I'll look it up and listen to it while or before I read the next passage. While writing, sometimes but not usually; it's a bit distracting. At the very least, the music seeps into what I'm writing. Sometimes one of my characters will actually listen to, sing, or dance to the song I'm listening to (e.g. every story I wrote in middle school). So I tend not to listen to music, unless I badly need inspiration (e.g. the horror story I wrote while listening to Metallica's "Master of Puppets" on repeat. It has the same mood as the song, and some of the same phrasing as the lyrics).

However, I need a certain level of ambient noise in order to focus on writing, so if I'm home alone I'll put on hard rock, heavy metal, or anything loud and energetic with lyrics that are unintelligible or don't create a world I can get distracted by (Rammstein's my current favorite thanks to TOS. And yes, Jay, I know there are other German metal bands in the world, but most of the other ones I like have lyrics I know well).

When you read a book, do you pretty much fully hallucinate (can't think of a better word) and forget that you're reading a book? (Like, you don't realize you're reading words. You just have the pictures in your head)
Sometimes this happens, yes. Pictures and these pseudo-sound things which don't sound like sounds or the memory of sounds, they're just the sounds thoughts makes in my mind (there are textures that work the same way. Also mimic-emotions that are shadows of what the characters are feeling. Taste and smell are less common). And not just when I'm reading a book, it also happens when I'm writing, when I'm texting or otherwise sending messages, when I'm thinking about something (although in a less orderly way), and even when I'm listening to music or talking on the phone (just pictures, no reading-sounds). Because of this, I like watching movies or other kinds of video/animation much less than other media: I can't see my own images or my thought-sounds, so I sometimes get the unnerving impression that I'm not thinking, like my mind is turned down, even when I'm thinking very hard to follow the plot or the themes.

Do you dream in color?
Yes, and in all five senses, although I remember sight the best.

Do you remember your dreams?
Yes, but not very well or with any consistency. I remember them better if I write them down, mime writing them down in the air, or otherwise repeat key points to myself.

Do you have recurring dreams?
No. I've dreamed that I have recurring dreams, though. I had one dream where I thought I knew what was going to happen because I'd had the dream before and therefore could control it, but when I woke up I realized I'd never had the dream before and had zero control.

Sometimes I have recurring characters in my dreams, though, all boys. (Girls are either me, generic, or one-time. I'm sure I've had dreams where I didn't have a gender, but if something is missing in my dreams, I don't notice it at all and in my memory default to whatever generic is for that thing.) The most notable of these was a series of three dreams when I was about nine years old where I was this superhero guy. He had that standard superhero tight-fitting suit (which never itched, for some reason; I bet that was one of his superpowers) and cape, both red. Over the course of the dreams I learned that he had many enemies, my same little sister, and a girlfriend named Rebecca. The worldbuilding was decent, but the plots were pretty pointless -- much like my writing in fourth grade, come to think of it.

When doing social things, do you sometimes need a break?
Only if I'm doing social things for really long periods of time or if it's early in the morning. I definitely need time to myself, but I don't usually need to interrupt socializing to do so. I think of myself as a mild introvert or an ambivert, although personality quizzes often tell me I'm more extroverted (I hate personality quizzes; I'm not sure why I take them).

Which school subjects come easily to you?
Math, Spanish (my foreign language), and Acting. History isn't easy, but it's fun, so I work on it in my spare time, so when I get to class it seems like it's coming pretty easily. English (writing, analysis) is the same as history, but it comes a little easier than history (or else I've worked on it more in the past; I can't tell at this point). Visual art is the opposite: it comes easily to me, but I have almost no interest in it, so my drawing style is almost exactly the same as it was in sixth grade, the last year when Art classes were mandatory. Science used to come easily when it was just about analysis and basically structured the same way as history, but now it's also about understanding all these weird processes and that part only comes sort of okay. It'll probably be even worse next year when I take Biology. Music is in the middle. P.E. is dead last. Socializing (which I was graded on in elementary school and still think of as a subject) used to be dead last, but I've (laboriously) developed some habits that make it more natural and even enjoyable.

My Questions for You All
Do you ever dream you're someone other than yourself?
Do you ever dream you're a gender other than your own?

1. Yes.
   2. Previously, I read a lot of Fantasy books, but now, they have all concluded, so I have pretty much stopped reading. However, I listen to music with a sort of final tone to it, as in something that prepares me for a climax all the way.
   3. No, I remain fully grounded in reality, sadly.
   4. Yes, I dream in colour, sometimes. Usually in darker colours, though.
   5. Yes, I remember my dreams.
   6. I have had recurring dreams before, like designs for Super Paper Mario Levels.
   7. Yes, I need to take a break from social things sometimes.
   8. I sadly cannot answer this question competently.

Do you read/write while listening to music?
-Sometimes. It certainly helped during NaNoWriMo.

If you do, do you read/write with a specific genre?
-Not unless I'm playing a specific album.

When you read a book, do you pretty much fully hallucinate (can't think of a better word) and forget that you're reading a book? (Like, you don't realize you're reading words. You just have the pictures in your head)
-Not really, though if I've heard a book on disc, I'll hear the audiobook's narrator in my head when I go back to the physical copy.

Do you dream in color?
-Yes

Do you remember your dreams?
-Vaguely. I have a dream journal, but I keep forgetting to write in it.

Do you have recurring dreams?
-No

When doing social things, do you sometimes need a break?
-Oh, yeah.

Which school subjects come easily to you?
-As long as I remember to keep on top of all my assignments, history and Japanese classes

Do you read/write while listening to music? - No, I find it sort of distracting. :/

When you read a book, do you pretty much fully hallucinate? - I know what you're talking about, and it's only happened once or twice to me, when I was younger. It's cool as hell though, and I wish it wold happen more.

Do you dream in color? - I confirmed I did a few nights ago. :)

Do you remember your dreams? - Occasionally. I've actually taken to writing them down, and I just finished typing up one of the nicest (and most oddly coherent) dreams I've ever had.

Do you have recurring dreams? - Sometimes.

When doing social things, do you sometimes need a break? - Always.

Which school subjects come easily to you? - English, I guess, and sometimes Math. :D

Do you read/write while listening to music? - Yes.

If you do, do you read/write with a specific genre? - Video-game music, assuming the genre refers to what I'm listening to.

When you read a book, do you pretty much fully hallucinate (can't think of a better word) and forget that you're reading a book? (Like, you don't realize you're reading words. You just have the pictures in your head) - Sometimes, particularly with more engaging stories.

Do you dream in color? - All the time.

Do you remember your dreams? - Not all of them, but some of the more memorable ones... Like the time when I dreamed of hanging out with Pixar canons and my parents got abducted by aliens...

Do you have recurring dreams? - Not that I know of.

When doing social things, do you sometimes need a break? - Eeyup

Which school subjects come easily to you? - Biology, engineering, programming, and a bit of mathematics.

1. Sometimes, but when I'm writing I sometimes find it's too much stimulation and makes my brain get tired faster.
   
   2. When I do, I usually like a combination of movie/game scores, New Age, world music, and other stuff that's stirring without being too distracting. Nothing with lyrics; or if there are lyrics, they can't be in English.
   
   3. Nope, just standard visualization here.
   
   4. Oh yes; I am an extremely vivid dreamer. I get color, sensation, sound—including music, rarely including tunes I'm pretty sure I made up (though I've never been able to remember them long enough to write them down after the fact)—and sometimes even taste/smell, too. When my dreams have plots, which they occasionally do, it can be kind of like being in a movie.
   
   Sometimes I come close to being aware that I'm dreaming, too, but I haven't quite mastered lucid dreaming. It's fun when, within a dream, I notice and get worried about things that don't make sense; or when I resist getting involved with someone because I'm married, and I've got my rings on to prove it. ^_^
   
   5. Nearly always, at least for the following day. Sometimes I deliberately hang on to the more interesting ones as story fuel. (Wanna meet the cast of my next NaNovel? Met them in a dream just a couple nights ago, and I've been working on fleshing them out since.)
   
   6. I don't often repeat events in my dreams, but I do sometimes revisit settings. They tend to be based on real places, like my grandparents' house, but not always. There's a creepy mad science and/or haunted mansion I've been to a few times.
   
   7. Yeah, I'm pretty much 100% an introvert. Sometimes I use bathroom breaks as social breaks, too.
   
   8. Reading and writing were always easy for me in the sense that when I do them I am naturally good at them. I've always hated writing school papers and homework in general, though, so I'm not sure that counts for your question. Besides English, I always enjoyed and did really well in biology, anatomy & physiology, and other science subjects without too much math in them. (Plus electives like choir and art.)
   
   ~Neshomeh

Do you read/write while listening to music?
When I was a kid, I didn’t understand how my brother could do homework while listening to music. I couldn’t; I always needed a quiet place. Over time, I adapted and am now often able to read and write while my wife listens to music or watches TV in the same room. But I don’t listen; I ignore the noise.

When you read a book, do you pretty much fully hallucinate (can't think of a better word) and forget that you're reading a book?
No, I’m always aware of the words, unless I space out and immerge into my own dream while still moving my eyes, until I realize that I don’t know what really happened in the last three paragraphs and have to read them again.

Do you dream in color?
Maybe? I don’t remember such details.

Do you remember your dreams?
Sometimes, but I forget most details within minutes after waking up and only vaguely remember a theme like "I was back in a place where I lived years ago" or just "it was really weird and illogical".

Do you have recurring dreams?
Not recently, but I still remember the themes of some recurring nightmares I had many years ago:

• Coming home from school, but being unable to find the house where my family lived
  
• Trying to wash my hands, but some really weird and complex plumbing has been mounted to the water tap so that the water will flow to the floor rather than into the sink, and I can’t remove it.
  
• Waking up and trying to switch the light on, but it doesn’t work and the room stays dark
  

Do you read/write while listening to music?

Not always, but I do it quite often.

If you do, do you read/write with a specific genre?

Nope. I prefer music with lyrics I can song and some fandom music, mainly from video games and anime, but if I find anythng I like, I'll listen it.

When you read a book, do you pretty much fully hallucinate (can't think of a better word) and forget that you're reading a book? (Like, you don't realize you're reading words. You just have the pictures in your head)

Not sure it qualifies, but one I've got a book in hand, I'm pretty much lost for conversation or anything. Although I'm not really 'hallucinating' as you say.

Do you dream in color?

I think I do. I don't remember many dreams though.

Do you remember your dreams?

Do you have recurring dreams?

Cannot be sure, given the fact I remember so few of them.

When doing social things, do you sometimes need a break?

I didn't do many of these, but I know being with people 24/24 would feel quite tiring after a moment.

Which school subjects come easily to you?

History. No question.

Do you read/write while listening to music?
-Yes.

If you do, do you read/write with a specific genre?
-No, but I tend to avoid vocal music, particularly stuff that has lyrics that I can understand — I find that type of music rather distracting.

When you read a book, do you pretty much fully hallucinate (can't think of a better word) and forget that you're reading a book? (Like, you don't realize you're reading words. You just have the pictures in your head)
-Nope, never happened to me.

Do you dream in color?
-Possibly? I'm not sure.

Do you remember your dreams?
-Some of them.

Do you have recurring dreams?
-Not that I know.

When doing social things, do you sometimes need a break?
-Most definitely yes. I have those "people should get out of my hair or else" moods every once in a while, too.

Which school subjects come easily to you?
-I... don't know? I finished school four years ago and uni is still half a year away (not counting the false start I had with Law). I'm certainly a humanities person, though.

Q: Do you read/write while listening to music?
A: Sometimes; it depends on the mood I'm in and what I'm reading/writing.

Q: If you do, do you read/write with a specific genre?
A: Nah, my tastes are all over the place. Though I do have a marked preference for fandom music and alt rock.

Q: When you read a book, do you pretty much fully hallucinate (can't think of a better word) and forget that you're reading a book?
A: All the freaking time. It annoys the heck out of my family because they can be standing next to me shouting my name and I won't even notice they're there until they take the book away.

Q: Do you dream in color?
A: All the time; it surprised me to learn some don't.

Q: Do you remember your dreams?
A: Only the really fun or really scary ones. I can still remember a few nightmares I had when I was seven, along with a dream that I found my way into Hogwarts through the vacuum closet not long after. Most of the other ones I remember involve playing Quidditch, flying a TARDIS, or moving to England.

Q: Do you have recurring dreams?
A: Ehhh... sometimes. On occasion I'll have the same dream or some variation on it for a few nights in a row before my brain moves off of replay.

Q: When doing social things, do you sometimes need a break?
A: Oh yeah. Even if it's just me and one other friend, I need a break after a few hours because I need time to myself and start to feel trapped otherwise. I... don't do too well at sleepovers and big parties for a reason. :/

Q: Which school subjects come easily to you?
A: Um... *racks brains* Not really any of them, to be honest. I'm absolutely terrible at anything involving numbers and although certain branches of science interest me, when it comes to the details I start to get bored and tune out. History is just a bunch of date memorization which I find extremely boring, and my English teachers don't like me because my writing is much more informal than they want for essays and I have an extremely hard time reining it in.

Though now that I think about it, I did really well in my art history class my first semester, and I enjoyed poking holes in theories presented by my philosophy professor. (He still hasn't gotten back to me on a question I asked. Grr.) So... yay subjects that no future employer cares about save for museum curators?

Do you read/write while listening to music?

-I do. I listen to instrumental music while I write. It helps block out the rest of the world.

If you do, do you read/write with a specific genre?

-Not particularly. I move from anime music to video game music (from Chrono Trigger to Skyrim) to piano/cello music (often with a rock base). Depends on what I feel like at the time.

When you read a book, do you pretty much fully hallucinate (can't think of a better word) and forget that you're reading a book? (Like, you don't realize you're reading words. You just have the pictures in your head)

-Nope. I do hear the characters voices in my head, but it isn't at all like what you describe.

Do you dream in color?

-Maybe?

Do you remember your dreams?

-Not often.

Do you have recurring dreams?

-I believe so. I sometimes wake up with a sense of Deja Vu, though I don't remember what I dreamed.

When doing social things, do you sometimes need a break?

-Yes. I need t let my brain shut down for a little while.

Which school subjects come easily to you?

-All of them expect foreign languages (including computer programming languages). I had a terrible time trying to learn French back in the day. I am particularly strong in math, science. and history.


-Phobos

Do you read/write while listening to music?
*I've always been able to do both while listening to music, and prefer it.

If you do, do you read/write with a specific genre?
*No. Anything works for me.

When you read a book, do you pretty much fully hallucinate (can't think of a better word) and forget that you're reading a book? (Like, you don't realize you're reading words. You just have the pictures in your head)
*Unless I'm thinking about this, I just basically watch a movie in my head when I'm reading a book. Never knew other people don't do that.

Do you dream in color?
*Yes. Didn't know other people supposedly don't.

Do you remember your dreams?
*Sometimes. Not often, only if I wake up right after it.

Do you have recurring dreams?
*I've had a couple, but they're not really that big. I do have recurring themes in my dreams, though.

When doing social things, do you sometimes need a break?
*Um, I always feel like this. I especially dread sleepovers, because it kinda scares me having to be social for so long. I feel like I'm the only one like this (all my friends are constantly wanting to have sleepovers) and so I feel kinda bad about it.

Which school subjects come easily to you?
*History. Writing and reading also come easily to me, but I can never remember the specifics of 'verbs, adverbs, nouns' etc.

I didn't pour the meltwater from that hailstorm down the back of your neck while you were driving. Yeah, it might have been my idea, but it wasn't my fault. And anyway, what you were doing taking my advice when I can't drive or see very well is really beyond me. =]

That was until I ended up falling through that manhole and face-planting in the sewer. I still can't get the sepsis out of my eyes, but there was at least a good thing about that incident: I got myself a rat following. Well, a swarm of rats went after me - hoping they could turn me into some exquisite soup of the day, no doubt - and I was thankful to have found that cigarette lighter. The ensuing carnage left me with second-degree burns on all of my limbs, sure, but by the time it was over, the rats that survived began worshiping me like some kind of ancient rat god. I don't know how or why, but I'll take what I can get.

It helped that when Fred landed on top of me and turned me into a grease stain, they resurrected me through prayer. I kinda hope nobody gets the idea to start calling me Lord Cheesus, though. ^^;

Tell me, why was everyone talking so slowly?

– but totally worth it.

I would send the German Mounted Mountain Navy to your rescue, but apparently they ran out of elephants.

(Unfortunately, I cannot post the associated photo of a navy sailor riding an elephant, because it was in a book that went lost long ago.)

HG

I was the one who brought the Weapons of Medium Destruction.

Speaking of those, I had no idea which team I was on in the catacombs, but they creeped me out big time. So all I was doing down there was firing the aforementioned Weapons of Medium Destruction at anything that moved.

~Mattman, who killed at least one Hobo down there.

I skeletonized all the frogs I got. I think my spirit animal is the piranha.

So let me set the scene for you:

Phone: RING RING RIIIIING!

Huinesoron: wflgbt

Phone: RIIIIIIIIIIIING!

Clock: The time, is, half past, four, ay emm!

Huinesoron: [Stumbles downstairs]

Phone: RI-RI-RI-RIIII-

Huinesoron: Wha'?

KittyEden, sounding out of breath and nearly drowned out by splashing: Hey! How do you feel about hosting the next PPC Camping Trip?

Huinesoron: … when?

KittyEden: [Very long silence]

Kaitlyn: hS, you need to come and see this…

Huinesoron: [Stumbles upstairs; looks out the window; stares at the gigantic aircraft carrier currently attempting to sail up onto the bank of the Thames]

So apparently when the American lot chose July to drive their ship, they also let her pick one… she at least had the decency to paint it black.

Since we were waiting for KittyEden, Kaitlyn and I had to find space for everyone to sleep for the next few days. So, to everyone who had to sleep in the shed, the loft, the bathtub, and especially the cot: sorry. (Though you three in the latter need to stop complaining: if we hadn't put the bars back on you would have fallen out, no?)

That's why people weren't overjoyed to see you, by the way: they'd been sleeping stacked three-high.

So we picked our destination, packed into Chitty Chitty Space Warp, and then everyone looked confused until I pointed out that we could just follow the railway - the Eurostar goes straight to Paris, after all.

And no, I didn't actually mean we should fly through the Channel Tunnel. Or that the correct answer to 'they have trains down here' was 'turn the lights off, then they won't see us!'. Thanks, eatpraylove, for knocking ten years off my life.

Unlike KittyEden, I know exactly how we got lost - once it comes out of the tunnel, the Eurostar goes to either Paris or Brussels. But I was busy playing PPC Munchkin with N. Harmonik and EileenAlphabet, so I didn't realise we'd gone the wrong way - or that when MochiIsAwesome called out 'just keep going south, we'll hit it eventually!', we were already over Switzerland.

Still, we eventually made Paris, hashtag-occupied the Eiffel Tower, and most people went to sleep.

I tried to go to sleep. But then Neshomeh dragged me bodily from my tent and forced me to play Extreme Truth or Dare (that's my story and I'm sticking to it). Oh, the tales I could tell about Iximaz climbing the outside of the tower, Mattman the Comet's 'impression of a real comet', and of course Storme Hawk's actinium 'mishap'. But what happens in Paris stays in Paris, right? Especially any 'truths' prompted by the words 'if you had to tell a brand-new shipfic out loud right now, what would it be?'. (Larfen J. Stocke, esq, that was cheating and you know it.)

I actually missed most of the first day: my hanglider was sabotaged by unknown Voyds, and I ended up circling over the city waiting for twenty thousand rubber bands to wind down and stop turning the propeller. I did have a good view of the Infinite Seagull incident, though. And I had an excellent view of the firework show - until that rocket hit my glider in the wing and brought me down on top of the tower. Still, down was better than up, and the burns have already started healing.

So I was much happier to ride Fred around the city on day two; SkarmorySilver's attempts to give a guided tour based on 'that video game I played a few years back' was especially entertaining (particularly once he realised he was trying to guide us around Prague, not Paris at all!). And I was very pleased to get FOOOOOOOOOOOOOD. I may have gone a little overboard on the croissants and croissant-derivatives.

No, not on the frogs. The frogs had nothing to do with me. If they had, would I have been throwing them over the side of the observation platform? (Oh, hush - they're small, they have low terminal velocity, they were fine.)

Day three was brilliant. Tigeress's Stop Motion Portal was hilarious ('Hardric's stepped on the orange portal! Everybody freeze!'), and got even better when more of those other-dimensional gateways opened. Nesh's Phantom of the Opera at the Opera was loads of fun, even if I was only able to do the chorus parts. And using flaming potato guns to have 'magical' duels across the rooftops of Paris by moonlight… well, what more needs to be said? Other than 'sorry, Phobos' (again).

But day four… okay, I was fine with 'Operation Spark a Riot so we can Pretend it's Orcs Attacking Helm's Deep'. Sort of fine. But 'dose the Seine with actinium so the radiation will make us all into superheroes' was a bad idea, and no, the fact that sonofheaven176 managed to lose my samples before they reached the river doesn't make it better. And 'paint the Eiffel Tower blue because reasons'... let's just say I don't blame the police for needing a lot of Jammie Dodgers to let us stay.

But Sues Versus Agents made up for it (as it always does). I still think my idea of using Valarin names for everyone on Team Serg- er, Scap- er, what team was I on? Well, it was a good idea anyway, but I ran around shouting for Tulukharušurûz to help me, and all I got was a faceful of foam arrows.

But it was fun. And I managed to make sure when we got kicked out it was into Belgium, so we could swing by Brussels and pick up some proper Belgian chocolate on the way back (like we should have on the way there, honestly). There's about 500 pounds of the stuff left if anyone feels like wandering by our place… like, for instance, if you want to pick up a certain beached, black-painted aircraft carrier and take it back where it belongs.

I'm still finding bits of my skull in my jacket, y'know!
I woke up last morning, went to brush my teeth, looked in the mirror, and saw a huge bloody chunk of asphalt sticking out of my neck!
My neck!
How the hell did we not see that earlier?!
That hurt, you know!

But it was pretty fun, I will admit.

And I'll let you know these policemen totally swindled us. You could have asked me for translating. We would have avoided this shoot-out and I wouldn't have been banished from my country. Again. (And we could have crashed in my little brother's appartment. He needs redecorating it anyways.)

I swear I was joking when I dared Storme Hawk to drink that water with the actinium in it! It's entirely his fault. And hS' for bringing along actinium in the first place. Darn chemists.

And man, Fred grew up so fast. *sniffles* We really need to get together for a game of elephant polo sometime.

Anyone volunteer to go find her or should I just go ahead?

You also left out the part where someone decided to volunteer me to man the helm of the boat we took to get the hS' place in the first place. Then again considering you decided to swim the whole way there instead I probably should be less surprised. :P

Was the Phantom of the Opera reenactment in the actual Paris Opera House on the next-to-last day. Despite the relative lack of Phans, we made the most of it by doubling up on parts, and it was pretty sweet.

If someone could come and let me out of the basement now, though, that would be nice. My phone is almost out of juice, and it's frankly a miracle that I've got a signal down here to begin with.

Also, the rats are starting to look at me funny.

~Neshomeh, who blames Phobos for most of the frog-roasting.

In the country in which we bought them.

Also, the little, old man did not have an "excess" of flammable material. By the standards and definitions employed by the country in which he sold them.

—doctorlit tried to make them wait for you, but elephants can be very persuasive

I'm up way too late and can't sleep, so cute it.

I have two potentially disastrous cases in my closet that, thankfully, I became too bored to fully develop. The first one was partially Suvian due to his species, which was from World One about a bajillion years in the future. Each member was basically a human with animal characteristics. They also had magic. Really, really overpowered magic. The kind that destroys entire castles. Also, the species had no actual age limit. Members couldn't die of old age, and could look however they wanted. Oh, and they had healing powers that got better as they aged, so that once they were ready to leave their parents' territories, they could survive lethal wounds if their bodies were still basically whole, and a while after that, they could survive dismemberment, and a while after that, they could survive being turned to ashes, and the only way to kill them was to completely transform their bodies into energy, something which I did not fully comprehend at that time and which, in that world, would have only destroyed a city. Oh, and the two eldest members of the species could survive that, and it would basically have only turned every spell they cast into Cast From Hit Points. Oh, and this species literally had no cap on how much their abilities could develop, so theoretically, they could have infinite anything.

My character was part spider, and also a specialist in contract magic. It's exactly what it sounds like. He tricked people into signing contracts that basically said, "The party of first part may now do whatever the bunny he wants to the party of the second part, literally." That last word is, of course, where the magic came in, in addition to the magic binding everybody to his will. He was blatant wish fulfillment, as this species basically dominated the planet, and did whatever he wanted prior to the beginning of the imagined plot, when he would undergo a moral turnaround and also become a convert. Gag me with a spork.

The other one is, by comparison, tame. It was a ridiculous Fairy Tail fanfic full of Suvian OCs, including people wielding Seith Magic, Ice-Make Magic, and other canons one hundred percent perfectly despite being potentially younger than the canon characters, and a couple ridiculous Magics that I made up, including a kind of Song Magic that forced people to act in manners that fit the song being played and would have turned the thing into a really bad Songfic. The only things the younger me got right were A) Not using the canon characters, and instead setting the story a couple hundred years later, because even poor deluded me realized that I had no writing experience and couldn't write the canon characters personalities correctly, and B) Actually setting limits on Arc of Embodiment, whose full extent was poorly defined at that time (the Tenrou Island Arc had just come out) in order to keep it from being ridiculously OP.

But when we were younger, me, my younger brother, and my cousin used to play Star Wars all the time, and we were a regular trio of Stus. We were all powerful Jedi Masters, respected generals during the Clone Wars and Galactic Civil War, accomplished fleet commanders, survivors of Order 66, leaders of entire governments or armies... The list goes on for a while. We pretty much just used the Star Wars universe as a jumping off point and then did whatever the heck we wanted.
Some notably Stu-y accomplishments of my self-insert self include:

Being functionally immortal through a combination of hitherto undiscovered bacta treatments and made up Force powers.
Being the Chief of State of the New Republic and Grandmaster of the New Jedi Order while their previous incarnations still existed.
Being a powerful enough Force user to manipulate turbolaser shots.
Being a skilled enough lightsaber duelist to take on multiple Sith Lords.

And that was just off the top of my head.
To be fair to my past self, though, as I grew older I did realize how ridiculously powerful I was, and we all gradually toned down how powerful we were, before eventually killing ourselves off.
In appropriately dramatic fashion, of course.

Other than that, I don't have any really Sueish characters. OFUM and the PPC got to me right as I started to take an interest in writing, and all the characters I had come up with before then were pretty standard fantasy hero fare.. I've got a few characters now who might get a bit Sue-y if I screw up writing them, but nothing really embarrassing.
Not that I remember, anyway.

When I was WAY younger, I ended up creating an entire fleet of Sues and Stus that, if published, would have me dead in a heartbeat. They were for a poorly-executed PUBLISHED school/town AU for Plants vs. Zombies. (I best know it as the fandom with too little canon and too much fanon. But it's cool most of the time, and I play the games, anyways.)

The characters from the AU were already replacements, so I basically possessed them in my brain. Here's where shit got real:

At the same age, I was addicted to the JP-only Super Robot Wars series, basically a series of mecha anime crossover games. Now, my understanding of it was very, very poor at the time compared to how I see it now. This, combined with my inability to grasp the fact that I was, in fact, leading a huge suvian army, lead to me SHOEHORNING ROBOTS FROM SAID SERIES INTO THESE FANTASIES, BEEFING THEM UP AS HARD AS POSSIBLE, AND INTEGRATING IT INTO THE CHARACTER'S DAILY LIVES AS HARD AS POSSIBLE (THEY ARE 12-16 IN THE AU MIND YOU), RELEASING GLITTER EVERYWHERE. Sorry, just had to vent. Anyway, I don't need to explain things further. They were in writing as deep as you could go with Sues that have stuff from multiple universes for no reason, and just Sues in general.

If you want to know how I even got to that in the first place years ago, just take a look at this: pvzkomiks.wikia.com (Be warned: Really bad writing and possibly bad psychology. No you are not allowed to kill these people, they still don't glitter in my eyes. It's not mine, either.)

I think I only have one really bad OC, and he was part of an original world. He was the latest in a line of messianic figures chosen to save the world. He had the knowledge of the champions that came before him, plus magic powers granted by a large sentient crystal. He also had several shapeshifting forms, one of which had gills and wings at the same time.

I don't have any of my fanfiction anymore, but mostly I'd learned that my OC shouldn't be more important than existing characters.

September Johnson was originally a telekinetic from a world inspired by X-men and Pegasus in Flight. My mutants/psychics were about as flashy as Misfits of Science. They lived in abandoned places and stole to survive.

Jenni used to be fairly sparkly before the PPC. The good news is that I was more of a role-player than a ficcer, and I was taught manners in a private play-by-e-mail group fairly early on. After getting scolded for one big gaffe in which she teleported another character out of danger without their player's consent, all healery, telepath-y, and/or romancey shenanigans were conducted with the full cooperation of my fellow players.

That said, she still managed to get away with things like (a) Impressing a female brown dragon from the stands and becoming a Junior Weyrwoman in practically no time flat (which was not my plan; I just said yes when asked); (b) abducting the Phantom of the Opera from the end of the story and living with him in a quaint modern-ish little house (behold the resulting fic); and (c) sleeping with Severus Snape despite the fact that he was married to another even more glittery OC and had a kid at the time, and there was SO much angst. (Seriously, look at my terrible art from 2003. You can practically taste the angst.) So, take that with as big a grain of salt as you like. {= )

There were also a couple characters who were basically off-brand clones of Jenni and were more or less equally Sueish. You can meet them in this Farscape fanfic and this character bio (note this is the improved version, after I got PPC input on her; then weep), if you really want to, but I'm sure you guys have better things to do.

It's shocking I'm not more ashamed of myself, but it was all so much fun at the time. The fact that people were in on it all with me helps a lot, too. ^_^ Well, except for the Farscape thing. That was all me; but I think Jen'ra is more just flat and ungodly dull and predictable than urple? I'unno; at any rate, it never seemed worthwhile to spork her. *shrug*

~Neshomeh

supersonic805, who could absorb energy, and channel it out by other means. The reason this got out of hand is because he absorbed a nuclear explosion, so now he could pretty much do anything. He also had green eyes, due to that stereotypical radiation glow. Mind you, my friend put that bomb there just to see what would happen. He did have to suffer the effects of radiation sickness, however. Theoretically, he could also stop anything that came towards him, but that never happened, because my friend was a gigantic war machine that slaughtered everything before I had a chance to do anything. supersonic805 lost that power after fighting Frank Horrigan with a crowbar. In midair. I may use him again, after that business with Omega Supreme.

This is actually my 4th time trying to write this, as the last few times, I just got really angry with my friend, for putting me through that bloodbath.

Terrordactyl should be a pretty obvious case to those of you who've read my very first PPC mission. However, he isn't actually an isolated specimen - almost every single self-insert of mine has had similar traits of wish fulfillment like dragon/pterosaur wings, aerokinesis, a Godzilla-sized ego and nobody questions it, waxing my views and interests, the works. Falchion is perhaps the exception to this rule because he's probably the only self-insert whom I've actually made an effort to work well within the world he's in (the PPC, of course). Everyone else? Well, I killed them all... with THIS THUMB. *shows thumb*

*points at Agent!Sergio* That's him. He got better, though.

Things of note (not all mentioned in Blank Sprite yet, but none is spoilerish anymore):

- Fell in love with Sakura Kinomoto of Card captor Sakura and managed to win her over despite the fact CLAMP pretty muhc state she an Syaoran are soulmates.

(And for CLAMP soulmates mean "they would've fell in love with each other even if there was an age difference, and regardless of either's gender")

- An accomplished Interpol Special Investigator at fourteen years old. Implied to have taken up the job at ten.

- Built himself a 900-horsepower car deemed so highly performant that he's the only one capable of driving it.

- Actually a sort-of-failed genetical experiment created by his archnemesis for extra angst points. (Though he discovered it rather late in the story and we have to concede him that he didn't angst much, more of trying to rationalyze it)

There's probably more, but the most blatant stuff is here.

The only one I specifically remember is Kara. I thought her up back when I was more into Naruto. She was Gaara's cousin (complete with red hair) and had his sand powers, but she was sane. (Mostly.) She showed up in a game of make-believe with my brother, too. For some reason I literally introduced her as a prisoner on a slave ship alongside my little brother's Stu OC, a younger Uchiha brother. (The latter got relatively little development, thankfully.) After the obligatory break-out-at-the-slave-auction sequence, the two of them got their own separate game, where I further decided that she'd figured out how to manipulate the sand-coffin thing Gaara does so it didn't always kill, taught at the Konoha ninja academy (after going through the exams, where she only cheated once, and a timeskip), and had a Summoning contract with a giant bird. Also, she had a pet Chihuahua named Zack who was mostly there for cuteness relief.

*dusts off hands*

There's nothing inherently wrong with them, and I am probably going to be spending the 30th of June in a vegetative state watching streams of a new game coming out that day.

My only concern is LPs that lack in the quality that "big YouTubers" can achieve. FGTeeV and several Minecrafters come to mind. Symptoms include pathetically low standards such as bragging about how much money you spend and churning out "roleplays" daily with low effort (these have actually happened; those responsible also have a MASSIVE following, disturbingly enough.)

What good is the internet if there is so little information about the subjects I like?

Usually for discoverring and learning more about a game before buying, sometimes for watching someone play (although I get irationally irritated if the LPer does a mistake which may seem obvious at first glance.)

I also enjoy some LPs for the humor, like Persona 4 Endurance Run, and My Life Is A Goddamn Mess. I also enjoy some french LPers like Bob Lennon and Fantasio974, Minecraft PvP, and sometimes watching raids and instances for some MMOs.

I did immensely enjoy TheSilverKetchup's Let's Play Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone PC. It reminds a lot of an MST, though he does some pretty funny edits (Flipendo block Tetris, anyone?) and the storyline ends up being something along the lines of "Harry tries to escape from Hogwarts while Professors Dumbledore and Sprout try to kill him with milk-drinking plants, naked babies run rampant, and Mini-Santa hands out autographs". Yeah, some of the humor is pretty juvenile, but it's never crude, which I can appreciate. (And being a fan of juvenile humor myself, I'm not complaining.)

Other than that, though, I don't really watch LPs; just a bunch of raid guids by Fatboss. That's pretty much it in terms of watching gaming videos.

Nothing against let's plays as a whole, of course, I watched Game Grumps at one point, and I'm sure there are high quality let's plays out there.
My problem is, is that there are so many LPers who are just so bloody boring, y'know?
Like they're trying to start a bloody franchise, or some nonsense like that.
You know the people I'm on about.
The ones who jump wildly at the chance to make the most stunningly unoriginal jokes they can possibly make.
When they're attacking the lower front of a gargoyle or something, they screech 'OH, IM ATTACKEN HIS PENIS HAHAHA'
Those people.
And there are so many, too.

I agree on the game not being a primary draw, definitely, and there are LPers I do like, assuming they can still technically be considered LPers.
Especially Star_ and Jerma.
The two of them are so bloody glorious together, I based parts of my agent's relationship on theirs.
And they don't make brainless dick jokes, even when given the perfect opportunity for them.

And also, eventually, because I like the LPer's personality and humor. I'm a bit less of a fan of streaming, if only because I miss livestreams a lot and my Internet connection is a bit fiddly when it comes to videos. :/

It depends, but I tend to enjoy the written ones quite a lot. For example the Let's Play Princess Maker 2 was entertaining, but the best one I've ever seen was a Let's Play/After Action Report for Crusader Kings, Knut Knytling. Have a link

I like the screenshot ones that are as much about the collab end with letting people make ridiculous choices as they are about making a story out of it, especially when they use it as a tutorial or explain aspects of the game as they go about it-like why this choice they went with due to audience input is Completely Terrible or Unexpectedly Good.

I watch a lot of people stream Magic: The Gathering Online. I watch for a number of reasons; foremost being I want to know how other people value cards, make decisions, and play the game. It has helped make me a much better player.

I have to find some value to myself in what the streamer is saying. I stopped watching a number of channels when it became clear that they judge the worth of a card based entirely on its financial value. That won't help me get better, and that type of player is not who I am going to be competing against in tournaments. I also stopped watching a youtuber who actively hates the company who makes the game because they won't produce exactly the things he wants. Again, not worth my time.

The people I still watch offer information that I can't get on my own, or a viewpoint that is very different from my own. For instance, I watch a guy who plays a very aggressive game. I don't play that way often (i'm a control and combo player), so it is good to know how he values cards for his style. This way, if I am in a draft in a tournament and the packs are telling me to be aggressive, then I have a baseline to work from.

So, I watch more for information than entertainment.

-Phobos

Not for me the ones where someone just plays through the story mode of a single-player game and comments on it, generally in the shrill and meme-slathered manner one might find on the Facebook page of a particularly irritating fourteen-year-old boy. I much prefer the ones where the game is different every time and the narrative is generated by the commentator themselves, if indeed they even bother.

My favourite LPer is probably Marbozir, a Polish Civ specialist and strategy game fan. He goes through a hell of a lot of Civ 5 content, shining a spotlight on interesting mods and generally being really damn good at the game. He also doesn't put a lot of effort into building a narrative; due to the nature of a game like Civilization, he doesn't really need to. It happens entirely organically, and I enjoy that very much.

However, I totally get why people watch LPs of the shriekers in a single-player horror campaign. Watching people make jokes is funny, and it does depend on the YouTuber. I find PewDiePie to be about as tolerable as the entire discography of Yes played by fingernails on a blackboard, for instance, but he must be doing something right. =]

The royal ball, the one where which would soon be crashed by Ganondorf and his forces, was fast approaching.
Too many words.

Backslash nodded, having picked up the needed gear while listening to her talking (including his Monado replica).
The placing of the parenthetical aside is a bit weird. On first glance it looks like her talking includes his Monado replica.

But before the agents could comment on on the new arrival ...
One "on" would be sufficient.

She would later be found by Violet Link, or Vio for short, who started talking with her about the previous events — and completely failing to ask how she even got here in the first place.
There are some weird tense shifts going on here. She would be found by Vio (in future tense), but then it had already happened and he started talking (in past tense)? Also, it is technically possible that he started talking and also started failing to ask, but the sentence just doesn’t look right to me. It may be better to say "— and completely failed to ask how she even got here in the first place."

HG

... Okay, I don't know what would be the worst for Link. The song which (I guess) inspired the title, or this fic.

And as Voyd said, plot thickens quickly. You realize we all ned the sequel now? Please.

Also, I happen to own the Hyrule Historia and I've read the Four Swords manga; you obviously did your research, because I didn't see any inaccuracies in regards to the canon. Nicely done!

Because that's giving me an error message and I'd like to play.

On the wall behind the throne, a large opening held an equally large bladed slowly rotating fan, through which light spilled.
I don’t like the word order. Wouldn’t "equally large slowly rotating bladed fan" sound better?

It appeared to be the main source of light, which was focused the dais.
Missing word?

"All this is is torture, until it kills her. There's no point in waiting."
Is July stuttering?

Tortura, as an agent of the Plot Protectors of the Continuum, I charge you ...
Intentional?

To Kimberly's horror, Tortura's skin parted as the the bullet went through, and reformed around the bullet hole with a suckering fleshy sound.
One "the" is enough.

HG

On the plus side, it seems missioning is like riding a bike. You nerver forget.

On the other side... How do you get at something no-selling the usual methods? Nobody respects a good old headshoot anymore.

Get it down, ladies. But please, make sure you comeback in one piece, and an entire one to boot.

doctorlit spelled out the good parts of this mission a lot more completely and a lot more eloquently than I could, so I'll just say "ditto" and leave it at that.

One question, though: Didn't you recruit six Agents total for this badfic? Where are the other four?

Of course, errors incoming:
1) Despite the sun shining above them, they were the only two around.
The logical connection between the clauses eludes me. Please explain: What does one have to do with the other?

2) the short hairs on the back of her neck and down her arms was pricked from a nonexistent chill.
Number agreement error: the hairs ... were pricked

3) No dumping it into a censorious country and hoping they declare it lewd and slash or obscene?
There's a punctuation error: it should be "lewd and-slash-or obscene"

4) "You aren't very threatening," she told it. "You're too titchy."
Was that a misspelling, or is "titchy" some regional slang that I am unfamiliar with? Dictionary.com suggests "tetchy".

5) Besides the whole unearthly atmosphere of horror and wrong pervading everything it's still a nice day,
There is a comma missing: "Besides the whole unearthly atmosphere of horror and wrong pervading everything, it's still a nice day,"

6) "Unless you're a sadist yeah."
Another missing comma: "Unless you're a sadist, yeah."

7) As far as humans rights go.
You added an extra letter; the term is human rights

8) He held a metal staff in hand, that was topped with a large 'Z'.
Delete the comma, or change the "that" to "which".

The different take on how the Word World was affected was not only refreshing, but very fitting considering the situation at hand.

... and how exactly that crazy girl that Agent!July is ended up enlisting in the Navy without trouble?

Good work, keep it up!



Also, Nikki would like to point out to Library that she shouldn't look down on trouser-wearing female Agents. As much as she prefers skirts too, she finds a pair of jeans to be far more practical on the field.

Oh, man, the Putties. They really are fantastic, aren't they? And I'm super glad you've made them the mini for Power Rangers; they deserve it!

The scene where you introduced Lord Zedd is quite gorgeous. I love that you described his throne room and appearance well enough to get across the malevolent feel of the setting, but without going purple prose. The freaky-but-appropriate scene transition on the way there goes a long way towards that mood, as well.

And. Tortura. Yeah. That is . . . I know a lot of the monsters on the show were on the dumber side conceptually, but . . . Wow. Tortura is just so baldly overt. And being made of books that discussed torture is particularly non-creative. I'm curious to see how you'll portray it (refuse to say "him") down the line. And for someone with, ostensibly, a torture kink, I get the feeling the author doesn't really understand torture much at all?

I'm intrigued by your choice to treat the world so differently than most missions, making the badfic nested inside the canon, rather than starting with a generic Word World space. It makes sense for such an old and well-known story, and gives "Agony in Pink" a much more parasitic feel compared to most badfics. Making the canon essentially empty is also a nice choice; it makes moments that should have made me feel all nostalgic, like visiting the Youth Center, feel unnerving instead, which adds to the tone of the world itself being inhabited by something wrong.

One little thing that I love muchly is that you have Kimberly take down some of the Putties once the agents reveal themselves. It's a short little moment, but it just feels extra good, knowing that AiP utterly dis-empowers her for plot reasons; I like that she gets her ability to fight back restored once she's rescued from the fic's influence.

—doctorlit was starting to feel like a poor fan, but now he understands why July seemed to retain so much more info on the show than he.

I must admit, I did not see that ending coming. [Er, spoiler alert!]

~~

~~

~~

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Good on the agents for getting Kimberly out of there... I'm guessing she'll be replaced like the victims in "Rainbow Factory"? Though the fact that Tortura gave July an "lol nope" reaction and now knows there are agents out to get him is giving me a nasty feeling in my gut. Hope this turns out well for them.

Welcome to the PPC! Have a baked potato with melted cheese on top. It's the kind of cheese with the texture of plastic, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. People call me Key, or sometimes Cat, and refer to me with the pronouns she/her/hers. Rampant nicknaming is okay. My questions for you are: How do you feel about nicknaming? Are there nicknames you hope to encourage or to avoid? What pronouns should we use when referring to you?

I couldn't help noticing that you're finding fics to spork and working on your Permission prompts already. It's great to see this enthusiasm, but I'd advise you to relax a bit. You can't even get Permission unless you've been an active member of the community for a while (around a month, I think it was?). So poke around, get to know us. The PPC is a big place; there's lots to see here. You said you were only part-way through TOS; that means you haven't even read about an exorcism, much less a WhatThe mission or multiverse theory. Of course, if you're more interested in the badfic than the PPC universe, that's okay. Just keep in mind that the universe exists and the agents' characters are important to PPC stories; this isn't MSTing. And because of this, rage often isn't the best mode to write PPC stories in; it's a levelheaded sort of sporking, because you have to write a good story around that bad one. (This is mostly a summary of things other people have said. I don't have Permission; I've only been here since March and I'm still getting to know the universe and style.)

I realize I'm a bit late, but have this Replica Holocron all the same. I don't know how much mystic lore you have to record, but you can use it for other things, and it makes a dandy conversation piece.

Please have this bag of black-hole chocolates. Hope you're here to stay. This madhouse always need more people.

Have a mithral-and-darkwood shovel, just like the one used by one of my agents!

...come to think of it...

*tap tap*

...I think you should take this before Valon finds you.

Welcome aBoard! Have this piece of Fake Internet Wedding Cake. From a Fake Internet Wedding.

Here, have a cup of tea. Nothing beats a good cup of Earl Grey.

Welcome one, welcome all!
Arms, legs, head, large intestine, liver, appendix, you're all welcome, mate!
You've done your study, too.
And through stalking, too! The best method of studying, in my honest opinion.

As it is customary to toss gifts the way of our newbies, I bestow upon you: an imaginary hat.
Better than a real one, because real hats can hardly quote Bilbo Baggins and teach driving lessons, can they?

*throws SPaGhetti at you* I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time here! What sort of fandoms are you in?

I found my way here exactly the same way you did! (and found C*l*br**n) Since it's customary to give newbies gifts I think I'll give you an Alicorn Amulet. I don't think it's too important to who I nicked borrowed it from.

So uh, since eatpraylove already asked what your fandoms are, What's your favorite thing about the PPC so far?

Welp, Iximaz beat be to what I was going to say, but I can still give you a copy of "The Mark of the Loremaster".

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

Since EPL has already asked you about the Original Series and you've mentioned the Wiki, I'll just toss you a link to the Constitution and ask you what your fandoms are.

Hope you like it here! :)

Congratulations on avoiding a tab explosion. ;) What are your fandoms? Have you read any spinoffs besides the Original Series yet? (You should also read the Original Series, BTW.) Here's a pack of sticky notes and a pen with a feather on the end!

After risking my sanity going deeper into the fic, I discovered even more problem passages.

-Peashooter and Sunflower have an uncanon lovechild under the influence of the previously mentioned gallon of alcohol, which should have killed the latter due to biology. They immediately take this unsettling development as a happy new chapter in their life. That's not how it works. Bonus points for conception occurring in a form of IKEA Erotica.
-Estimated duration of the fic is approximately between one week and one month, though formatting seems to be compressing it down to less than the former. This is important as bad psychology involved is tied to this, as Peashooter and Sunflower marry (note: this is a common ship but anything beyond basic romantic action (i.e Citrus) isn't exactly the best choice for depicting) at the beginning of the fic and already undergo marital issues in the middle of it. (The only character NOT replaced or maybe possessed in the fic tried to intervene AND called out the bad psychology involved, but of course failed miserably.)

Also, can I claim this BEFORE I file a permission request?

...I think I'll throw my lot in with this one for the good of us all. I've played through the entirety of PvZ2 and I think it's about time someone did a PvZ mission.

Also, are you new here? Welcome aBoard! Have one of my own shed feathers - and a potted Snapdragon! (Yes, it really breathes fire.)

Never actually seen any of it, but I... have at least heard of it? So that's something. I'd have to give it a binge, but it always did sound like my cup of tea. =]

. . . but they made it look rather intriguing. What's it about?

—doctorlit thought it looked like a soap opera at first, until the weird sci-fi stuff started happening. Rather caught him off guard!

Is anyone still interested? I'm willing to do stuff, as the campaign I'm currently in is going really slowly. You're also welcome to join.

It turns out my dad won't give me extra time to play...

I'm sorry for getting everyone's hopes up, but it seems this won't be happening. =(

The catch? Could you give us the timetable for this? It will be unfortunately pretty hard of playing if you play at 0300 AM in Europa.

Will there be any restrictions to classes/archetypes or races?

Will you add any special house rules to the game?

Will we roll for stats or use point buy?

I always wanted to get involved in a full Tabletop. But it will depend on the hours you all use.

Here's the free Player's Guide; you'll need an account to get it, though.

Username's the same.

I have been playing Pathfinder with my friends for a little while. We play on Sundays offline. Yesterday, I got to shove a dagger-throwing rogue off a ledge, skipping the first stage of what was supposed to be a pretty difficult boss battle.

Anyway I would be interested if you could give a time. I keep coming up with charachters I would like to play, but in my current campaign Im' stuck with my generic CN combat rogue. Sneak Attack is the good stuff.

I may or may not come along. Depending on what type of game it will be.

Though I'd second Voyd's sentiment that you could use a lot more community interaction before asking for Permission. Of course, I'd be happy to help you out if you're confused about anything, so feel free to ask if you wish!

Hang around and chat with us for a while, first; let us get to know you!

But why would Salazar have left Al-Andalus and travelled to Ireland?

HG

We start with an extreme closeup of a pair of eyes. Pull back slowly to see the face of SALAZAR SLYTHERIN, one hand shading his eyes as he watches something off-screen in front of him. We keep drawing back, revealing a sunlit green countryside behind him. The sounds of battle start to fade in.

We pull back until we can see Salazar full-length. He stands with one hand on a shoulder-high standing stone; his other hand is holding his wand, pointed downwards. Then we rotate the camera, orbiting Salazar until we are behind him. Past him, we see what he is watching: the BATTLE OF TARA.

In the valley and on the slopes of the hill, the High King of Ireland is fighting the son of the Viking King of Dublin. The future of Ireland hangs in the balance - and things aren't going well. From Salazar's vantage point, we see the Irish banner swaying, surrounded by foes. The Vikings are massing for a charge.

Cut back to Salazar, to see him smile. He taps his wand against his thigh thoughtfully, then lifts it and takes aim.

SALAZAR: Serpensortia.

The Viking lines fall into sudden dissaray. The camera cuts down to show why: masses of snakes are writhing up from the grass of Tara, coiling around their legs. We see the Irish rally and charge the Vikings, and the Viking banner falls. Then we go back to Salazar.

SALAZAR: Vipera Evanesca.

The snakes evaporate into smoke, letting the Irish continue their attack. Salazar smiles, turns away, and walks off down the hill.

Cue main titles.

Didn't expect that!

Ought to say, I do like the idea of Salazar as a sympathetic, protagonist character - he seems pretty bloody flawed, from what the wiki says.
And flaws are always lovely, aren't they?

Is this going to become the new Wednesday Plug? Pretty please? :P You know this would make a great fanfic.

As for Salazar's Muggleborn prejudices, I remember seeing something the other day; considering the time period, he was probably afraid that Muggleborns, raised in an anti-magic-slash-highly superstitious environment, might have tried to tell others where to find Hogwarts, or commit suicide believing themselves to be possessed by demons, or go on to become Dark witches and wizards, believing their souls were doomed anyway so they might as well have fun for it.

Not that this is necessarily my headcanon but I did find it interesting.

...Now to think of how him leaving the Basilisk could be made sympathetic... maybe he put it in the Chamber to guard the school in a time of great need, but as the years passed and his name became synonymous with "anti-Muggleborn", the legends became twisted and "Enemies of the Heir" was immediately assumed to mean Muggleborns?

And now I have a mental image of Slytherin facepalming at Riddle as he goes around loosing the Basilisk on the school. "No, no, no, you idiot! I put her there to protect the castle, not terrorize it!"

Sign me right up for this! Very excellent work building it up. I didn't quite realize what was going on until the end, but I began to suspect at the first mention of a wand. ^_^

Hm, I didn't know Ravenclaw was Scottish. Given her nobility, do you think she's the one responsible for providing Hogwarts' location? Her castle, or perhaps she let them build it on her land?

I want to see magic-using Vikings. Can't help but imagine this in context with the show Vikings, and that would just be all kinds of madness. Not one of those guys should be allowed to touch a wand. {X D

... Bit of a shame that a show with Salazar as the protagonist must eventually conclude with his fall and exile from Hogwarts. Still, he does get his "ha ha, joke's on you" moment, what with the Chamber of Secrets, so I guess that's all right. Leave the audience with a bit of foreshadowing for the Chamber's eventual opening. Could be quite satisfying, dramatically.

So yeah, this should be a thing immediately. {= D

~Neshomeh

Though the Maya are far too far south, even assuming some of the semi-questionable research insisting that the South American civilisations had contact with China or Africa is true.

If you really wanted to make it more likely I would say one of the groups the Vikings would have come in contact with would make a better option by far.

For everyone!
Writers!
Betas!
Boarders!
Lurkers!
Toroll!
The keyboard!

Have this self-updating guidebook of all the deathtraps in the multiverse as a gift.

I'll look forward your stories.

P.S. I don't know if you thought about it, but in the case you want pictures for your agents' wiki page, I recommend Rinmaru games.

For such a rough start, the stuff you've provided has been a vast improvement, both in terms of character and SPaG. Oh, and a Ben 10 agent? Wow, that show was my jam as a teen! I look forward to seeing how this turns out!

Also, I apologize for being unable to beta your work, seeing as I was busy with my own PPC stuff most of the time. I will definitely make it up to you for your first mission, though, at least from a SPaG perspective, so if you need a beta for that once it's done, I'm your man! Or bird. Whatever. XD

Let's see...

One thing I notice is some bizarre line breaks happening, but considering I suspect that's happening to one of my own Google docs right now I'll call that negligible.

The SpaG is acceptable. There's a general sense of forward movement in each of the writing samples.

Kelly and September (...man, are we skipping August? Someone ought fix that) show a lot more thought put into their personalities in their profiles, and the samples reflect that now.

This isn't the first time Key went up to bat to beta your work if I recall correctly. So I'm going to assume there is improvement there as well.

The fic is definitely questionable at best based on the writing alone.

You've shown visible effort to not only improve your writing, but to try and interact in the community and learn.

Consider Permission Granted. I don't think anyone will have serious argument against it this time.

Just make sure to use a beta, listen when they give advice- I believe PoorCynic is going to be making up a new workshop on the matter if he hadn't already- and keep participating in the community. I have confidence that since you've already made the steps to work on your writing, you'll keep going in that direction.

I'm also in the same area as you are currently. I do not work this weekend. If you feel comfortable with the idea, hit me up via email for my phone number.

Something like this calls for a celebration, even if it is a small one.

Congrats, PPC writer.

-July with the PG hat on

The matresses 'random prompt' was given by me in response to Bramandin's last Permission thread; it's not something they made up.

hS

Thank You and Goodnight

Unfortunately for them, aside from a desk and a chair, there wasn’t much in the way the way of concealment.
Repetition.

Once the Time Lord was flat against the the wall behind Itami, the cyborg tapped his eyeglasses, then glanced above their rim.
Repetition.

“Aha!” he after a moment.
Missing word?

The way it ended, with him sitting on her belly and holding her hands down, made him him blush and look at anything but her.
Repetition.

TYH: Youthful Indiscretion

... when the effect Fate’s gaze became ...
I’m not sure whether a word may be missing there.

I used to glance over the the edge of my eyeglasses
Repetition.

I remember an Azerothian troll hitting his head do that.
Missing word "to"?

trying to look unassuming as possible
Missing word: another "as"?

as she kneeled to look the creature more closely
Missing word "at"?

Which, by Fate’s own admission, shouldn’t have been able to.
Missing word "she"?

He took a sooty-looking CAD out of another pocket and put on the table near the H-CAD
Missing word "it"?

I Thought He Was With You

The Librarian just made a ambivalent sound and leaned back.
"a" should be "an".

HG

And now Des is free from that cyber-samurai armor!
And more daily life too!

Tera, welcome to the world of Deadpan Snarking, the one true power in the universe.

Lib's name is... Pretty sure you had a blast writing this.

Grunt, you're getting this Time Lord bad vibe. You're aware it makes you sound like the Notary, right?

Zeb and Librarian, uh. Well, he does try to advance this ship on both ends. (Not sure if he ever discovered that Rinarin was his trainer back then... How would he react?) Meanwile, another ship cruises peacefully.

For the missions, they're an agreable read. I cannot comment too much on the first one since I don't know this canon, but I liked it.

The second one too. It's... reassuring to know that C-CAD will always blow up. Stability in little things of life. This, and behind-the-back recruitement of former agents' child. Now, how could we grill them all for te rest of the Blank Sprite story...

(I can't think of anything more substantial to say other than that I liked these.)