Jul 2016 Archive, part c

Anyway, welcome back! Have a box of colored pencils!

Ouf, it was short enough to pass. Well, I hope you'll enjoy the stay, and that it will last for a moment. And that you won't end up dead soon.

Orange yoshis truly are the best yoshis. And there're 99 of them, too!
Welcome back!
I'll be a little bit disappointed if someone ruins the joke, now!

I'm following the pattern! Don't break it. If you figure out what I did there, you get a cookie. What the heck, you get a cookie for the fun of it.

The Disguise Generator, to my understanding as someone who's never written a story, is meant to serve one purpose: To make the mission work with established canon, thus protecting the people using it.

Example: Jay and Acacia mostly used Uruk-hai disguises in the Original Series because they could believably kill Fellowship members in-story where members of other races most likely wouldn't.

The Disguise Generator is not meant to grant crazy-overpowered abilities (although it can). It's not meant to experiment with a new body (although that's a fun aspect of writing it). Its purpose is to make the mission work with canon and not attract attention: That is, to disguise the Agents in question.

I admit that I'm somewhat guilty of exploiting the DORKS. Valon disguised himself as a Dalek once.

The key thing is, what Valon relies on is his wits. And just because he's been given a stronger body doesn't necessarily mean he'll be any better at fighting; even if he were disguised as, I don't know, an Ork, his aim wouldn't be any better and he'd still be really clumsy with a weapon.

He prefers to leave the actual combat (when it's necessary) to Kala, and relies on trickery and guile to deal with his problems.

And the DORKS can actually be part of that. In the mission I mentioned, Valon disguises himself as a Dalek not to fight, but to get the attention of a whole bunch of fake Daleks and lure them into a trap. Instead of using the DORKS as a blunt instrument of pain, he uses it to augment his trickery.

The decision of what disguise to use, or even to use one at all, can serve many roles in a mission. They can reveal an agent's opinions on the culture(s) they're about to enter, or even whole aspects of their personality they couldn't express in their regular body. (Hemlock, anyone?) Following from this, it allows the chance for discussion, or even outright disagreement, between the partners, which can potentially feed into a plot throughout the mission.

But best of all, locking your agents into a single disguise for the extent of the mission places a restriction on you as the writer. As Mark Rosewater says, restrictions breed creativity, forcing you to come up with clever solutions to any unseen problems the disguise leads to. Especially in crossovers: do you pick something that appears in both worlds, but may not be optimal in either? Something unique to only one of the worlds, and force the agents to be extra cautious in the other?

Now the DORKS? Yeah, I do consider that overpowered. It pretty much removes all the narrative strengths above by giving the agents a free, easy solution to any disguise related problem. That's why I chose long ago never to give my agents one. In fact, I'm going to start having my agents collect a set of costumes they can use when only their fashion needs to change. More restrictions! More creativity!

—doctorlit wrote this outdoors and kept passing out in the heat; many odd squiggle words had to be backspaced away.

I think what DCCCV said is certainly part of it. Yes, the Disguise Generator can certainly be overpowered - but, since we're the ones writing the stories, we have the responsibility to avoid that. Very similar, in fact, to the TARDIS. Doctor Who episodes that are poorly written do tend to overpower the Doctor by overpowering the TARDIS or sonic screwdriver. Or, say, giving a secondary character the power to rewrite the memory of the entire species of Daleks, making an abs-- *ahem* Er, sorry, got a bit off topic there.

Point is, almost anything can make the agents in a fic overpowered. That's why good writing is imperative - write the Disguise Generator well is part of writing a PPC team well.

To my knowledge, it is entirely possible to use The Disguise generator for that, but that is not the DORKS' intended purpose. You could definitely use it to keep yourself in optimal shape, and that would make for a great character flaw. Why have you brought this subject up, exactly? If you are going to be exploiting this, the DORKS may need to be changed, but if you will not be, I assume that no one else would. It's an integral part of what makes this organization The PPC, like The Pokeball to Pokemon, or the TARDIS to Doctor Who.

It's not a discussion about the badfic itself, per se, since one of the guys in the Discord provides a HUGE archive of badfic he's found over time.

So I've just read, for the very first time, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

[Pause for screaming]

Actually, I've just read for the very first time everything from Goblet of Fire onwards, but that's-

[More screaming]

-BUT THAT'S not relevant. It's DH that I have a question about.

Is there any consensus as to who or what the 'wretched creature' hanging out in Ghostly King's Cross was? Dumbledore refuses to say (except that it's pointless to waste pity on or try to help). I wondered if it was Voldemort, but a) he's still alive (though maybe unconscious), and b) Dumbledore is clear that the Horcrux-fragments are 'destroyed', not just dead.

So then I wondered if it could be Grindelwald? They do talk about him a fair bit, he has only recently died, and he and Dumbledore have A History, so it would explain why Albus was hanging out with him.

Or is it someone or something else? I can't really think of anything that would fit (the spirit of the first owner of the Elder Wand?), but...

hS

PS: Oh, but this version of Deathly Hallows has the best ending. The much-debated epilogue ends at the bottom of the front side of the very last page. I turn it over, and see, printed large on the inside back cover itself, JKR standing by her desk with a smirk on her face that seems to say, "Yep, I just did that. Nope, you can't argue it away. Yep, it's canon now."

I tried to find a copy of the picture online, but honestly, she always smirks like that. Look at all the pictures!

hS (again)

Had while perusing the newspaper image:

Dragot = dragon-ingot? We know JKR likes portmanteaux (or blend words? I forget how that discussion ended), and it sounds like something wizards would come up with to me.

~Neshomeh, because fictional etymology is fun.

In the other trailer, there's a big shot of someone reading a newspaper. You can find it here.

The big, eye-catching WANTED poster tells of a 3500 dragot reward for the arrest of one Alberto Macellarius (aka 'The Rat'), for the crimes of 'counterfeiting wands and murder'. The text underneath seems to read:

reward ??? [number] dragots will be paid for information
leading to the arrest and conviction of this wizard. MACUSA officers
??? ??? ???? and will take care of the prosecution.

Bearing Wand and
Extremely Dangerous!

So here's what I can tell you about MACUSA from that:

-They consider wand counterfeiting to be a higher crime than murder.
-They're happy to ask the general populace to try and capture someone accused of murder.
-They're also happy to try and trick people out of their money - the reward only goes through if he's convicted. If he happens to splinch himself while Apparating down the stairs, well, tough luck.

MACUSA: looking out for YOU. As in, 'we see you when you're sleeping...'

hS

Teaser Trailer (TT)

-At TT 0:26, we see the strappy dress Female wears in the speakeasy and poster scenes.

-Around TT 0:29 we see the bank that Newt Disapparates from (I think) in the current trailer. Maybe that's the big columny building? It has a small front door that looks out into an open space, so it could fit. That might mean Newt's worried look while standing in line (TT 0:31) is a reaction to the Thunderbird outside.

-Aha! TT 1:11 shows Female, Blonde, Newt, and Muggle (I assume he's a Muggle?) outside what seems to be the speakeasy - at least, the strappy dress is there. It's not a continuous shot - Female lowers her glowing wand between frames - so maybe this is where the portrait is.

-Shaw's big do seems to take place in the columny building (TT 1:18). If he's a witchhunter, the Thunderbird could've chosen somewhere better, no?

-Why is there a manic child at TT 1:25?

-It looks like the 'lethifold' might invade Shaw's party; at least, there's some sort of smoke efect before everyone falls down at TT 1:29.

-TT 1:43 - heeeeey, it's Pickles out of work clothes. I don't think I've seen this trailer, actually, I need to watch it with sound sometime.

hS

(PS: This was written before Matt's reply below. Just to keep things organised.)

-Location data!

--We get a shot down the street from the house that got destroyed, but it doesn't show any obvious landmarks.
--When Newt comes in we get a lovely skyline shot. It took a bit of searching, but this postcard shows the same spot: Lower Manhattan, as seen from the Hudson. Good, so we're definitely in New York. ^^
--The building with the ornate facade in the next shot (MACUSA HQ?) looks like it must be a real place, but I don't know how to find it.
-When Newt walks down the street (0:47), we see a fairly distinctive flat-topped skyscraper in the background. Anyone know it?
--Ice skating! Central Park, maybe?
--A couple of quick flashes of places, but nothing to pin down.
--That glowing line. Is that a defence system, or a trace on the creature? Correction, three creatures: there's two little lines growing separately to the main one. Either way, it clearly marks where the action takes place. I've traced it out approximately on the map: the lower small line comes straight out of the Empire State Building.
--Bridge. Clearly the ice skating scene again. If we're down on Lower Manhattan (as the map suggests), maybe it's not Central park after all.
--Thunderbird taking off in front of a very nice building. Some sort of library or museum, or maybe government? Intriguingly, it looks like Thunderbird is actually coming out of the ground here (next to the Subway); that's strange, and suggests it's more than just an escaped creature. Or is it flying away from the collapse?
-Somewhere with lots of neon. One readable sign is for Arrow Collars, which seems to be <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheArrowCollarMan">this. 'Cluett, Peabody & Co' sounds wizardly to me. ^_^ The other signs ('NOW SHO') suggest maybe Broadway? Which puts us down below the line on the map before.
--Oh, yeah, that must by Broadway. There's a sign ending 'PHEUM', and there's an Orpheum Theatre in New York. Okay, it's actually not on Broadway itself, but the samge general area.
--And there we are, third time lucky: it's Times Square. Or maybe it just has the box-office for it? Regardless, this is where the potential Lethifold is playing around.
--And then we're back to the 'museum' from earlier, and some awesomely-dressed shooty guys. Still no idea where it is.

Okay, so that... didn't reveal much. On to Other Stuff.

-Alas, there's not a lot of MACUSA shenanigans in this one. They do seem to have an undercover investigator type, so clearly their dedication to staying out of Muggle business is partly put-on, but other than that...
-The sewing scene: did you notice that the blonde woman changes into the blue dress mid-scene? Guess that explains the look on Newt's face.
-The 'Lethifold': that doesn't match the description of a Lethifold at all. It's not sneaking up on you and eating you while you sleep: it's burrowing underground, smashing stuff, and throwing cars. I also get a hint of claws from some of the frames; I'm almost thinking 'giant mantis'. Are there any insectoid Fantastic Beasts? Though it does have the Dementor shadow effect...

Now, that painting:
-It could be Isolt. That would probably imply we're heading to Ilvermorny, when there's no hint anywhere else that we're leaving Lower Manhattan.
-Could it be the blonde lady from a bit later? Probably not - Female Lead is wearing a strappy dress in the portrait shot, but a coat in the blonde's.
-It seems to be a poster on a brick wall; could it be the entrance to the speakeasy? It is immediately followed by a shot of gambling. That would make it nobody in particular. It's a bit Art Nouveau in style, which makes it a little outdated for the '20s. Actually, Female Lead is wearing the strappy dress in the speakeasy, so I'm going with this answer.
-Regardless of who it is, there's at least two people standing outside it - one clips out of the right-hand side of the shot as we zoom in. That makes it Newt and Female - and in the speakeasy shot, it looks like Newt (out of focus in the background) might have an injured right hand.


And...
-Shaw. Do we know the name Shaw? He's America's Future, I hear. He doesn't seem to be a real US politician (ie, there's no relevant Wiki page), so I'm guessing he's one of those evil witchhunters. Did we know this already?

In conclusion: Newt Scamander is the Eleventh Doctor in disguise. That is all.

hS

Apparently, the creature I've assumed to be an albino griffin is actually a Thunderbird!

And also, what I've assumed to be a cockatrice is an occamy.

Also, I completely agree with Herr Graubart - that is totally a female goblin. Why on Earth did I say a female House Elf?

I’d say it’s a female goblin. Have we ever seen female goblins?

HG

This movie in November, and a new Doctor Who Christmas episode in December... :D I'm happy.

That a lethifold will appear in the movie? I mean, it would be awesome if it did, but I haven't heard anything about it and a quick Google search just brings up speculation about what we'll get to see. Not to mention, how would a people-eating blanket known for slipping under doorways cause that much destruction, or why? I think, if anything, it would be something new we haven't seen in the book.

also lethifolds aren't confirmed to be cousins of the dementor, that's just speculation

I like the nogtail idea, though. That was my first thought as well.

For those of you who like a bit more of a challenge, here's another criteria:

The summary can't just be the 'it gives me a (probably correct) bad feeling', it's things that absolutely cannot be canon. For example:

Hermione is raped and tortured by Ron and finds solace with Draco. Not an AU.

I know, this wasn't a challenge to find badfic based on summaries, but I couldn't resist posting this from the Pit for Skyrim.

"One of the Divines toys with the feelings of mortals and immortals alike by throwing an innocent and beautiful woman from an other dimension in to Skyrim."

Thing I found a while ago but did not seek out has:

"Warning: r63 Alduin, Possible lemons, suggestive terms/content, and swearing will be present. The Dragonborn has began to question his purpose for living and Alduin takes the opportunity to fufill a strong desire. But, Did she actually satisfy more than just her own desires in the end."

what if Jim had a little sister? and what if she came with him to treasure planet? read to find out! :D i promes u wont be disapounted :)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10554707/1/Plants-vs-Zombies-Story-The-Adventure

"One day, someone dared Sunflower to drink one gallon of mixture wine, liquor, beer, and Mickey Finn in under 1 minute. Sunflower did it. This causes many crazy stuff to happen! Zomboss duplicates Zombies, a Camera Zombie spies on plants, PLANTS TURN INTO ZOMBIES, and Peashooter and Sunflower have A BABY! Read to find out what happens next!"

I simply thought it would just be a case of bad biology; it turned out to be a sickening combination of that, bad psychology, horrible pacing, and misuse of author notes. (And by that, I mean questions that show up at the end of each chapter in the most hammy writing style you can think of.) Also the fact that the author really, really loves order of magnitude and big numbers.

I've only done one fic so far where the summary sounded like a badfic but the fic itself was OK, and that was the one for "Of Swimmers and a Sue."

Seducing the Survivor:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11027444/1/Seducing-The-Survivour

Kelsier thought he'd planned for everything... but he'd never planned for THIS.

I say no more.

The one I thought of off the top of my head, though, is one I'm planning on sporking in a few missions:

"Castiel was a broken angel when Lucifer finally won on Earth. So when God gives him the chance to go back and stop it from happening, he was quick to agree. There was one catch...he would have to abandon his gender and become female to avoid a paradox. Now Castielle is on a mission from god to save the Winchesters and hopefully make things right between her and Dean. Destiel!"

Oh, and a very strange, short badfic in Spanish:

"Bella es una bruja, su nombre real es Lily, decide regresar al mundo magico a hogwarts, ¿que se escontrara alla? mal summary, soy nueva no sean malos"

(As far as I could tell, the translation is "Bella is a witch, her real name is Lily, she decides to return to the magic world of hogwarts, what will she find there? Bad summary, I'm new, not bad".) The entire fic was seven sentences of sheer wat.

"*Chapter 5* Hermione is half vampire, but only one person knows this. And what does she hold over him to make him do her bidding? ::sings:: It's gettin' hot! Hot! HOT!!"
"A chance accident strips Harry of his humanity and leaves him a creature of pure hatred. A creature who understands what has been done to him in the past and seeks ultimate revenge. Though at the same time Harry wishes to build himself an empire, built from the ruins of a society he will destroy. Powerful Dark Harry, Dumbledore and Weasley Bashing"
Generally speaking, if a fic's summary has "Powerful Harry", "Dark Harry", "Grey Harry", "X Bashing" and so on and so forth, then it's gonna be an OOC, possibly Suvian mess nine times out of ten.

A friend of mine recently mentioned a book to me during a discussion about the disgusting requests I've received over the years for fanfic. The most egregious example I brought up was regarding a certain nazi doctor, which led her to ask me if I'd heard of a book about "...blond and blue-eyed Jewess Hadassah Benjamin". And yes, that's from the first line of the summary. You just know it's going to be a great, compelling, realistic novel when the Jewish protagonist is "pressed into service by SS-Kommandant Colonel Aric von Schmidt at the transit camp of Theresienstadt" and "battling a growing attraction for this man she knows she should despise as an enemy."

From the Persona series:

"Kari Yuki, Yu Narukami's [the Persona 4 Protagonist's] adopted sister, moves to Inaba just weeks after Yu's arrival. What role will she play when it comes to solving the mystery? A loose re-telling of the story from Persona 4 (not Golden) with some hints of P3/P3P, told from Kari's point of view.
Rated T for now, but will change if required."

I count four major red flags for a Mary Sue in as many sentences.

I can also recall one case where the fic (also from Persona) had a generic 'I can't write summaries' but I could tell it was going to be very squicky from the M rating and the fact that the only characters were Mianko/Hamuko/Kotone (they're all names for the Persona 3 female protagonist) and Koromaru (the team's pet Shiba Inu). After an attack of curiosity, I was able to confirm that it was indeed sexually explicit yiff, and I very much regret clicking on it.

Is it my imagination, or were you ship-teasing your agents?

I really liked your commentary and realizing how the exorcism would work (or, rather, not work). As for criticisms, I had to cheat and look at HG's comment; I didn't want to read the fic in question. I was only tripped up by one thing: Performing a Full-Body Binding on three separate people at once. It's been a while since I've read HP, but I thought most spells only had one target.

Good mission + Bad fic = Hilarity. Good job!

So, bad things first.

Takes place after Deathly Hallows and a bit before Breaking Dawn, according to Intel.
For the next five pages I wondered why Charlotte and Ix didn’t wonder how Intel got to this conclusion, until I was forced to read the badfic and found that they were still in a prologue set years earlier than the actual fic. Saying something like "but we have to go through a prologue first" would have been appreciated.


... At least he'd have someone to confide in.

“See?” Charlotte said, pointing. “Proof that vampirism makes you stupid.”

Ix tilted her head. “This might just me being prejudiced, but this does not sound very Hufflepuffy of him. Then again, he’s Cedward, not Cedric, so…”

“Yeah, Cedric would have probably asked his Hufflepuff friends for help if he turned to anyone. Definitely not Hermione, since they didn’t really interact in canon.”

What? While agents willfully misunderstanding the fic when it’s ambiguous or unclear may be fun, this is not the case here. If somebody had found out that Cedward is a vampire, but had not revealed this to anybody else, she would literally be the only person he could confide in, i. e. discuss how to survive the First Task while keeping his vampire abilities secret. It doesn’t matter whether he would rather ask his Hufflepuff friends, or how much he and Hermione interacted in canon. The fic is internally consistent here. Hermine noticed something suspicious, started to investigate and to interact with Cedward, and is, as far as Cedward knows, the only person who may find out his secret anyway. Are Charlotte and Ix more stupid than Cedward, not seeing that he is perfectly reasonable, or are they just malevolent?

(After reading the badfic’s prologue, I realized that the agents may actually be more concerned with the next sentence, And she would probably have the answers to his questions, being he intelligent Gryffindor that she was, but how are we supposed to know this when you cut the quote short? Missing this context, I thought more in the way of using Hermione as a sort of "beta reader" for Cedwards ideas than plainly have her solve his problems. And since the fact that Cedric didn’t need Hermione’s help is covered later anyway, I still believe that the whole section should better have been dropped.)


... when the falling letters stopped, they found themselves outside the champions’ tent for the first task.

"Congratulations, Cedric." Hermione said, joining him at the table in the library ...
[...]
In the tent, surrounded by the other champions, Hermione decided that right then and there was the perfect time to ask Cedward if he was actually a vampire.

You can’t just drop this continuity error on me with no hint whether it’s your or the badfic’s fault. Since I already didn’t trust you anymore, I had to read the badfic, and apparently it is your fault. Hermione meets Cedward in the library at an unspecified time after the First Task, and from there they go on a walk by the lake. I have no idea why your agents went to the champion’s tent. If the Department of Inaccuracies actually existed, the Snow Drop might consider a misrepresenting-the-badfic charge.


Technical error: What friends are she talking about?
There are two friends, but the person talking is still singular.


All this doesn’t say that I didn’t enjoy the mission, because these two agents are just so good. Highlights:

Ix’s attempt to use personal experience as canon evidence and Charlotte calling her out.

The divided-by-one-language cakehole/piehole exchange. (I had to consult my dictionary to get it. Learning never ends.)

She noticed, not for the first time, that her partner smelled like honeysuckle and morning dew and sunlight. Wait. Was that too urple?
:grin:

”... How the heck do you kill magic, anyway?!”
“By telling little kids Santa isn’t real?” Ix suggested.
:snort:

“I’m honestly not sure if that was a werewolf joke or a vampire joke, but either way was in bad taste.”
:chuckle:

(Apparently I lost interest when the actual badfic began; I didn’t take many notes from there on. OOC Hermione in Twilight? Yawn. But your agents made it still bearable.)

“Is that just a vampire thing or something?” Ix said in annoyance, pulling away when the letters ceased falling. “Being overly grabby and dragging people around?”
Ha ha, spot-on for Twilight vampires? And now I realize that the repeated downpour of "X"s never felt repetitive, because just when Charlotte protecting Ix began to be boring, you found new variations for your agents’ reactions.

Exorcising Cedric and Edward from each other.

Also, Ix unending task: vanish all the lollipops.

HG

I liked this mission. The banter between the two girls was fun to read, and unlike Matt Cipher, I do not think that this went too far into MST territory. And good canon reference, bringing up Krum as a potential boyfriend for Hermione as an alternative to Malfoy.

On to my usual fare, i.e., spotting SPaG errors, I spotted no SPaG grammatical errors in the English. However, there is a word-choice error:

“Is that just a vampire thing or something?” Ix said in annoyance, pulling away when the letters ceased falling. “Being overly grabby and dragging people around?”

Charlotte looked slightly mollified. “Sorry,” she said, scuffing her feet on the floor.

"Mollified" means "pacified". This is clearly not the word you're going for. You're trying to say that Ix's rebuke hit home. Try "crestfallen" instead. Ix might be mollified by the apology.


Note, however, that I specified that I found no errors in the English. I liked Charlotte's confusion in separating Cedward, but there's an error in the Spanish:
“Come on out, Cedric Diggory!” she yelled, whacking Cedward again. “Avaunt and Expelliarmus! Um, Accio Cedric Diggory! The power of Rowling compels you! The power of Meyer rejects you! ¡Vamanos!”

It's spelled "vámonos".


(If I wanted to be really pedantic, I would add that the correct word would be vaya; vámonos means "Let's go!" But obviously, this should be given a pass, since Lottie is scrambling for ways to say "get out of there"; so I'll stick with noting the spelling errors.)

It's great to see this duo again! And, since we're still in the "Read it? Review it!" Challenge, let's begin!



I'll start with the good things:

- Ix's problem gets solved. Now, I'd personally be in favour of a cane (because canes are cool!), but I guess the brace is more practical.

- The humor. Running (or should I say "falling") punctuation gag, the girls' banters (the "bite me" exchange was great), the sugar joke...everything's on point here. Really nice, light reading.

- Am I sensing a hint of potential foreshadowing of romance between our leading ladies?


Now onto those things that didn't exactly click for me:

- It seemed very light on the actual PPC stuff. Honest to God, while reading this there was a moment in which I've forgotten that Ix and Lottie are working for the PP...il the last part with neuralyzation, and one brief mention of CAD. If I didn't know better, I'd take this mission as a more elaborate form of an MST. I'm not saying, you should mention CADs, departments and RCs every second sentence, but I think something more could be implemented mid-mission.

- Agent Ix sounding like a veteran. It's her third mission and she seems quite comfortable with the whole idea of the PPC and hopping into new realities. I kinda feel like she should still have this little bit of disbelief in her. Seems like she accepted everything a little too fast.

- A very minor detail, but shouldn't the "cakehole-piehole" thing be reversed? Since Lottie is the one with Supernatural in her fandoms?


In conculsion, this mission was really enjoyable. If I had to rate it, I'd say 8/10.

P.S.: I was kinda hoping Lottie would secretly snatch some blood pops for herself. Or Ix, since she was curious about the taste.

-First of all, I like the idea Ix got this brace, and the way you used the IO wen Lottie talked about it.

-What sort of stomach Ix got? that seems like liquid, raffined sugar. Just reading that I want to brush my teeth.

-Backstory with holes ready to be filled with more stories. The better sort.

- Euh nope, still 21 X on the second line, sorry Lottie.

-Of course they lose IQ, they become rock, of course they'll become dumb as them.

-At least Cedward is as dumb as cannon. I... guess it's positive?

-Sorry Lottie, but I prefer cake too. Even if it's a lie.

-'light side'? Could a Knight of Ren come and put these things down, please? They seem to be experts about this.

- Well, Meyer fan is now as skilled with writing as Meyer. I guess it's good news?

-Guess it's a bit late for that, but why not opening a great portal to somewhere these candies could disappear without a trace, Ix? Same result, but far more practical.

-Mode is at the very bottom of my worries, Lottie, and even I can tell you're off the mark here.

-I liked the neuralyzations. X)

Well, I know PoorCynic also asks for something negative to say in his workshop, but frankly, I fail to see something. Good job.

That sharing files publicly on-Board is basically the same as publishing them. Therefore, beta requests should be handled via email or whatever.

Nuts is the way to go. It was fantastic.

I mean, okay, so it lost every battle after the first, but it only actually lost once. And it was so delightfully bonkers! With the little drones bouncing everywhere - literally, if Behemoth was in the room - and the insanity of 'our weapon came off, but it's okay, it caught under the other robot!'.

Nuts is bonkers. I want a series where 40 incarnations of Nuts go up against each other.

And then Carbide comes in and chops them all to pieces.

hS

That stuff's bloody awesome.

Especially Razer. Pokes right through the other robots like they're made of cardboard glued together by butter.
I'd let Razer raze me, let me tell you.

I have fond memories of this programme. Though I'm kinda sad I'll have to do eight figures in the air to watch the new series...

There's been a lot of agitation in this thread. A lot of hyperbolic statements and Internet sabre rattling. So I would like to remind everyone of a simple phrase:

JUST REPEAT TO YOURSELF "IT'S JUST A SHOW, I SHOULD REALLY JUST RELAX."

This is not the end of the world. Nor has J.K. Rowling "sunk her career," as she's going to be writing different books and making money off this franchise until she dies. All this rampant hyperbole does not reflect well on this community.

With that out of the way, there are a few final points I would like to make.
— How many of you have actually seen the play, or read the script? From what I can tell, it seems like only one person has actually done that so far. You can't have an intelligent conversation about something when only one person is in the know. I would recommend that people read the play for themselves (or, if you're in the UK, go actually see the play). Come to your own conclusions and your own opinions.
— As I said in another comment, The Cursed Child is a play, not a book. Stop treating it as a book. You can't consume the two in the same way.

It has a decent rating there, but closer inspection reveals that the 'reviews' are mostly hype. I'd leave a rating myself to correct that, but I don't have a facebook profile. Will anyone who does please help correct the gross misconception that The Cursed Child is worthwhile?

So, for those of you brave souls who've read it (I refuse to touch it with a ten-foot pole), I have a question:

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the Star Wars Prequels and 10 being the Star Wars Holiday Special, how bad is The Cursed Child?

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

*long string of cursewords*

Or, rather, I got to look through my boyfriend's copy and take a few pictures of the pages. And...

*FLIPS ALL THE TABLES ON THE PLANET*

You guys. I can't even begin to say how much I'm crying right now. I wish I could say it was tears of joy, but they are not. Far from it.

Harry Potter has officially Phantom Menace'd itself. Except worse. Seriously, this makes the prequel trilogy look good by comparison. The leaked spoilers were true. All of them. I took a few pictures as proof, too. Apologies for some of the bad lighting, it was dark out.

The infamous "Naked on a broomstick of purple feathers" scene:



Characters reacting to the discovery Voldemort has a daughter/more time travel crap:



The sooper awesum Time-Turner explained:



Delphi being a Sue (for context, Harry got his friends to use a bit of Transfiguration on him so he'd look like Voldemort):




I can't even, you guys. I just can't. This is badfic made legitimate canon.

I'm gonna be borrowing the book for a more thorough reading sometime within the next few days and I'm already dreading it.

Let us now welcome our newest Canon Sue, Delphi Riddle.

*touches heart and crosses wrists* For Voldemort and valor.

*curls up under a table and sobs*

A few friends of mine and I are going to the midnight release to see what's what as soon as possible. Still clinging to that last shred of hope that this is just an extremely elaborate internet prank. *crosses fingers*

I'm doing a political internship this summer, and the election is next week, so I completely forgot this was happening. I'll still probably have to wait until after the election, but it's good to know.

Currently, I have too many questions that aren’t answered by the spoilers I’ve seen.

True, there are lots of badfic elements. But as far as I know there is no law saying that a canon author is not allowed to write a canon-compliant parody of bad fanfic. Whether they are able to do it is another question. Which type of play is Harry Potter and the Cursed Child? A Comedy?

HG

*sips tea* Hi, everyone! Like the Bunker? I got it from the Roommates fanbase. It's lovely in here. Plenty of seating, cushy beanbags, I think even a pillow-fort in the corner. We have tea and coffee, cookies/biscuits, cake and pie... just about any comforting snack you can think of, really. If things start to get a bit too real out there, just come on in and pretend they aren't happening! Everything will be just fine if we only ignore it. ^_^

~Neshomeh

and checked for lag. He considered looking left. Five seconds later, the drone looked left.

'Oh, bugger me.'

Five seconds later, a harsh, sharp voice crawled in from the speakers, grumbling 'Hooooh, buugggr mi.'

'Stupid bloody thing,' He hissed, shutting the intercom off and turning the knob again. The only thing for his voice to connect to was his drone, so the dumb thing connected to itself. He considered looking left.
The drone agreed.

'Thank God,' He muttered.

'Ffffflak hhhod,' the drone agreed.

Stocker grunted, and switched the intercom off, again. He'd done a bit of scanning earlier, and had picked up quite a collection of space scrap, just waiting for a worthy prospector such as Stocker to arrive and take advantage of. Stocker was an eternal professional, and took to the call like beer to the liver. He could have sworn he recognised the location, but was always one for the landscape over the numbers.
He'd chosen the real heavy stuff. Denton-Jensen M-66 Scrabber-Drone. It was practically a ship in itself, except you plugged yourself in from light-years away, rather than placing your fragile arse in a fragile chair in a fragile chassis, surrounded by decidedly un-fragile space junk.
The vision on the drone was still blurry, so he reached for another knob. All he could see was a bunch of black, with some grey splotches in the distance.
Stocker twisted the knob.

'Oh, bugger me.'

'OOooooooh, bgggrrrrrr m.'

Stocker shut the intercom off, and pulled the headset off, rubbing his eyes.
He put it on again.

'Oh, bugger me,' He mumbled, again.

'Ooooh, buuuuuggeer meee.'

Stocker shut the intercom off. So, that was where he recognised it from. Fair enough, then. All wars had to come to an end at some point.
There wasn't much of a sense to them, otherwise. Stocker was aware of that. It made perfect sense, in his head.
His eyes must have worked differently to his head, then, because the sight of Porter-moor station 02 floating, dead and broken through space, surrounded by warships and wreckage, all dark and dirty, seemed completely nonsensical to him.
Somehow, 'bugger me,' didn't seem an appropriate reaction, anymore.


(I don't know. Sifverse needed love, and I'm always prepared for love. And I like drones over bats with cute names, no offence, Ix. Or to bats. Or to people who hate the name Charlotte.)

I guess they wanted to beat a dead horse. The existing ending was good enough, but no, they wanted to create an expanded universe. *Lumos*

In light of what I've heard of that so-called story, no WAY am I touching it with a... uh... I don't think a ten-foot pole would come even close to cutting it in this case. As a matter of fact I doubt even a mile-long pole would, either.

...You know what, flock it. This utter travesty of a plot, in any adaptation, doesn't even deserve to be mentioned in annything discussing poles. Gross.

I understand why Delphi is a dumb idea, I get that part. But can someone fill me in on what's so bad about the Time Turner plot? I saw a mention in the link of different Time Turners allowing different distances back, so - like Harry's Cloak - it seems like one could be 40 years better than the others without too much difficulty.

So... help me out, here?

hS

It's not possible. Meyer bribed people to propose her fanfic of Harry Potter and show she's the 'best'. There is no way in any possible 'verse that Rowling approved this... waste of ink, paper and time.

But will he smoke? That's the important thing for Johnny. Will he light up every five seconds?! I HAVE TO KNOW!

I've always liked a lot of the obscure, C and D class characters in comics, so the fact that we're getting Suicide Squad, the Defenders, Justice League Dark, Guardians of the Galaxy (again), and a couple of the B listers (hey there Captain Marvel and guy who used to be Captain Marvel) in the spotlight is basically a dream come true.

Now that I have been informed of its thingness, I am very much intrigued.