Jul 2016 Archive, part a

You okay with a volunteer who may need a bit before getting on to it?

From a resident of your annoying-older-sibling country to the south.

Maple syrup and beavers and whatnot.
Ending sentences with 'eh?'
Speaking French.

These are all the things I know about Canada and those that live in it, and they're all jolly good times.
Happy Canaday!
That's a lot of years!

However, I'm going to avoid being in large public congregations for reasons. I'm not agoraphobic, just paranoid.

IP was 89.31.57.5.

…but all this pitying praise for Matt has confused and angered me. Data is right. I've seen evidence that he has been harassing at least one member of this community (who shall remain nameless, unless they wish to be named). He was told multiple times to stop, but continued to persist. I've seen multiple chat logs to that effect. It's fairly damning.

And yet almost everything here is platitudes for Matt.

He says "I am not trying to play the victim." And yet, his post is full of self-pitying statements like "Hopefully I won't poison the next community I join" and "generally being the worst thing since Hitler." He says that he wants to assume responsibility. And yet, he uses low-key insults like "I would like to […] thank that person, for showing me how pointless my attempts to make friends were" to dig at the person HE was harassing.

Yes, not everyone has seen what I've seen. And yes, my words by themselves are not evidence of wrongdoing. No doubt someone will blast me for engaging in the kind of arguments that Matt bemoans. But I will not stand here and see people praise him mindlessly. People should at least know more of the whole picture.

You sir, are a great person. Cheer up and don't let anything get to you. I personally found no form of you being the worst thing since Hitler, and would like to tell you that you are a much better man than him.

Your characters are excellent. William and VJ have that kind of chemistry that I hope will develop into my own characters, and I have been genuinely excited to read a Hip & Hop story for a longest time. In fact, you are one of my favorite writers here.

I believe the biggest mistake you can do in this situation is leave, as there are so many people who will miss you and your writings. To hell with those who put you down.

~Mattman, who hopes you come back sometime soon.

I do genuinely like you, and I'm sad to see you go. *hugs* I'm sorry you've had so many problems with people here.

When you are harassing people in private to the point that they repeatedly ask you to stop, it's generally a good idea to take a break and reevaluate yourself. I would know.

That badfic was... creepy. I don't know anything about Dollhouse, but there is clearly something wrong with this. And I think Suethors must read some counterfeits versions of the books for always picturing the canons as ducking psychos.

Your mission, however, was entertaining, and I'd like to read more of your work. I also thought the concrit part was a ice touch. My principal nitpick would be about the way you handled the CADs readings. I guess I'll sound as an hypocrite because I only did this once, but for me, half of the fun with these things is finding new ways to describe OOC levels. And seeing them blow up, of course.

Who wants to take care of this little critter?

(Get it? CRITter? Because betas provide conCRIT... I'll shut up now.)

ANYWAY, this mission was fun to read; I enjoyed it. However, it didn't convince me that the fic was as terrible as the agents thought it was. Based on the letter September wrote, it seemed like their main problem with the fic was the breaking of age-of-consent laws, which, yeah, was creepy, but keep in mind that prostitution is illegal in California. So if the LA House is canonical (the agents seemed to act as if it was; I'm not familiar with Dollhouse), then it's established that the pimps don't mind breaking laws, and depicting them doing so wouldn't count as a breach in canon. A better charge to focus on might have been how OOC the characters from both canons were.

Otherwise, this was pretty well-structured as a story, and I feel like I really got to know your agents. The moment when Kelly described the IO as "watching" made me laugh out loud.

--Key

I immediately liked that you started this with a general impression of PPC HQ, especially the orc and elf talking.

But then, the first paragraphs are a bit disjointed. You may want to work on your transitions, like writing "Amidst this, Kelly and September walked back to their RC ...", then what they had for lunch, and then having them hear the console beep when they arrive at the RC.

Kelly appears to be the more experienced agent, mentoring September. It’s good to see this early in the story. Again, execution is a bit sloppy. "She [Kelly] grabbed the mission bag ..." and then "September grabbed the mission bag" is a bit too repetitive for my taste.

I became momentarily afraid of being infected with As Disease, although it’s not a bad case. Just watch for repetitions and remember that "while" may work just as well.

Also, since I actually looked into the badfic (I usually don’t), I noticed a problem that may be more prevalent then I’m aware: thoughtless use of standard mission elements. I’m quite sure that "booming" author notes were originally mocking the habit of setting them in bold type. Since the author notes look more decent here, there is no reason for them to boom. Mocking their length and wording might have been more appropriate.

Although your repeated mocking of the horizontal line is funny, I don’t actually see why you mock it. It’s the standard section divider / scene break marker, and much better than the weird dividers we often see. What else do you think should be there?

September is more knowledgeable about Dollhouse than Kelly, who may not know it at all. Again, it’s good to see this rather than being told.

Getting further into the mission, I ran into a personal problem. Apparently there wasn’t much Harry Potter, I don’t know anything about The Dollhouse, and I didn’t feel like reading the whole badfic to get more of what was going on. As far as I can tell, it’s a solid mission, but not over-exciting.


Technical Errors:

It took me three rereads of the sentence to realize that Topher and Dr. Saunders did live in their House, but he chose to [?] for some reason and made Saunders phobic of everything so she would too doesn’t actually miss a word or more, but refers to what was talked about in the previous paragraph: sleeping at work rather than live in their house. But that may be only me, and it may be justified by people just talking like this.

The neuralizer (two occurrences) and the neurolyzer are actually the "neuralyzer", and the agents "neuralyzed" (not neuralized, two occurrences) the canon characters.

Titles, like Harry Potter or The Dollhouse, should always be italicized, even in dialogue (although one might wonder how the agents pronounce the italics).


Harry Potter canon (I don’t remember whether you might know this and just pretend that your agents don’t):

Hermione had a handbag that is bigger on the inside, containing a tent and lots of books and other stuff. Harry having a similar pouch to wear around the neck may be plausible, but having it look like a trunk, calling it a miniature trunk and wearing that around the neck sounds ridiculous.

A great concentration of magical energy, like at Hogwarts, where many wizards cast many spells every day, and lots of objects are enchanted, may render electric/electronic devices useless, while technology like clockworks or crossbows are not affected. Unlike in some other continua, the presence of a single witch who doesn’t even cast a spell shouldn’t mess with technology, especially when it is sufficiently undefined sci-fi technology that might not even use electricity.


I like that September tries to send concrit to the author. It may be a bit late in this case, but apparently she is still around updating other stories.

HG

OK, yes I didn't beta the completed mission, but some kind of recognition for my comments and help when this was in what you called an 'alpha state' would have been nice.

That being said I was also under the impression that when the mission was finished you wanted me to beta it as well, obviously I was either mistaken in your intent, or something like that. I'm not able to constantly check a google document to see if changes have been made beyond what I've suggested so I'm sorry if it seemed like I wasn't interested in beta-ing it anymore, I was merely waiting for a comment or email to highlight that it was ready to be beta'd further that never arrived.

Storme Hawk

I need a second beta for a Narnian mission written in Deadwood style.

Too many replies to answer one by one! Thanks for all the gifts, welcomes, and beta offers (I'll keep those in mind).

As your newbie gift take this replica of the One Ring, which is also a gun! ...Somehow... Anyway, just ignore those voices using Black Speech and the visions of a flaming eye and you'll be fine!

Please have this bag of black-hole chocolates. I hope you'll enjoy your stay in this madhouse for a long time.

Here, have a cup of twig tea. Hamster is, sadly, not included.

Welcome to the PPC.

And no worries about former Suethoring. Naomi, one of my Agents, used to be one too.

I can't wait to see what you'll be doing here.

Here, have some bleeprin.

I love bread and butter, too. You'll fit right in to our little community, here.

My gift to you is: a toaster. To toast all that bread and butter.

Welcome!

For your newbie gift, have a Royal Ice Cream Container. Speak the flavor you wish to consume, and watch as it appears before your eyes! It even comes with infinite refills! Though, I cannot be sued if you decide to try poison berry flavor, or earwax flavor, or vomit flavor, or coffee-and-banana-covered-beet flavor.

So, since you've answered the question of fandoms and it seems you've done your research, the only question left is if you've found any agents you're fond of yet.

As a newbie who comes from the same past as yours (I was an extreme Suethor in my wildest fantasies when I was young. I might cover both that and why it happened in a future post.), welcome aBoard!

Unfortunately, I don't have anything to give you, so have some good ol' fashioned SPaGhetti!

Here, have a snowglobe with a replica of your favorite fictional locale inside!

I've heard about RWBY, but I haven't seen it yet. That might have to change soon...

If you need a beta for your writing, feel free to ask me.

Here's a box of Pumpkin Pete's cereal, a pencil with cute cats on it, and a pocket pencil sharpener! Usually I give out popcorn for the newbies to eat while they read the Original Series, but you said you've known about us for a while, so I assume you've done the so-called "required reading" already :P

I never even wrote enough fanfic to count myself as a Suethor, much less a regular author. |D Still, I'm available as a beta if you ever have need.

Have three (3) packets of Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate (with marshmallows)!

And it's good to hear of more people doing the research before taking the plunge - that, at least, we have in common. \o/

Hope you're doing well!

This magic shovel digs up...

*shovel shovel*

... monster statues!

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

And yeah, I can relate to the former Suethor thing... One only need to look at my very first published mission as evidence for that. In any rate I'll be happy to help if you need info on properly handled characterization, and writing in general as well! :)

Welcome to the land of the known! Here's a bead of "Atium".

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to figure out how to cause a Henderson in Pathfinder.

Hello, and welcome aBoard! For your newbie gift, take this plate of freshly-made SPaGhetti! Mind sharing some fandoms with us?

From one ex-Suethor to another: hope you like it here. :)

Suefic or not, that's pretty impressive. All I did at four was draw and maybe write one or two words on the bottom.

I bloody loved Captain Underpants when I was smaller.
One day, I decided: 'Aw, mate, I can bloody do that. Dav Pikley's nothing on me, he can't even spell his first name!'*

It was some nonsense involving the two main characters, Jim and Jon, (both of whom looked and acted suspiciously similarly to the two main characters from Captain Underpants) becoming spies.
I originally killed one of their dads off to toss them into spyhood, but later decided to make it a simple kidnapping.
Can't remember if I ever drew his corpse, or anything like that, but, by God, I hope I did, because that's comedy gold, right there.
They followed the perpetrator of the kidnapping/murder, snuck through some back-alley, and never continued their journey, because I gave up. Never wrote again until I was a teenager.
Poor buggers are probably still shivering in those streets to this day.

Good Lord, though. Three chapters. At four.
I was barely sapient when I was four!



*Fact: Larfen J. Stocke, esq actually thought like this, as a child. Those exact words went through his little head.

I wonder how a volcana is different from a volcano . . . Has DOGA ever had to blow up a volcano before?

—doctorlit wrote a Goosebumps fanfiction around age eight that was far worse, rest assured

If you have access to a scanner, you could upload the fic in question into a PDF format. This would preserve any and all "glitchy" script and writing errors.

Honestly, four-year-old-you should be proud. I'm pretty sure I didn't have the capacity to even play video games when I was 4. And I hated writing.

Just don't put the three in the volcana, or you will get bad stuff.

Matt Cipher made it about a week ago. The IRC has been dead for a long time. You can find the post about the Discord server on the last page.

Oh, finally!
Thank God. Thought it'd never happen.

We grow older and, hopefully, wiser.

Have a Japanese cover of an American song.

Hmm... Let's see... It's My Turn actually is kind actually kind of personal for me, and makes me think of my own life. Fun image, no?

Burn My Dread makes me think of two characters, from the two different parts. The first part makes me think Yang Xiao Long, because it makes me think of her thrill-seeker personality and her place as a student. It doesn't seem like too far of a leap to see her fighting people in the night to try and get that feeling of being alive again. The second part makes me think of Kelsier, partially because of how I picture the Lord Ruler's citadel. It seems like it might evoke that image of a black tower devouring all light and sound around it. The feet are, of course, the movements of those backing him, and the mist doesn't hurt the image. And, of course, there are his ambitions, which are definitely good for the lyrics.

I'm not sure I understand Ao-iconoclast. Hm... For now, let's add three songs. Let's say...

Fireflies by Owl City.

Compass by Lady Antebellum

No Good Deed from Wicked. I'm not sure which version this is. It might be the original.

The first one applies to some crazy AU version of either Quasimodo or Rapunzel. Both characters learn the truth about their abusive parental figure on or near a certain day they've been waiting for, if not for their whole life, at least for a year, and proceed to break away from said figure. (The lyrics to the other two don't make enough sense for me to form any kind of concrete idea about them, sorry :/)

My contributions:
Say - John Mayer
Raised by Wolves - U2
It's a Sin - Pet Shop Boys

The large house near spawn is communal and free to use and take resources from appropriately marked chests if/before you decide to set out, please be respectful of anything clearly marked as someone else's, if you start destroying things willynilly (especially near spawn) and someone says something about it you have the chance to fix it.

Basically it comes down to try and be respectful of others on the server.

Have fun.

-July

You probably remember my username. But if not, it's Thulcandran

This whole "that thing you did/they did/I was hurt by when we were all stupid teenagers is unforgivable" feud has gone on too long. At least on my end.

And as an aside, I think if hosting it ever does become even a bit onerous, several of us would be happy help you crowdfund it.

I've decided to pull out from this situation while the wiki staff can assess the situation and perform the actions necessary to facilitate a recovery for this individual, as the root cause of the problem is a person who I swear had the charisma of a Fallout character before yesterday, as opposed to straight-up depression (the perpetrator is a discussion mod who happens to also be a repeat offender and is currently beating his psyche in without any sense of common self-restraint.)

I'm still holding onto the plan of making an /r/SuicideWatch post, so that's still there.

All I can say is this... Call a suicide hotline, any one of them. Right now. Knowing how far this has gone, this person NEEDS help, and he needs it IMMEDIATELY. D:

But yes, refer him to a specialist. You do not have the training to take care of him, and it's more likely to traumatized you in the ensuing . . . well, trauma. I know it's tough. But you are in control of your own actions, and no one else's. You can neither stop him from hurting himself, not enable/force him to do so. All you can do is reach out to him and talk to him, and get him to talk to a more qualified form of help.

For what it's worth, I've been on both sides of that line, at various times of life. Talking will help with most people - if it is not helping, it is not your fault, but definitely get more professional help.

I don't know what to do in this situation, and I don't know enough about the current situation. You need to say more.

I smiled at all of them, and actually chuckled at Pierre vs. Major Science. Did he steal this elixir from Sherlost?

HG

Goodness, I'm gone for two days and people start introducing themselves and having birthdays and just generally doing things. Seems exhausting.

Anyway, happy sixteenth birthday! Hope you enjoy learning to drive (I certainly didn't), and take this box of health potions as a birthday gift. Hopefully you won't need it, but with all those car crashes that seem to be followng you, you never know.

Congratulations on dodging all those cars, and that explosion. Have a puppy, unless you don't like puppies. Then, have a kitty. If you don't like puppies or kitties, have a book. Good luck learning how to drive. (You may or may not need it, depending on your talent.)

Great, I feel old now for being 18. Thanks for that. :-D

Seriously, have fun with that shiny driver's license. No more carrying a passport as your official ID!

And wow, SIXTEEN? That young?!

Arceus, I feel old... XD

Wow, I feel old now, and I'm in my early 20s, and more newbie than you.

Anyways, please have this black-hole chocolate cake.

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*

(And hey I remember there was somebody on the Board who thought I was thirty-something then I was seventeen. It could be weirder. :P)

You're just a little baby! Sloshing around in your mother's birthing fluids!
D'awwwwww.

My gift to you is: Two helmets, one big enough to fit over the second one.
Learning to drive is one of the most terrifying things I've ever done in my entire life. Good bloody luck, mate.

Okay, I'm terrible at guessing people's ages on the Internet, but... uh. Huh. Wow.

Have a translucent kitten.

I'd add that the instructions for keeping the page up to date should probably go on the page, as with the badfic lists.

I'll update my listing when I get a chance. I tend to forget about it because I have beta information on my user page, too.

~Neshomeh at work.

I'll go through it with an axe in a bit.

Welcome to the PPC!

Have 2 bottles of bleeprin and a club to keep Drake away.

So you'll always look cool without trying!

This shovel digs up—

*is blasted into the air*

*lands in a heap*

...ow... geysers, apparently...

And hey, a fellow Abhorsen fan! By the way, what agent teams do you follow?

Well, I suppose I'm not much of a lurker anymore, but the point stands.

For your newbie gift, take this Replica Holocron, as well as a hobbit baked pie as an apology for my lateness.

As your newbie gift, have this replica of the One Ring, that turns you into a kobold while you use it!

look what we have here, boys. A newbie.
I'll just get my lead pipe and...

Hey! Hi! Hello!
Welcome!
Here, have this lead pipe, my friend. It's vintage and all polished. Never been used, you know. Diplomacy is the greatest weapon, the way I see it.

Fond of succession games, eh?
I've only really read Boatmurdered, which is bloody Shakespearean. Got any recommendations?

Welcome!

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

Since I was beaten to asking the ever-important questions, I'll just hand you this Royal Ice Cream Container. It's basically Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, except you choose the flavor. Close the lid, say any flavor, open lid, consume miraculously appearing ice cream.

Your fault Ix, you forgot the first part. ;)

Anyways, take this pot of black-hole coffee. Hope you'll enjoy the madhouse for a long time.

:P

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

Since I'm assuming you've already read the Original Series and the Constitution, mind if I ask what your fandoms are and which agents you've read?

Hope you like it here!

Hello, hello! Before Iximaz sees what I've done, here's some Everlasting Hiccup Tablets. Now, I need to run, tally-ho!

P.S. Please don't hurt me.

Have a purple glitter pen. Your agents cannot use it to write mission reports.

Glad to hear you're a voracious reader. Which agents are your favorites so far? Mine are the Aviator (including her past life) and Zeb.

Have some erasable colored pencils! :)

My turnaround time is two to three weeks since I rarely visit the library twice in one week.