Jun 2016 Archive, part c

But I'm more than willing to help.
*starts plotting*

Of course, my first thought would be to revel in cliché and use that revelry to comment on what makes it cliché in the first place, so I don't know how much use I'd be. =]

I...didn't realize that Natalie was a homophobe, though. Not sure how I feel about that :/

And, yeesh--the things people do to justify their weird plotbunnies.

But some errors did creep in:

1) disregarding the years that they had not been Animagi, and therefore there would have nothing to calm Remus down
Missing word: there would have been nothing

2) Harry snuck out to the Whomping Willow under cover from the invisibility cloak
Shouldn't "Invisibility Cloak" be capitalized?

May you have many more.

And have a protein!

I read your post and sat back and thought: 'Oh! Brilliant!'
It took another three seconds for me to piece my response together. I hope you like it.

Oh! Brilliant!

My gift upon you is: A musket, the very weapon which revolutionised warfare and made armour in general rather useless.
They are also occasionally used to shoot birds, but that's besides the point.

Quack!!

birth

Here's a case of Bleeprin I found in my agents' closet! I forget exactly how many I got in the leadup to mission two (thank you, Board search history), but I have plenty, and judging from the fics you're planning to take on, you'll need it.

...on surviving another revolution of this blue-green space rock around a nuclear fireball!

-Phobos

I wish you a http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/5437 Blue Sky. *Cakes you with Spikes*

You may not be excited, but we should do something to celebrate nonetheless. There's this fantastic restaurant I know where the universe will explode later for your pleasure. Would you be interested?

--Key

Hope it's a good one!

You'll take this 'Happy birthday', your self-updating guidebook of all the deathtraps in the multiverse, and your black-hole chocolate cake, and you'll like all of them. Deal with it. Oh, and the fun too. ;)

HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU
MAY ALL YOUR WISHES COME TRUE
HOPE NOBODY MAKES YOU BLUE
AND YOUR CAKE DOESN'T EXPLODE IN GOO!

*blows noisemakers*

Sorry, you get the birthday song whether you like it or not. :P

Happy birthday nonetheless, mate. I can still call the band, if you want :D

It sounds like Plort has a new upstart nation in the aftermath of the fall of Iric!

*dances in the general direction of the RP*

I really enjoyed the movie, too. It's the first time I've really been on the edge of my seat in a while, and it made me want to rewatch all the movies again. (Alas, I have no time.)

Re. Apocalypse, though, I think you've forgotten something.

SPOILERS ENSUE

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Y'know, the part where he launched ALL THE WORLD'S NUKES? That scene honestly terrified me. Were they going up? Were they coming back down? I didn't know! I really thought they might go there. And the scene was perfectly scored with that Beethoven piece... I forget which one, but good god, did it have just the right air of majesty and awe. BEAUTIFULLY done, all of it.

But Apocalypse doesn't want to destroy the earth, that's too easy; he just wants to scour it clean of everything he deems unworthy. Which probably ends up being all people in the end, once he's taken what he wants from them. And yet his persuasive powers are such that people go along with him—vulnerable people who don't have much to lose, every one, you'll note. He knows exactly how to prey on the weakness of others. Eek.

I do object to the film's handling of Magneto, though. Nobody called him on straight-up murdering all those policemen, not even a little. Like, I could understand if he'd just killed the one guy who loosed that arrow like a moron, but all of them? Nuh-uh. And that's not to mention all the death and destruction that must have resulted from screwing with the planet's magnetic field. Charles, I know you're in love, but come on. That's not cool, and you shouldn't stand for it. {= <br>
(I might ship them just a little bit. Look at Charles' moony doe-eyes when he's talking to Erik and tell me he doesn't want to jump his bones. Alas, pretty sure Erik does not feel the same way about him.)

~Neshomeh, quite hyped for the next one, too.

Apocalypse has honestly always been a large ham. His powers are basically shapeshifting, regeneration, and telekinesis. He's really strong, but honestly, for all his talk, there's at least ten other mutants I can think of that are more powerful. Hell, Ice Man is more powerful. His real talents lie in his ability to strategize, manipulate, and to convince people to work for him. Which is why he would seem less threatening than his Horsemen, because he is.

Brexit 'leaders' still cannot believe they pulled this out, their lies are now pretty clear, some people say to regret voting Brexit, and Boris Johnson got cold-feet now this happened... unless according to the press.

Verdict from people in the United Kingdom?

There is a petition for Parliament to "implement a rule that if the remain or leave vote is less than 60% based a turnout less than 75% there should be another referendum."

That's not the exciting part. The exciting part is that said petition has passed the 100,000 signatures needed to force Parliament to debate it. To force a Parliament which mostly wants to stay in the EU to debate it.

If this goes to a vote, I don't know a) whether the Tories would demand a 'no' from their MPss, and b) whether their MPs would obey.

So. 'Exciting'. In a somewhat scary way.

(Why scary? Because if this brings down the government, then we have 17 million voters who'll be thinking independence was/about to be 'stolen from them'... and one Nigel who's made that his entire platform. So, uh, no vote of No Confidence, plz?)

hS

Is there anybody around here who support(ed) Leave? If so, why?

The Guardian has put together graphs of how the different voting patterns correspond to different demographic characteristics. And the results are... ugh. The results are ugh.



And yeah, the fact that the 'ABC1 social grade' (ie, upper and middle class) areas are richer and better educated should surprise no-one, because those three are strongly correlated (in a bad, 'exclusion of the poor' way). But the fact that those areas are also younger surprises me. The fact that the areas with the highest number of immigrants were the most pro-Remain surprised me even more.

Hang on a second, I've got a theory. Maybe - wait, wait, hear me out - maybe living around immigrants teaches you that they are not actually the devil. Crazy, I know, but the graphs seem to support it...

(And yeah, it was the old people who won't have to live with the consequences their entire lives who voted Leave. Go. Flippin'. Figure.)

hS

It's all over the radio. Now to see what happens.

All of them exceedingly uncomplimentary towards my countryfolk.

We've done a stupid thing, pulling away from an international community we should be drawing closer to. We've placed ourselves firmly in the hands of whatever government manages to spew enough xenophobic rhetoric to get itself elected next, with no outside force to stop the Big Business Nigel is so exultant about 'defeating' from influencing the government into giving it exactly what it wants. We've lost Scotland (there's no way they won't demand another Independence Referendum - and it'll pass this time, guaranteed), and quite possibly Northern Ireland after that goes through. We've reduced England to a minor country on a mucky archipelago off the coast of Europe.

And I am so, so angry.

hS

Namely, that the Wrinkle in Time series and the Young Wizards series share a universe.

I've just reread A Wrinkle in Time and I'm about halfway through A Wind in the Door, and I'm continuously struck by how much they remind me of Young Wizards. Meg, her little brother Charles Wallace, and her friend Calvin are Called; they're shown how the Dark Thing encircles planets, some of which are fighting and some of which have given in; they meet aliens, and Messengers, and Teachers; they travel to distant worlds and to tiny mitochondria within human cells; Meg has to learn to properly Name things in order to keep them from being Xed by the thing that snuffs out stars... It's too much for me to describe it all, but it would just be a hop and a skip from Madeleine L'Engle's worldbuilding language to Diane Duane's.

I'm pretty sure YW came along after AWiT, so I wonder if the similarities aren't an accident. Has anyone else read both? What do you think?

~Neshomeh

I... can't really argue with the Oldtimers being absolutely awful. They were pretty firmly established as exactly as bad as you make them out to be.

Of Fax, though, I'd point out that (IIRC) his takeover was fairly subtle at first. He wriggled his way into the rightful bloodlines by a combination of smart marriages and smart murders, which he was careful to make sure no one could pin on him. It was only later—about when he was moving on Ruatha, his last acquisition, I think?—that he established himself as a military power, and by then the rest of the powerful Holds had finally listened to Robinton like they should have done in the first place worked out his game and armed themselves against him. Between that and Lessa giving him such a hard time in Ruatha, he didn't have enough resources to expand further, so he was stopped at seven.

I think there was generally a lot of complacency and inertia that let him get that far in the first place. Only a few people actually cared about what he was doing, until he was doing it on their own doorstep. The whole "there's no precedent!" thing was really a mask for "but that sounds like work!"

But it's been a while since my last read-though. My memory's pretty fuzzy.

~Neshomeh

I'm being a donkey here and assuming you mean a mission. If so, email's here.
If you mean a fic, well, this is the summer of new experiences, so I still don't see why not. See email above.
Note: I know HP, but do not know Dollhouse.

If you're OK with having someone without PPC permission (yet) being a beta, I'll be willing to help. I've never even heard of Dollhouse, though; let me know if you're interested.

I liked the in-character explanation of what the PPC does. I'll probably read this again.

It is not impossible that sonofheaven176 goes by "sonofheaven176" on Google, but I’m quite sure that "Elieen" is wrong. Don’t feel too bad about this, you are not alone. I once caught "Hieonymus" in a fic I had beta’ed, hopefully before anybody else could see him. (Crediting the beta readers only after they did their job is a bad idea, because then the credits aren’t beta-read.)

Since I don’t trust the mini-boarders, and don’t know the sylvari’s language (or sylavari language?), I have to ask whether "sylavari" is the adjective form of "sylvari".

Also there is an unnecessary repetition:
She befriended me and told me of her plans to unite the the Three Orders of Tyria into One.

Besides these problems, this may be my favorite newbie-is-introduced-to-the-PPC story. Ava’s confusion and loneliness, and Salvo’s explanations are very well done, indeed, and their interaction is just great.

HG

So, wait, she cried? Tears? Liquid and all?
There's something odd about a plant crying. Even a plant person.
It'd be even more bizarre if the creeper cried, of course, so I suppose there's a strangeness bullet dodged there.

I'm sure she'll do fine in HQ. The place is used to sapient plant-types.

Wherein some poor creeper witnessses some poor guy give some other poor guy a... well, you do NOT wanna know what he gives him, let's leave it at that.

Come on in, make yourself at home. I see most everybody else has already welcomed you, so I won't won't bother directing you to the usual introductory material.

For your newbie gifts, have this Replica Holocron and some fresh baked pie, straight from Hobbiton. Just don't tell anyone you got it from me.

This magical shovel digs upNYAAA!

...

...ow...

... it digs up banana peels... dammit Ouran...

(Yes, I actually do say NYA when I'm surprised by things)

Hoorah, I'm no longer the newest person here!

Read the Original Series by Jay and Acacia; they established a lot of what happens with Replacement!Sues, time skips, etc. PPC isn't just about killing Sues; they do exorcisms, too.

In all seriousness, though, the PPC has a quirky sense of humor. The Original Series gives a good example of how things work.

I'm glad you think we're cool. Here's a bucket of popcorn to eat while you read the Original Series (linked to at the top of the page) and a box of pencils!

Welcome Leafeyes.

Have some bleeprin Cookies. Good for a pick me up snack and to dull the bad images of the Sue.

That plottwist sounds interesting. ALthough, what would happen with locus? And time flowing backwards, well, that would not be fun. The reminds me of one book, ah yes, Piers Anthony, Bearing an Hourglass. There were some.. consequences of that happening. I can explain more of that if you wish. Mind, that book was about the incarnation of time, so there was some logic.

Welcome! Make yourself comfortable, and have a slice of Infinite Pizza!

Good day, leafeyes.
Was the plot twist that the main character's eyes were actually leaves, explaining why she was completely blind and in constant pain? Because, if that's so, I love your story and completely relate to it on every level.

And, yeah, Skarmory smashed that nail on the head, especially with the whole 'comic effect' thing. There's an entire department relating to that sort of thing. Sometimes they receive sacrifices.

My gift upon you is: a ceremonial dagger!
Because how can you make sacrifices without a dagger?
Can hardly use an origami swan, y'know.
Just don't go around sacrificing fellow boarders. We sort of look down on that.
Welcome!

Please have this black-hole chocolates please. I also wish you welcome in this madhouse, given the fact you already answered all the essential questions (Yeah for another Persona and Fire Emblem fan! What games in these series did you play?)

Last point. Would you mind posting the link to the glitterbag you mentionned so I can see if I could make a mission of it? From what you said, it would be a Persona 4 fic with uncanon sister of Narukami crashing in, right?

If you've been lurking around, you may have seen that I've been giving out Black Dragon Boxes. Here you go....

Strange, it was supposed to hatch four days ago.

If you eat it, it's supposed to taste like honey and mackerel.

It's an interesting combination.

I tried it today.

So you'll always look great without trying! What are your fandoms?

Let's see... Your Newbie gift is a Royal Ice Cream Container. Simply ask, and receive the ice cream flavor of your choosing. It's sort of like Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, except with infinite refills and flavours of your choosing.

Hmm... Yup, I'd say the other two have got it right. The first one's probably just like a normal distortion, but I don't know what the second one would be. I know of fics that tell a story backwards to a degree, but it's usually periodic hops back in time, not actual backwards time. You couldn't pay me to be an Andalite or a Time Lord if that happened, though. A replacement is a replacement, really. Doesn't seem like it'd matter, though some replacements might be more tolerable than the actual characters and leave agents wishing that they could just keep the originals down a plothole.

Since, given your questions, it looks like you've at least read some of the basics, any agent pairs you're particularly fond of?

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

To answer your questions, temporal distortion happens pretty often in missions; we register it as scene transitions, sped-up fast-forward-style action, and other fun stuff. Whatever produces the most comical effect, basically. And as for replacements of Canon Sues, I think they'd be no different from other replacements, seeing as they act so OOC that it doesn't really matter who they're replacing.

Nice to see another new face around here.

I am in no position to answer your questions, but my best guess for time flowing backwards is that natural functions would go horrifically in reverse. Waterfalls could flow upwards, food moves upward the intestine as it is un-digested, weird things like that.

I'm having trouble parsing your second question. Were you referring to the posting date of the chapters in question?

For the last one, I'm not sure anything would happen. A canon character is a canon character. However, the average agent wouldn't touch a fic with a replaced canon that was already a sue.

P.S. your newbie gift is additional temporal weirdness.

Happy Festival of Sumralese!

Looking at the wiki has been interesting, and the chance to make puns looks like an opportunity for me.

Need to work on that bloody Plort bio...

The bald man wearing a worn-out gambeson and blue breeches gestured as the nearest vendor and tossed them a coin from the pouch strapped to his side. He then took one of the glasses brought to him and emptied it with one powerful swig. The Merchant King wasn't interested as much in festivities as he was in observing potential clients. It was one of his personal hobbies; some would simply call it 'being nosy', but Cipher preferred calling it 'being well-informed'.

With a full glass in hand, the merchant took a stroll between vendors and stalls, eager to hear more news he could later bargain with.



((If you folks ever need a proof that my RP skills suck... Well, here you go.))

The wild man hadn't been in town for a long while. Things had gotten pretty chaotic in the recent months, and he'd largely stayed away from it all, preferring to take up residence with the animals and monsters until things had calmed down. He hadn't expected a so-called 'festival', though, and the celebrations were definitely new to him.

Given how packed the crowds and vending stalls were, Skaer'morys couldn't take any of his larger monsters with him - a fact which had saddened Lapis, who had been dying to go. He'd thought about letting the sea serpent play in one of the fountains, but she had grown quite enormous as of late, and getting her into the festival in the first place would be too much of a challenge to be worth anything. Rayner and E.V.L. opted out of coming despite being a good deal smaller, since they had outright stated that they weren't good with crowds, and Rashida? She couldn't possibly care less.

So Skaer'morys had elected to bring the remaining four: Falchion, Ripper, Sarah, and Cupid. Sarah, being the largest, had to perch on a rooftop and watch from a distance, but that was because he'd used the Roc to fly here in the first place. Meanwhile, Falchion and Ripper strutted on either side of their master, and Cupid was perched on his shoulder.

"I must be honest... This is amazing," said Skaer'morys.

"I know, right?" replied Falchion. "I told you coming back here was a good idea. Look at all the pretty, shiny things! I like shiny things..."

"You do realize, however, that we'll all be getting hungry before long? I could use something to eat myself."

"Peep! You promised to bring something back for Sarah, though!" Cupid fluffed his white feathers. "Shouldn't we worry about that first in case she decides to swoop down and carry off one of the food carts, pii~?"

"Don't worry, we'll take care of that in due course," said Falchion. "And that goes for Ripper, too. Master doesn't want him attacking any pets around here. The wild man already draws a slight bit of suspicion, and we don't want any more."

"No promises," the raptor replied, shrugging his clawed wings. "Though I'd go after one of the butcher stalls instead. Probably steal a chicken or two as well, just to be safe."

Skaer'morys glared at him. "Not. Helping."

He had just arrived at the festival, and wasn't still sure about what he would like to do, if only because he didn't know so many people here. His outfit wasn't so festive too, a rather old gambeson with a cuirass and a surcoat displaying a deployed eagle over a sword crossed with a pen and a twenty-faced dice, and greaves, vambraces and gauntlets looking like they all had been picked up from a different set of armor, and its weapon at his side. One disadvantage of wandering, this inability to have nice clothes handy.

The young man just shrugged. He could still enjoy himself a bit here, and hopefully nobody would mind the armor of some newly-arrived guest. Even if he didn't mind being left alone, conversation could always be enjoyable.

((Hope it will go alright here.))

The young man- nay, the boy, for he had not yet passed the age which marked adulthood in his homeland- stood off by himself, and was clad in a deep blue tunic with black on edges of the sleeves, the collar, and the bottom, and a pair of breeches with the reverse pattern. He was bewildered by the strange vibrancy of this place, the bright colors, the loud music, the odd devices, and the incredibly curious customs. He looked around, and noted the cheerfulness of all the others attending the festivities. He desired to approach them, but did not, fearing his ignorance would lead to a disastrous misstep.

((Granz the Ice Cream Monarch here! I guess this is how OOC text is marked? Is this too much? Too little? Urple? And would those be the hems? Sorry for the question barrage- well, technically it's only three questions, but there are five question marks-, I'm pretty new to the whole Role-Playing thing, and also have no clue how costumes work.))

He left a few coins at every stall, and walked away with each one with a full trencher. By the time he had reached the next one, the food was gone.

The man wore a green tunic; emblazoned on the front was a silver scorpion, quartered by music notes, identifying him to anyone who knew his heraldry: Ser Dylan Read, Knight of the Void.

Ser Dylan looked around uncertainly; he'd mainly come for the food, and was not terribly fluent in the things other knights called "people skills." Every so often, he'd see a face he recognized, but his uncertainty prevented him from approaching.

((Heyo, it's Voyd. And yeah, this is pretty much how I handle social situations. I'm too nervous/shy to approach anyone, I'm scared of saying something that'll offend.))

A young woman detached herself from the crowd, jogging over and waving ecstatically. Not that she needed to; she was quite distinctive on her own. Alleb the Odd, a recent defector from the Marizu, was clothed solely in purple, from the tiny be-feathered lavender hat perched on her head to the high-heeled boots laced to her knees, the color of eggplants. She skidded to a halt in front of Lady Iximaz, resembling nothing so much as a bobbing violet-backed starling.

"Greeting, m'lady!" she said, bowing and grinning. "I only just caught sight of you! Are you newly arrived?"

((-Alleb))

Created Fenris for them back in the day, when Clef and Kondraki's adventures were semi-canon and Iris was still on the SCP list. It got deleted in the first Great Purge because it only had two upvotes and you needed at least five to stay.

They've got absolutely draconian standards, though.

This has badfic! Of course, but still.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11016671/1/SCP-Contact

TL;DR of the first chapter (because one is enough): the events of SCP Containment Breach (the fangame) play out, but the protagonist locks a hostile SCP inside SCP-914 (the clockwork machine that breaks and/or refines items), creating a slightly suvian version that is, of course, friendly and completely trustworthy. Then the protagonist enters SCP-860-1, a forest occupied by a mystical creature. The creature immediately warms up to the protagonist, they go to a house in the woods (a geological aberration), and engage in bestiality. My god. All while SCP-106 (don't bother looking him up unless you want to have nightmares) watches and jerks off to it, which is all-too OOC.

My favorite one is Cassie (I forget her number), who's a girl that literally lives in art and drawing. She's really sweet. ^-^

There are some pretty good entries; some are actually quite scary.

Never seen such consistently well written and creative stuff before. Especially among such a bloody huge mythos, with so many SCPs.

Y'got a favourite one?
Mine's that 'Envelope Logistics' one, which is a company that deals in the business of abstract concepts.

Just to let you know, even with the standard 'disclaimer' in most fanfics, it doesn't actually have any legal standing. If the creator of whatever you're writing a fanfic on wants to sue you, they are not only able to, but fully entitled to (if they choose). So in your case, with or without the disclaimer it could still be taken down for plagiarism (and thus probably isn't a good idea).

I wouldn't risk it. This is from a sourcebook that is currently for sale. My comic shop has about three copies on the shelf right now.

Must admit I'm far more excited about Winds of Winter.

It looks like they are also setting up their endgame in only ten episodes, so I'll wait to see how they will make everything remaining fit this format. Guess it will be an exploit of his own.

Highlight: And not so surprised about the little scene at the Tower. Anyone having read the first book know that would come to be.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!



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Wow... That's all I have to say.

Like many others, a lot of the details went over my head. Additionally, I found Captain Juliette's monologue difficult to process. It made for a rather intimidating start to the story. (I can deal with science fiction only slightly harder than Star "I can safely visit an antimatter universe" Trek (TOS, at least. I'm not sure about the rest since I haven't watched them yet), although I'm working on it). If I write a character, she'll probably work at The Misplaced Comma or something comparatively low-tech like that. . . No, bad Key! Finish your Permission prompt! Or at least your homework!

I like your analogy for the interaction between Internet culture and established media a lot and think it holds a lot of promise for people to do interesting things with, as well as being substantially different from the way Plort analogizes (?) the Internet.

One question: Why Sif-10? I've been rolling the name around in my head off and on for hours and I still don't get the pun.

--Key

I saw bits of it in the Discord chat last night and kind of skipped over it, but seeing it finished off as a story has really peaked my interest. I may just have to write a piece in it.

For this AU seems fun, as AUs are wont to be. I shall see if I can come up with anything sufficiently fun.

This is interesting. I'll need to think about this. How hard science this is?


But, this looks great. I'll need to write up a few ideas once I have the time.

Even if half the conversation with Tomash entered my eyes, filtered through my brain, and left out through my pores, completely untouched.

Say, how's all that nanotechnology, brain-computer interface, and prosthetics stuff going?
Just... asking.

Being not very technologically minded, hard sci-fi is generally a bit over my head (astronomically, as it were), but I like this. I at least got the little jokes about Tomash taking over the station from Juliette, and the interaction between the Webways, Great Fan and Media Corporatocracy. I could see myself writing in this a little more easily than in Plort (also over my head), although I would probably have trouble coming up with names and such.

Also, the AU-self character I was imagining as I read would have been a robotic data-retrieval system (in line with my and my Plort self's archival work), but that of course goes against the "uncommon AI" rule in your author's note. Perhaps L.I.T. could be a rather . . . unintelligent intelligence? Too closely bound by its programming to have much in the way of true choice? After all, it's an AU of me. *badum-tsss*

—doctorlit knows better than to stray from his programming; he likes being an efficient worker!

(Since there was no new on-topic discussion for a while.)
-Bramandin suggested (in the post above) to make the Permission prompts optional. She made no suggestion as to what would be used in their place.
AFAICT there isn't a lot support for this idea.
-Doctorlit suggested a long waiting time before Permission requests are allowed. Reactions were negative.
-Building on that, I've voiced the idea of making the Permission process into a mentoring one. GMA liked the idea.

If anybody else has any idea as to what sort of practical changes should be made to the Permission process, I'm sure the community would like to hear it; I know I certainly would.

OK, so. This post is going to be a jumble because there are multiple points to address and I don't have a particular order.
1) I don't like hS' move here. While I understand where he's coming from because people keep dissing his work without suggesting viable alternatives, which frankly is frustrating to face and mildly annoying to see from the sidelines, it isn't his prerogative to say "now we do things differently" (it's the community's).
2) Related to that: it's annoying to see people saying "something's wrong with X! Fix it!" without suggesting anything. At the very least, a direction should be pointed out (for example "we should maybe think of using darker colours" instead of "this is ugly").
3) I think that getting Permission with prompts is easier than the system that was there before (where you had to show... something... as a sample). I agree with July here: she told me that she thinks that if the current system would've been in place back when I requested Permission I'd have gotten Permission in less tries, but it would have also hampered me as a writer (mainly, I think, because I would not have gone through the learning process of actually polishing my turds Permission pieces).
While I don't think the Permission process is set in stone (or that it should be so), I am definitely against making it easier or holding the aspiring PPC writers' hands. Frankly, people with Permission should be able to deal with badfic, develop ideas and write something good based on it without someone else doing it for them.
4) W.r.t doctorlit's proposal: frankly, I don't think that the problem is "people are asking for Permission way too early". In fact, the last 15 denied Permission requests were denied for technical writing reasons (SpaG and the like), creative writing reasons (for example, beige prose), agents not fitting, lack of PPC knowledge and one case of "who are you?". Nor are the PGs flooded with work — 2016 saw seven Permission requests, which is a tad more than once per month. I also disagree with point 2 — for example, if you take me, I didn't improve because I had to wait a lot of time (I didn't), I improved because I actually put something up, it got critiqued, I worked with good betas and put another thing up and so on till I was good enough (which, in hindsight, was pretty meh).
However. I'd like to bring an idea up for discussion: what if, instead of what we have today, Permission would involve an aspirant being mentored for some time? I'm not sure whether I like this or not but I'd like to see what other people think.

I'm talking a relatively long time, like, a full year, before a new member can ask for permission. As seen with Hieronymus above, the amount of activity that a given Boarder can (potentially) show in that time may do a better job of not only showing the PGs their writing prowess and understanding of the community, but also give said newbie a feel for the setting through all the published stories, RPs, and in-character posts they'll see by then.

Or they'll realize the community/setting isn't what they thought it was, and drift away, as so many newbies do before a year passes. This should:

1. Weed out at least some percentage of permission requests that were dramatically wide of the mark.
2. Improve the quality of permission requests overall, even if they're less formal, like HG's.
3. Reduce the frequency of permission requests the PGs need to address over time, and make them easier to respond to, since the PG should know the Boarder much better.

Questions/comments/complaints?

—doctorlit

There. It's changed. When the next person to ask for Permission reverts to 'and here's a scene from my first mission as the second sample', like everyone did before we wrote the prompts (which were requested, by the way)...

hS

That, according to you, a Permission Request should include:
- A short bio of your agents (200-400 words)
- A link to the badfic you wish to mission
- Thanks to your betas

But what about your actual writing skills? Frankly, mate, any sap can write a bio; that's the least difficult part. Bios don't tell people enough about how well you can interpret the established PPC canon. Take me as an example, if I was admitted only on the basis on my bios, I would to this day think that DIA is a secret PPC police that has the power to detain and "remove" agents (which I had to idea it's been a case before, lore-wise, when I first wrote that). I've completely misunderstood prompt 2x5: "One agent is mistaken for a Sue, and has to prove otherwise" and had Will undergo interrogation, completely missing the point.

You also said this: "In my case, I needed a new prompt because they simply clashed with my agents. They weren't designed to have foodfights or chase children, they were designed to be good at missions." But how does one contradict the other? Nobody forces you to write those scenarios in your spin-offs, or make your agents comedic and goofy (although that's the original PPC way). If you want to make them brooding serious badasses, go ahead - you have other prompts that support this (4x2.1; 4x3.1; 3x5.1 to name the few). And let's be honest for a second, I am sure there are people who cheated a little bit and picked themselves another prompt because the first choice didn't appeal to them.

Besides your own problems with the prompts, I haven't seen a single person complaining or having issues with them. I don't believe I was around when Data stated his problem, so I cannot really judge there, but I do have another question: What is your proposal then? How else can the PGs verify your PPC canon knowledge and the ability to portray it in writing?

tl;dr I am in favour of keeping the prompts, because of their importance.

Read either "To Ride Pegasus" or "Pegasus in Flight" by Anne Mcaffrey. I recommend the second one stronger. There, psychic people have jobs that use their talents.

I'm thinking of doing this on a Live journal. Think a slice of life approach might be best? And how would people suggest I bring up the background of the verse? I was thinking chapters from a textbook or something?

And I'd be willing to beta it whenever.

Count me in. Willing to beta.

Something like a book I saw a long time ago but didn't get a chance to read. So, I'm going to guess that her name isn't actually Verminious, and that's just a cover. Are there different levels of powers and stuff? And are there things you can't do in certain schools? Like, you can be a doctor if you attend Hero School, but if you attend Dark Hero School, you've got to, say, work as a tax official? However you write it, it looks like an interesting story that I'd love to read.

"Granted."

As had been discussed, several of us already feel that you more than fulfill the requirements.

The items you linked as proof as evidence of your ability to write are more than substantial and show you not only have a decent command of spelling and grammar, but can and do think about possible alternatives for showing a scene.

Your consistent participation in the community does not only meet the requirements for requesting permission, it's also made you a cornerstone here in the years since you've joined.

Please see hS' post for any further commentary to be had.

-July

I'm just gonna copy and paste this here.

"SO A FRIEND AND I ACTUALLY JUST DID THE MATH ON THIS.

Between 1972-1979 there were 5,802,282 live births in the United Kingdom. These live births account for the roughly 600 Hogwarts students during Harry’s first year, and would make the birth rate of Wizards approximately 0.01% of the population.

The population of the United States in 2014 was 318.9 million - 23.1% of which were children 0-17. That would mean there were 73,665,900 children in 2014. Checking live births from a time period of 1997-2003 (which would account for children aged 11-17) gives us 27,978,287 children. If 0.01% of them were magical, we’re left with 27,978 school age magical children in the United States in 2014.

If we wanted school sizes similar to Hogwarts - 600 children to a school - we would need at minimum 47 magical schools. If we wanted it more comparable to our own schooling - with an average student body size of roughly 1,430 students combined between middle school and high school during the 2009-2010 school years - we’re down to a minimum of 20 magical schools.

So, long story short. It is statistically impossible for there to be a single magical school in the United States.

It’s far more likely there is at least one school in each state, possibly more than one in much larger states like Alaska, Texas, and California while a single school could feasibly serve the clustered smaller states like Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut."

(I was going to do this as a ficlet, but I'm moody, so no.)

I think one of the greatest losses when the Rap (Rappaport's Law) came down was the American wandmaking tradition.

We know that Ilvermorny - the first and preeminent European-instituted magical school on the continent - began its life as a 'wandwork' school, and that it taught people who didn't have wands. We know that its joint heads were a carpenter, and someone with a knack for befriending magical creatures. It is hardly a stretch to conclude that wandmaking was taught at Ilvermorny from the very earliest days. So the children taught there went out into the world trained not only in using wands, but in making them as well.

Who remembers that Native American wizards are particularly gifted with plants? I would bet that claim in the MACUSA-Approved History of Magic in North America stems in part from the fact that, starting at Ilvermorny and spreading like wildfire to the west, they took up the cause of handcrafting unique wands like a fish takes to water.

I imagine that expert wandmakers - perhaps not quite Ollivander's calibre, but highly skilled - would have been plentiful. There would have been experimentation with unusual woods, and samples from every magical creature you can imagine. When Ollivander eventually declared three cores to be supreme, it was American research he was building on.

But old research. 150 years (or so) after Ilvermorny rose, the Rap came down. Any action which might expose a wizard was banned. Children weren't allowed wands until they went to Ilvermorny - and those wands were strictly controlled. Remember the wand permits from the ?

But how do you enforce that rule, when everyone and her grandmother knows how to make a wand? Wandlore must have been absolutely smashed. I'm picturing mass-Obliviation, harsh punishments - anything to stop people making wands.

By the 1920s, only four wandmakers remained. None of them lived anywhere near MACUSA headquarters - we've got Louisiana, Arkansas, and somewhere between Florida and Mississippi. They were the last gasps of an ancient tradition - tolerated, but not allowed to pass on their learning. When Quintana died, White River Monster spines vanished from the market - he had no successor.

Why were they tolerated? Because by this time, MACUSA and Ilvermorny were facing a crisis. Wands weaken when they're passed to a new user; some of them stop working entirely unless they're given a new core. The great Hall of Wands at Ilvermorny must have been half-empty, and what remained were refurbs, second-hand wands, and the ones that didn't fit with any personalities.

My guess? The Southern wandmakers came out into the open in 1892 - the Great Sasquatch Rebellion. Recall the odd statement that Beauvais wands were used 'in battle' - whatever their attributes, these were wands that first became famous during a magical war. Did not-yet-President Pickles fight against the Rebellion? I would bet on it.

All of a sudden, as 1900 rolled round, magic in America was more powerful than it had been for generations. And oh, look, that's when the wand permits were introduced. Funny how things fit together, isn't it?

American wandlore was a marvel of the pre-Industrial world. It suffered in silence for 170 years, from 1790 to 1965; I only hope it has since recovered and reclaimed its former, unique glory.

hS

I said in my 'things I flagged' that MACUSA President Seraphina Picquery is Super Speshul. But is she? What do we actually know about President Pickles?

-She was born, raised, or otherwise associated with Savannah, Georgia. She wouldn't have had a wand until she went to school, and would probably not have seen much magic before that time.

-She was taught at Ilvermorny. That means she got her first wand from the Ilvermorny Hall of Wands.

-At Ilvermorny, she was offered the choice of all four houses. She chose Horned Serpent.

-She was 'famously gifted'; this probably first showed itself at school.

-Her adult wand was a Beauvais, which means it was swamp mayhew and rougarou hair. A rougarou is... basically a werewolf (the name is actually derived from the French for 'werewolf'), and the wand is supposed to have an affinity for Dark magic. They're also specifically said to be used in battle.

-She was the president who said 'The Gigglewater is non-negotiable' during Prohibition.

-In her official capacity, she dressed like this:



-She considers this to be appropriate treatment of suspected criminals, one of whom is a foreign national:

---

So what does this tell us? To me, it speaks of someone with personality flaws a mile wide.

The key is that 'honour' she received when all four house-emblems accepted her. So she's a Scholar-Warrior-Healer-Adventurer? A detail-oriented, anger-prone, sympathetic idealist? And that string of characteristics doesn't ring any alarm bells?

I think what President Pickles has is parts of all four natures, but with no natural balance between them. She's steadfast to the point of stubbornness; she thinks she has self-knowledge, but what she has is arrogance. She has been told from the age of 11 (or earlier!) that she is special - the Sorting, the 'famously gifted' - and her life has never tempered that.

All her attributes, she honestly sees as unambiguously positive. "When I fight," one imagines her saying, brandishing her Dark magic-friendly wand, "I fight to win." She is a champion of justice - if by that you mean 'anyone who crosses her in her righteousness will regret it'. She is a scholar (she chose Horned Serpent) who thinks she can predict the future - not by magic, but simply by how much she knows. She is here to 'fix' Wizarding America - and she's not shy about breaking a few dragon eggs along the way.

If I'm right, she has the potential to be a far more complex villain than Voldemort. Voldemort's goal was to live forever and rule everything; President Pickles 'just wants what's best for the people' - which happens to be her ruling everything with an iron wand. You, the viewer, will agree with every one of her goals, and nod along with each step of her logi...il she hits the step about "so you have to do exactly what I say."

She is, in fact, Granny Weatherwax gone bad.

hS

-The Irish will no doubt be up in arms about their sacred figure (the Morrigan) being reimagined as an Animagus. Right?

-Har har, 'A Liar's Story'. There's a joke most of America has the wrong accent to get.

-Ilvermorny was half-founded by a Muggle! It was also founded in explicit imitation of Hogwarts, neatly explaining the four houses.

-The houses themselves... this is a really important point: they're not named after magical species, as various people objected to last time. They're named after individual magical creatures. Horned Serpent is named for the individual who lives nearby; Pukwudgie is named for William. Thunderbird is named for (the?) Thunderbird, which nothing here says has to be a species - just like the Horned Serpent, it's referred to in the individual. We already know it's related to the phoenix - could it be an ancestor?

--Following from that, I'd love to know the story of Webster's Wampus. We had mentions of them watching Wampus cubs playing - did he have a pet? A friend?

--And what about Chadwick's encounter with the Thunderbird? I bet there's a story there.

-Ilvermorny was founded as a wandmaking school! The education side of things only came in as trade.

-The early students and teachers at Ilvermorny were in part Native American (Wampanoag, Narragansett). Nor were the students all children. And James was a teacher (and joint head), too - a Muggle! Yes, but remember, wandmaking school. He was a craftsman, not a wizard.

-JKR sketches excellent action sequences (the entirety of Update 5), but they give me very little to say, other than:

-Ilvermorny has Pukwudgie security. ^^

-It also has a really convoluted Sorting Ceremony, and I think I know why: the Rap. Wait, hang on a minute:

-The Rap was repealled in 1965. Victory! Anyway:

-Magic was strictly regulated outside Ilvermorny. It's quite likely most of the students had never seen any flashy magic at all prior to reaching the school. So yes, the first thing they're shown is moving, mind-reading statues - to make a big impression.

-President Pickles is Super Speshul. Oh dear. She's still a villain though.

-Wands are (or were) heavily controlled - but also 'state-funded' as it were. And the 'large hall' implies something much more dynamic than a fussy old man trying a few wands to see what works best for you. We know the school has a flair for the dramatic, after all.

-The Houses! Yep, they were houses after all (awww; but at least it makes sense, with the Fauxgwarts thing). And how well did I <a href="http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?id=199610;article=296770;searchterm=pukwudgie">divine their themes?

--Horned Serpent: The Mind, tends towards scholars. I guessed Water and either Friendly or Smothering. That's a big fat zero. My 'dull' alternative pegged it as the Slytherin equivalent, which it... isn't. Ultimately, HS is basically 'Isolt wanted to be in Ravenclaw, so she made a copy of it'. The Horned Serpent is shown to be something of a mystic, so this kind of fits too.

--Wampus: The Body, tends towards warriors. I guessed stealth. Haha no. My dull version was equivalent to Gryffindor, which is close: it's half of Gryffindor. Actually, I think Wampus is what I had Thunderbird pegged as. The first view we have of Wampus(es) in the wild is of rough-and-tumble play, so this fits the creature.

--Pukwudgie: The Heart, tends towards healers. I went with the trickster idea, but I'm glad to be wrong - the idea of 'Pukwudgie with a heart of gold' is kind of appealing. It also makes an interesting comment on the Muggle founder of the school - his house is the heart and the healer. I like it.

--Thunderbird: The Soul, tends towards adventurers. That's a... strange combination. I think what she means here is idealists, or simply activists. Chadwick was 'intelligent and tempestuous', and the house is named after something approximating a force of nature. I would be willing to bet that it was Thunderbird graduates who brought down the Rap.

-And finally, the most important thing, from the trailer:

What does this say?



It shows up as the pages flick back, and seems almost to be a set of wand pictures? The second word could be 'Gormlaith', but her name was Gormlaith Gaunt, and her wand was Slytherin's. So what's the first word?

hS

Slytherin’s Legacy

Slytherin’s wand remained inactive following Gormlaith’s command in Parseltongue. Isolt could not speak the language, but, in any case, she no longer wanted to touch the wand that was the last relic of her unhappy childhood. She and James buried it outside the grounds.

Within a year an unknown species of snakewood tree had grown out of the earth on the spot where the wand was buried. It resisted all attempts to prune or kill it, but after several years the leaves were found to contain powerful medicinal properties. This tree seemed testament to the fact that Slytherin’s wand, like his scattered descendants, encompassed both noble and ignoble. The very best of him seemed to have migrated to America.

Growth of the School

Ilvermorny’s reputation grew steadily throughout the following years. The granite house expanded to a castle. More teachers were recruited to meet the growing demand. Now witch and wizard children from all over North America were being sent to learn there and it became a boarding school. By the nineteenth century, Ilvermorny had gained the international reputation it enjoys today.

For many years, Isolt and James remained joint Headmaster and Headmistress, as beloved to many generations of students as members of their own families.

Chadwick became an accomplished and well-travelled wizard who authored Chadwick’s Charms Vols I – VII, which are standard texts at Ilvermorny. He married a Mexican Healer called Josefina Calderon and the Calderon-Boot family remains one of wizarding America’s most prominent today.

Prior to the creation of MACUSA (the Magical Congress of the United States of America), the New World was short of wizarding law enforcement. Webster Boot became what would now be known as an Auror for hire. While repatriating a particularly nasty Dark wizard to London, Webster met and fell in love with a young Scottish witch who was working at the Ministry of Magic. Thus did the Boot family return to its home country. Webster’s descendants would be educated at Hogwarts.

Martha, the elder of James and Isolt’s twins, was a Squib. Deeply loved though Martha was by her parents and adoptive brothers, it was painful for her to grow up at Ilvermorny when she was unable to perform magic. She eventually married the non-magical brother of a friend from the Pocomtuc tribe and lived henceforth as a No-Maj.

Rionach, the youngest of James and Isolt’s daughters, taught Defence Against the Dark Arts at Ilvermorny for many years. Rionach never married. There was a rumour, never confirmed by her family, that, unlike her sister Martha, Rionach was born with the ability to speak Parseltongue and that she was determined not to pass on Slytherin ancestry into the next generation (the American branch of the family was unaware that Gormlaith was not the last of the Gaunts, and that the line continued in England).

Isolt and James both lived to be over 100. They had seen the cottage of Ilvermorny become a granite castle, and they died in the knowledge that their school was now so famous that magical families all over North America were clamouring to educate their children there. They had hired staff, they had built dormitories, they had concealed their school from No-Maj eyes by clever enchantments: in short, the girl who had dreamed of attending Hogwarts had helped found the North American equivalent.

Ilvermorny Today

As might be expected of a school part-founded by a No-Maj, Ilvermorny has the reputation of being one of the most democratic, least elitist of all the great wizarding schools.

Marble statues of Isolt and James flank the front doors of Ilvermorny Castle. The doors open onto a circular room topped by a glass cupola. A wooden balcony runs around the room one floor above. Otherwise the space is empty except for four enormous wooden carvings representing the houses: the Horned Serpent, the panther Wampus, the Thunderbird and the Pukwudgie.

While the rest of the school watches from the circular balcony overhead, new students file into the round entrance hall. They stand around the walls and, one by one, are called to stand on the symbol of the Gordian Knot set into the middle of the stone floor. In silence the school then waits for the enchanted carvings to react. If the Horned Serpent wants the student, the crystal set into its forehead will light up. If the Wampus wants the student, it roars. The Thunderbird signifies its approval by beating its wings, and the Pukwudgie will raise its arrow into the air.

Should more than one carving signify its wish to include the student in its house, the choice rests with the student. Very rarely – perhaps once a decade – a student is offered a place in all four houses. Seraphina Picquery, President of MACUSA 1920 - 1928, was the only witch of her generation so honoured, and she chose Horned Serpent.

It is sometimes said of the Ilvermorny houses that they represent the whole witch or wizard: the mind is represented by Horned Serpent; the body, Wampus; the heart, Pukwudgie and the soul, Thunderbird. Others say that Horned Serpent favours scholars, Wampus, warriors, Pukwudgie, healers and Thunderbird, adventurers.

The Sorting Ceremony is not the only major difference between Hogwarts and Ilvermorny (though in so many ways the schools resemble each other). Once students have been allocated a house they are led into a large hall where they select (or are selected by) a wand. Until the 1965 repeal of Rappaport’s Law, which enforced very strict conformity with the Statute of Secrecy, no child was allowed a wand until they arrived at Ilvermorny. Moreover, wands had to be left at Ilvermorny during vacations and only upon attaining seventeen years of age was the witch or wizard legally allowed to carry a wand outside school.

The robes of Ilvermorny are blue and cranberry. The colours honour Isolt and James: blue because it was Isolt’s favourite colour and because she had wished to be in Ravenclaw house as a child; cranberry in honour of James’s love of cranberry pie. All Ilvermorny students’ robes are fastened by a gold Gordian Knot, in memory of the brooch Isolt found in the ruins of the original Ilvermorny cottage.

A number of Pukwudgies continue to work at the school into present day, all grumbling, all of them insisting that they have no wish to remain there and yet all of them mysteriously present year after year. There is one particularly aged creature who answers to the name of ‘William’. He laughs at the idea that he is the original William who saved Isolt and James’s lives, rightly pointing out that the first William would be over 300 years old had he survived. However, nobody has ever found out exactly how long Pukwudgies live. William refuses to let anybody else polish the marble statue of Isolt at the entrance of the school, and on the anniversary of her death every year he may be seen laying mayflowers on her tomb, something that puts him in a particularly bad temper if anyone is tactless enough to mention it.

Gormlaith’s Revenge

The happy, busy family had no idea that grave danger was approaching them from afar. News had reached the old country that a new magical school had been set up in Massachusetts. The rumour was that the headmistress had been nicknamed ‘Morrigan’ after the famous Irish witch. However, it was only when she heard that the name of the school was ‘Ilvermorny’, that Gormlaith could believe that Isolt had managed to travel all the way to America undetected, to marry, not just a Muggle-born, but an actual Muggle, and to open a school that educated anybody with a shred of magic.

Gormlaith had purchased a wand at the despised Ollivanders to replace the precious family wand that had been handed down through generations before Isolt stole it. Determined that her niece would not know of her coming until it was too late, she unknowingly imitated Isolt by disguising herself as a man to make the crossing to America on the ship Bonaventure. Wickedly, she travelled under the name of William Sayre, which was that of Isolt’s murdered father. Gormlaith landed in Virginia and made her way stealthily towards Massachusetts and Mount Greylock, reaching the mountain on a winter’s night. She intended to lay waste to the second Ilvermorny, slaughter the parents who had thwarted her ambition of a great pure-blood family, steal her great nieces who were the last to carry the sacred bloodline, and return with them to Hag’s Glen.

At her first sight of the large granite building rising in the darkness from the peak of Mount Greylock, Gormlaith sent a powerful curse containing Isolt and James’s names towards the house, which forced them into an enchanted slumber.

Next, she uttered a single sibilant word in Parseltongue, the language of snakes. The wand that had served Isolt so faithfully for many years quivered once on the bedstand beside her as she slept, and became inactive. In all the years that she had lived with it, Isolt had never known that she held in her hand the wand of Salazar Slytherin, one of the founders of Hogwarts, and that it contained a fragment of a magical snake’s horn: in this case, a Basilisk. The wand had been taught by its creator to ‘sleep’ when so instructed, and this secret had been handed down through the centuries to each member of Slytherin’s family who possessed it.

What Gormlaith did not know, was that there were two other occupants of the house whom she had not put to sleep, for she had never heard of sixteen-year-old Chadwick and fourteen-year-old Webster. The other thing she did not know, was what lay at the hearts of their wands: the horn of the river serpent. These wands did not become inactive when Gormlaith spoke her word of Parseltongue. On the contrary, their magical cores vibrated to the sound of the ancient language and, sensing danger to their masters, began to emit a low musical note, exactly as the Horned Serpent sounds danger.

Both Boot boys woke and leapt out of bed. Chadwick looked instinctively through the window. Creeping through the trees towards the house was the silhouette of Gormlaith Gaunt.

Like all children, Chadwick had heard and understood more than his adoptive parents had ever imagined. They might have thought that they had shielded him from any knowledge of the murderous Gormlaith, but they were wrong. As a small boy, Chadwick had overheard Isolt discussing her reasons for escaping Ireland and, little though she and James realised it, Chadwick’s dreams had been haunted by the figure of an old witch creeping through the trees towards Ilvermorny. Now he saw his nightmare made true.

Telling Webster to warn their parents, Chadwick sprinted downstairs and did the only thing that seemed to make sense to him: he ran out of the house to meet Gormlaith and prevent her entering the place where his family slept.

Gormlaith was not expecting to meet a teenage wizard and she underestimated him at first. Chadwick parried her curse expertly and they began to duel. Within a few minutes Gormlaith, though far more powerful than Chadwick, was forced to concede that the talented boy had been well taught. Even as she sent curses at his head in an attempt to subdue him, and drove him back towards the house, she questioned him about his parentage for, she said, she would be loathe to kill a pure-blood of his talent.

Meanwhile Webster was trying to shake his parents awake, but the enchantment lay so deeply upon them that not even the sound of Gormlaith’s shouts and of curses hitting the house roused them. Webster therefore hurtled downstairs and joined the duel now raging just outside the house.

Two onto one made her job more difficult: moreover, the twin cores of the Boot boys’ wands, when used together against a common enemy, increased their power tenfold. Even so, Gormlaith’s magic was strong and Dark enough to match them. Now the duel reached extraordinary proportions, Gormlaith still laughing and promising them mercy if they could prove their pure-blood credentials, Chadwick and Webster determined to stop her reaching their family. The brothers were driven back inside Ilvermorny: walls cracked and windows shattered, but still Isolt and James slept, until the baby girls lying upstairs woke and screamed in fear.

It was this that pierced the enchantment lying over Isolt and James. Rage and magic could not wake them, but the terrified screams of their daughters broke the curse Gormlaith had laid upon them, which, like Gormlaith herself, took no account of the power of love. Isolt screamed at James to go to the girls: she ran to assist her adoptive sons, Slytherin’s wand in her hand.

Only when she raised it to attack her hated aunt did she realise that for all the good it would do her, the sleeping wand might as well have been a stick she had found on the ground. Gloating, Gormlaith drove Isolt, Chadwick and Webster backwards up the stairs, towards the place where she could hear her great-nieces crying. Finally she managed to blast open the doors to their bedroom, where James stood ready to die in front of the cribs of his daughters. Sure that all was lost, Isolt cried out, hardly knowing what she said, for her murdered father.

A great clatter sounded and the moonlight was blocked from the room as William the Pukwudgie appeared on the windowsill. Before Gormlaith knew what had happened, a poisoned arrow tip had pierced her through the heart. She let out an unearthly scream that was heard for miles around. The old witch had indulged in all manner of Dark magic in an attempt to make herself invincible, and these curses now reacted with the Pukwudgie’s venom, causing her to become as solid and as brittle as coal before shattering into a thousand pieces. The Ollivander wand fell to the ground and burst: all that was left of Gormlaith Gaunt was a pile of smoking dust, a broken stick and a charred dragon heartstring.

William had saved the family’s lives. In exchange for their gratitude he merely barked that he noticed Isolt had not bothered to say his name for a decade, and that he was offended that she only called him when in fear of her imminent death. Isolt was too tactful to point out that she had been calling on a different William. James was delighted to meet the Pukwudgie of whom he had heard so much and, forgetting that Pukwudgies hate most humans, he wrung the perplexed William’s hand and said how glad he was he had named one of the houses of Ilvermorny after him.

It is widely believed that it was this piece of flattery that softened William’s heart, because he moved his family of Pukwudgies into the house the next day and, complaining constantly as usual, helped them to repair the damage that Gormlaith had wreaked. He then announced that the wizards were too dim to protect themselves and negotiated a hefty retainer in gold for acting as the school’s private security/maintenance service.

Four Houses

Isolt and James considered the Boot boys their adopted sons. Isolt told them the second-hand stories of Hogwarts she had learned from Gormlaith. Both boys yearned to attend the school, frequently asking why they could not all return to Ireland where they could wait for their letters. Isolt did not want to frighten the boys with the story of Gormlaith. Instead, she promised them that when they reached eleven years old, she would somehow find them wands (their parents’ wands being broken beyond repair) and they would start a school of magic right there in the cottage.

This idea caught Chadwick’s and Webster’s imaginations. The boys’ ideas of what a magical school ought to be like were based almost entirely on Hogwarts, so they insisted that it ought to have four houses. The idea of naming the houses after themselves, as the founders, was swiftly abandoned, because Webster felt a house called ‘Webster Boot’ had no chance of ever winning anything, and instead, each chose their favourite magical beast. For Chadwick, an intelligent but often temperamental boy, it was the Thunderbird that can create storms as it flies. For argumentative but fiercely loyal Webster, it was the Wampus, a magical panther-like creature that was fast, strong and almost impossible to kill. For Isolt, it was, of course, the Horned Serpent that she still visited and with which she felt a strange sense of kinship.

When asked what his favourite creature was, James was at a loss. The only No-Maj in the family was unable to consort with the magical creatures the others had begun to know well. Finally, he named the Pukwudgie, because the stories his wife told of curmudgeonly William always made him laugh.

Thus were the four houses of Ilvermorny created, and while the four originators did not yet know it, much of their own characters leaked into the houses they had so light-heartedly named.

The Dream

Chadwick’s eleventh birthday was fast approaching and Isolt was at a loss to know how to provide the wand she had promised him. As far as she knew, the wand she had stolen from Gormlaith was the only one in America. She did not dare dissect it to find out how it was made, and her investigations into the wands of the boys’ parents showed her only that the dragon heartstring and unicorn hair they had both contained, had long since shrivelled and died.

On the eve of his birthday, she had a dream that she went down to the creek to find the Horned Serpent, which rose up out of the water and bowed its head to her while she shaved a long shard from its horn. Waking in the darkness, she proceeded down to the creek.

The Horned Serpent was waiting there for her. It raised its head exactly as it had done in her dream, she took part of its horn, thanked it, then returned to the house and woke James, whose skill with stone and wood had already beautified the family cottage.

When Chadwick woke next day, it was to find a finely carved wand of prickly ash enclosing the horn of the serpent. Isolt and James had succeeded in creating a wand of exceptional power.

The Founding of Ilvermorny School

By the time Webster turned eleven, the reputation of the family’s little home school had spread. Two more magical boys from the Wampanoag tribe had been joined by a mother and two daughters from the Narragansett, all interested in learning the techniques of wandwork in exchange for sharing their own magical learning. All were provided with wands of Isolt’s and James’s making. Some protective instinct told Isolt to save the Horned Serpent cores only for her two adoptive sons and she and James learned to use a variety of other cores, including Wampus hair, Snallygaster heartstring and Jackalope antlers.

By 1634, the home school had grown beyond Isolt’s family’s wildest dreams. The house expanded with every passing year. More students had arrived and while the school was still small, there were enough children to fulfil Webster’s dream of inter-house competitions. However, as the school’s reputation had not yet expanded beyond the local Native American tribes and European settlers, there were no boarders. The only people to stay at Ilvermorny overnight were Isolt, James, Chadwick, Webster and the twin girls to whom Isolt had now given birth: Martha, named for James’s late mother, and Rionach, named for Isolt’s.

The Horned Serpent

William began to introduce Isolt to the magical creatures with which he was familiar. They took trips together to observe the frog-headed Hodags hunting, they fought a dragonish Snallygaster and watched newborn Wampus kittens playing in the dawn.

Most fascinating of all to Isolt, was the great horned river serpent with a jewel set into its forehead, which lived in a nearby creek. Even her Pukwudgie guide was terrified of this beast, but to his astonishment, the Horned Serpent seemed to like Isolt. Even more alarming to William was the fact that she claimed to understand what the Horned Serpent was saying to her.

Isolt learned not to talk to William about her strange sense of kinship with the serpent, nor of the fact that it seemed to tell her things. She took to visiting the creek alone and never told the Pukwudgie where she had been. The serpent’s message never varied: ‘Until I am part of your family, your family is doomed.’

Isolt had no family, unless you counted Gormlaith back in Ireland. She could not understand the Horned Serpent’s cryptic words, or even decide whether she was imagining the voice in which he seemed to speak to her.

Webster and Chadwick Boot

Isolt was finally reunited with people of her own kind under tragic circumstances. As she and William foraged in the woods one day, a grisly noise not far away caused William to shout at Isolt to remain where she was, as he charged away through the trees, poisoned arrow at the ready.

Naturally, Isolt did not follow his instructions, and when she arrived shortly afterwards at a small clearing she found a horrific sight. The very Hidebehind that had previously tried to kill William had had more success with a pair of naïve humans who now lay dead upon the ground. Worse, two small boys lay seriously injured nearby, waiting their turn as the Hidebehind prepared to disembowel their parents.

The Pukwudgie and Isolt together made short work of the Hidebehind, which this time was destroyed. Delighted with their afternoon’s work, the Pukwudgie then continued blackberrying, ignoring the faint groans of the children on the ground. When the furious Isolt instructed him to help her carry the two small boys home, William threw a tantrum. The young boys, he said, were already as good as dead. It was against the beliefs of his kind to assist humankind, Isolt being the unfortunate exception because she had saved his life.

Outraged by the Pukwudgie’s callousness, Isolt told him that she would accept the saving of one of the boy’s lives as repayment. The two boys were so ill she was afraid to Apparate with them, but insisted on carrying them home. Grudgingly, the Pukwudgie consented to carry the older boy, whose name was Chadwick, while Isolt carried young Webster back to her shelter.

Once there, the furious Isolt told William that she had no further need of him. The Pukwudgie glared at her, then vanished.



Isolt had sacrificed her only friend for the two small boys who might not survive. Fortunately, however, they did so, and to her astonishment and delight, she realised that they were magical.

Chadwick and Webster’s wizarding parents had brought them to America in search of a fascinating adventure. This had ended in tragedy when the family had wandered into the woods and encountered the Hidebehind. Unfamiliar with the creature and taking it for a common or garden Boggart, Mr Boot had attempted to ridicule it, with the awful consequences that Isolt and William had witnessed.

The boys were so seriously ill for the first couple of weeks that Isolt did not dare leave them. It troubled her that in her haste to save the children she had not been able to give their parents’ bodies a decent burial, and when at last Chadwick and Webster seemed well enough to leave alone for a few hours, she returned to the forest with the intention of creating graves that the boys might one day visit.

To her surprise, when she arrived in the clearing she found a young man by the name of James Steward. He, too, was from the Plymouth settlement. Having missed the family he had befriended on his journey to America, he had gone into the forest to search for them.

As Isolt watched, James finished marking the graves he had dug by hand, then picked up the two broken wands that had lain beside the Boot parents. Frowning he examined the sparking core of dragon heartstring that protruded from Mr Boot’s, then gave it a casual wave. As invariably happens when a No-Maj waves a wand, it rebelled. James was sent flying backwards across the clearing, hit a tree and was knocked out cold.

He woke in a small shelter of branches and animal skins to find himself being nursed by Isolt. She could not hide her magic from him in such a confined space, particularly when she was brewing potions to aid the Boot boys’ recovery and using her wand to hunt. Isolt intended to Obliviate James once he was over his concussion and to send him back to the colony at Plymouth.

In the meantime, it was wonderful to have another adult to talk to, especially an adult who was already fond of the Boot boys and helped entertain them while they recovered from their magical injuries. James even helped Isolt construct a stone house on the top of Greylock, providing a workable design, having been a stonemason in England, which Isolt made a reality in the space of an afternoon. Isolt christened her new home ‘Ilvermorny’ after the cottage in which she had been born, and which Gormlaith had destroyed.

Every day, Isolt vowed to Obliviate James, and every day, his fear of magic wore off a little more, until finally it seemed simplest to admit that they were in love, marry and have done with it.

Along with my comments:

Irish Beginnings

Isolt Sayre was born around 1603 and spent her earliest childhood in the valley of Coomloughra, County Kerry, in Ireland. She was the offspring of two pure-blood wizarding families.

Her father, William Sayre, was a direct descendant of the famous Irish witch Morrigan (1), an Animagus whose creature form was a crow. William nicknamed his daughter ‘Morrigan’ for her affinity for all natural things when she was young. Her early childhood was idyllic, with parents who loved her and were quietly helpful to their Muggle neighbours, producing magical cures for humans and livestock alike.

However, at five years old, an attack upon the family home resulted in the death of both of her parents. Isolt was ‘rescued’ from the fire by her mother’s estranged sister, Gormlaith Gaunt (2), who took her to the neighbouring valley of Coomcallee, or ‘Hag’s Glen,’ and raised her there.

As Isolt grew older she came to realise that her saviour was in reality her kidnapper and the murderer of her parents. Unstable and cruel, Gormlaith was a fanatical pure-blood who believed that her sister’s helpfulness to her Muggle neighbours, was setting Isolt upon a dangerous path to intermarriage with a non-magical man. Only by stealing the child, Gormlaith believed, could their daughter be brought back to the ‘right way’: raised in the belief that as a descendant of both Morrigan and Salazar Slytherin she ought to associate only with pure-bloods.

Gormlaith set herself to be the model she thought Isolt needed by forcing the child to watch, as she cursed and jinxed any Muggle or animal that strayed too near their cottage. The community soon learned to avoid the place where Gormlaith lived, and from then on the only contact Isolt had with the villagers she had once been friends with, was when local boys threw stones at her as she played in the garden.

Gormlaith refused to allow Isolt to take up her place at Hogwarts when the letter arrived, on the basis that Isolt would learn more at home than at a dangerously egalitarian establishment full of Mudbloods. However, Gormlaith herself had attended Hogwarts, and told Isolt a great deal about the school. In the main, she did this to denigrate the place, lamenting that Salazar Slytherin’s plans for the purity of wizardkind had not been fulfilled. To her niece, isolated and mistreated by an aunt she believed to be at least half insane, Hogwarts sounded like a kind of paradise and she spent much of her teens fantasising about it.

For twelve years, Gormlaith enforced Isolt’s cooperation and isolation through powerful Dark magic. At last the young woman developed sufficient skill and courage to escape by stealing her aunt’s wand, for she had never been permitted her own. The only other object that Isolt took with her was a gold brooch in the shape of a Gordian Knot that had once belonged to her mother. Isolt then fled the country.

Scared of Gormlaith’s retribution and her prodigious tracking powers, Isolt moved first to England, but before long Gormlaith was on her tail. Determined to hide in such a way that her adoptive mother would never find her, Isolt cut off her hair. Masquerading as a Muggle boy called Elias Story, she set sail for the New World on the Mayflower in 1620.

Isolt arrived in America among the earliest Muggle settlers (Muggles are known as ‘No-Majs’ in the American wizarding community, from ‘No Magic’). On arrival she vanished into the surrounding mountains, leaving her erstwhile shipmates to suppose that ‘Elias Story’ had died of the harsh winter, like so many others. Isolt left the new colony partly because she remained afraid that Gormlaith would track her, even to a new continent, but also because her journey aboard the Mayflower had led her to deduce that a witch was unlikely to find many friends among the Puritans.

Isolt was now quite alone in a harsh, foreign country and, as far as she knew, the only witch for hundreds if not thousands of miles -her partial education by Gormlaith had not included information about Native American wizards. However, after several weeks alone in the mountains, she met two magical creatures of whose existence she had hitherto been ignorant.

The Hidebehind is a nocturnal, forest-dwelling spectre that preys on humanoid creatures. As the name suggests, it can contort itself to hide behind almost any object, concealing itself perfectly from hunters and victims alike. Its existence has been suspected by No-Majs, but they are no match for its powers. Only a witch or wizard is likely to survive an attack by a Hidebehind.

The Pukwudgie is also native to America: a short, grey-faced, large-eared creature distantly related to the European goblin. Fiercely independent, tricky and not over-fond of humankind (whether magical or mundane), it possesses its own powerful magic. Pukwudgies hunt with deadly, poisonous arrows and enjoy playing tricks on humans.

The two creatures had met in the forest and the Hidebehind, which was of unusual size and strength, had not only succeeded in capturing the Pukwudgie, which was young and inexperienced, but had also been on the point of disembowelling him when Isolt cast the curse that made it flee. Unaware that the Pukwudgie, too, was exceptionally dangerous to humans, Isolt picked him up, carried him to her makeshift shelter and nursed him back to health.

The Pukwudgie now declared himself bound to serve her until he had an opportunity to repay his debt. He considered it a great humiliation to be indebted to a young witch foolish enough to wander around in a strange country, where Pukwudgies or Hidebehinds might have attacked her at any moment, and her days were now filled with the Pukwudgie’s grumbling as he trudged along at her heels.

In spite of the Pukwudgie’s ingratitude, Isolt found him amusing and was glad of his company. Over time, a friendship developed between them that was almost unique in the history of their respective species. Faithful to the taboos of his people, the Pukwudgie refused to tell her his individual name, so she dubbed him ‘William’ after her father.


(1) Morrigan (or The Morrigan) - Celtic goddess of witchcraft, also known as the Queen of Crows.

(2) !!! GAUNT?!

Y'know, the one 50 Shades of Grey is based on? It's definitely infamous enough, and bad enough. Supposedly it had been removed from the internet but I found it here

...But I've read exactly 0 Avatar fics. Does it pass the Google Test? (2 hits of people groaning about how bad it is on the first 2 pages of results over the past year, with the fic being 5 years old?) That said, the very idea of Zutara in a Korra setting is somewhat disturbing in itself.

Bleepfic, though? Ehhh... I mean, I could see classifying it as such, but the imagery is so over-the-top it was more a mild squick for me, which is kinda weird.

((Here. Or, if you prefer a direct quote:))

Baron Thanasius Ampelius has asked for the land (or someone pretending to be him has), but we can hardly see how any baron can properly govern with several other polities in the way.

((Maybe Baron PC is too obtuse. I won't push too hard for this, though; if TA wants the territory, it's his. Not without some difficulty, of course...))

I shall have to discipline my body double. No doubt he has my best intentions in mind, but unlike certain someones I would not grab for any piece of land I can hold. I am satisfied with my current territory, thank you very much.
That is not to say that I do not feel something toward the Riding. There has been an awakening. I felt it.
Signed,
     Baron Thanasius Ampelius

[Pokes at some leftover food] Hmm. Cold. How late am I?

Oh, good, someone recorded the proceedings; good hermit, that hermit. Hmmm... Edict of Bast... Phobos, already knew about that...

Thanasius did what?!

-Huinesoron, Baron of Plort, &c

((Thank you for doing this! I've updated the maps to fit, and will get onto the stories and profiles and the like at some point. ~hS))

I've done this- I found the PPC a few years ago, introduced myself maybe a year ago, but real life gets in the way and I tend to vanish for months and then come and read the board and a bunch of missions both old and new. I do love the PPC. I'm also shy about contributing to discussions (though I enjoy reading them). So I don't know if other disappearing newbies stay to lurk, but that's what I've done!
(And sorry I replied a bit late; I lurk here somewhat intermittently.)

Don't count'em completely gone, though. They may be still around here.. Lurking in the shadows, waiting for a topic that interests them, and then punce on it...

In fact, I have been here for over a year and I could bet that a good chunk of the newbies don't even know who I am, because how little I comment.

The community here does seem a bit insular, with a rather high knowledge barrier to entry. Even reading The Original Series (which I have done) is quite a task. Using the average of the first, thirteenth, and last missions, (Chosen because first, middle, and last seems representative. The missions have words counts of 3570, 8119, and 7285, including the title and all author's notes.), I estimated the length of the original series at approximately 164441 words. For reference, that's about 2400 words longer than the first two Harry Potter books combined, about 4400 words shorter than the sixth Harry Potter book, around 8300 words longer the The Two Towers, and approximately 2.5 times the median length of a novel listed for sale on Amazon (which is 64000 words). The PPC canon has also been expanded upon significantly, and to a newbie it can sometimes feel like there's a requirement to be intimately familiar with every notable agent ever, which, even if it isn't an actual requirement, can still be intimidating.

Beyond that, it wouldn't be too difficult to see someone feeling that their writing, while probably sufficient, isn't good enough if they compare it against the veterans. I might be dealing with this (it could be that my writing just isn't good enough), as I only started writing creatively late in high school, and while my writing has improved from the impossibly dense stuff I created in high school, where I would compress several sentences into just a few highly ambiguous words that could be interpreted to mean everything I was trying to say (while I received praise for it sounding very nice, nobody could figure out what was going on). On top of that, some people might not be interested in/able to effectively write the PPC's fluffy comedy, which I know fits me at least for now, as I'm too used to writing very dark stories. Had I not read that you can be a part of the community without writing missions, I probably would have left.

Mainly due to a lack of material that I actually feel inclined to join in on. I'd much rather figure put how to start a conversation than jump in on one.

(the one at the bottom of every message)?

That, and it's all too easy for those updates to get sorted as spam.

Then there's always that pesky thing known as "Real Life."

;P

It just seems to happen, I guess. :P

While I'm not a big fan of Game of Thrones, I do enjoy the hell out of history. And by "enjoy the hell out of history," I mean to the extent that I got two degrees relating to the field. Based on some of my own research, I think you've missed a few points with your comparison between the show and the actual Wars of the Roses.

You say that both the book and the show are supposed to be an alternate history of the Wars. And yet, the majority of what you've discussed in your post has to do with events that occurred after the Wars ended with the ascension of Henry Tudor. to the English throne (minus a few Yorkist revolts). You can't claim that the series represents a certain period, then discuss how it only really connects to things that occurred after said period. That undoes part of your central argument.

Painting Robert Baratheon as an amalgam of Henry VII and Henry VIII seems to me very much a surface level interpretation of all three men. For one thing, Henry VII was a far more competent ruler than Robert seems to be. He helped to re-centralize royal power and oversaw major lucrative trade agreements. As for Henry VIII, whether or not he was truly "a cruel king" depends on which historian is writing about him. He's certainly no Joffrey.

BIG SPOILERS START HERE.

***

***

I really have to call into question your comparing Cersei with Mary I. Once again, saying the two are analogues feels like a very shallow interpretation of similarities. They might both be cruel and driven women, but for wildly different reasons. Cersei is driven by power: power for her family, but more so power for herself. One of Mary's major drive was religion: to whit, the preservation of Catholicism as the dominant force in England. I don't recall that being a big deal for Cersei. Mary was also never quite the schemer that Cersei managed to be. To select a historical figure more in line with the Wars of the Roses, Cersei might be closer to Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI and a major figure on the side of the Lancasters.

I can't really qualify how well Sansa fits as Elizabeth I, but I will say that it doesn't really fit as an analogue when considering familial connections.

I found three videos on the subject. The first two are more in-depth, but don't necessarily go into the Wars of the Roses all that much. The third is a bit simplified, but covers the subject. It's also a cute cartoon!

The Real History Behind Game Of Thrones : Part 1
The Real History Behind Game Of Thrones : Part 2
The wars that inspired Game of Thrones - Alex Gendler

... that the sequel series will be about how the son of that last person you mentioned ticks off the upper and middle classes so much that they fight a bloodstained Civil War (again! fun!) and declare a religiously-oriented non-monarchaical government - only to have it overthrown by a king who just wants to party.

Man, and then his religious brother takes the throne, and his daughter's husband (who's also his cousin - incest sounds Game of Thronesy!) stages an invasion to overthrow him... and then their line dies out and the whole thing goes by treaty to some foreigners anyway, only the most recently overthrown line keeps trying to take it back...

Sweet burning stars, there's absolutely no reason to stop, is there? Because after you hit the Georges, you've got the American Revolution looming up on you, too...

hS, not a Game of Thrones fan, but way into history

...In the books at least. He's dead. Sansa's a possibility though, being groomed by Littlefinger.

You really should have marked it as such.

-July

I really want to join, but I unfortunately do not own a copy of Minecraft. And considering how against gaming my mother is, that's not likely to happen any time soon. >.>

Do you mind if I join in? I've played a bit of it single-player on a friend's computer before (and did a ton of wiki-diving afterwards) so I'm not completely newbie at this, and I promise I am not going to be a nuisance.

If anyone doesn't object, I will continue building it. Inkspire shall rise again!

Someone had put it inside the 'free kit' chest.

Now, for people staying at the communal house, I'll also let this announcement. You can go in the mines next to the fort and help yourself (within reasonable limits) with the resources inside. You can even claim some section of them as a domicile. Only things I ask for is help extending the mines, and making sure the sections you dig remain walled and well-lit. That's a pretty big thing to extend all alone.

Can and will result in people being removed from the minecraft server.

I'll look into restoring a previous version of the map when I get home and looking at the time stamps for who was on when if need be.

-July

Apparently? Well, I'll just grab my Android phone and--

Wait, what's that? My phone runs on Nokia's OS and isn't smart enough for GPS, let alone a game like this?

Well... huh. Maybe I can steal Kaitlyn's?

So, some details exist:

From the official site:

-It's free-to-play, with in-app purchases. You can spend money to buy more Pokeballs, for instance.

-The 'Pokemon in the real world view' thing seems to just be a camera overlay; it doesn't look like it's part of actual gameplay. Call this my sad face: :(

-You can find eggs at map locations, which hatch by walking a lot.

-If you collect enough of a given Pokemon, you get to evolve one of them. So that's kind of nice.

-Yes, there are proper battles!

Using the Pokémon you’ve caught, engage in battle with the defending Pokémon at the Gym. Battles are challenging and fun. Use your Pokémon’s two attacks to battle the defending Pokémon. You can also dodge the defending Pokémon’s attacks by swiping left and right.

So it's only at Gyms, but at least it exists! I'm guessing the reason you only get two moves is so that the AI stands a chance; they have to make stocking a Gym actually serve a purpose, right?

-According to Serebii.net, you get a starter when you first, uh, start. I'm not sure why, except that starter Pokemon are traditional.

hS

I stumbled across a review for the beta of Pokemon Go.

Disappointingly(?), it looks like you don't fight wild Pokemon - just chuck Pokeballs at them until they submit. There's three videos dotted through the review, and the third one might even be implying that you don't fight Gym Pokemon either - that it's just done by the computer. Not sure on that, though.

However: you can catch Pokemon with the camera on and it's like they're right there in front of you. No more need be said.

hS

I want a Vikivolt NOW.

You do NOT UNDERSTAND.

I WANT HIM.

I WANT HIM IMMEDIATELY.

AND WHEN I HAVE ONE I SHALL CALL HIM... "NORMAN".

Let's try that again:

Hmmm.... Sounds like there needs to be a new addition to the Pikachu Ripoff Conga Line.

(The picture is not mine, but your mention of another Pikachu expy reminded me of it.)

Sounds like there needs to be a new addition to the

Sounds like there needs to be a new addition to the

Sounds like there needs to be a new addition to the

Sounds like there needs to be a new addition to the