Oct 2017 Archive, part c

If I get too specific in describing my old Sue, I'll probably unearth a truckload of memories that I've been trying to block out of my brain for the past five years. So, let's see...

She was a night elf death knight, part dragon, part nightsaber, knew draconic, and she wore a lot of awful outfits. There was a point where she was able to get a drop of blood from the dragon queen. She also godmoded a lot, but that I partially blame on my 12-year-old self for not knowing how to RP. I didn't have anyone to tell me what to do, so a lot of my RP learning was just figuring it out by trial and error as I went.

Actually, she originated from an even older fanfiction trilogy that I wrote, so old in fact that it's written on actual paper! Each story took up one spiral notebook and had illustrations. They are hidden at the back of my closet because if I see them, I will scream.
This character prototype was a draenei death knight who united the Alliance and Horde against the Lich King, killed said Lich King, and was redeemed into a half-ish paladin.
In the second story, it takes place some time after the first where the main characters are all half-bred teenagers who mastered the elements and came from Feralas: the blood elf/night elf fire hunter who trained a dragon, the tauren/draenei water shaman who died at the end of the third story, the troll/something wind rogue who I didn't care about, the human/blood elf earth paladin who was the love interest of the hunter, and a god-freaking cat girl from Sholazar Basin. I don't remember what happened in the third story, just that it ended in Wintergrasp and Sylvanas fell off a cliff or something.

I need to go... lie down... on the floor...

I've read the Constitution, yes. Most of the rules seem like common sense but I'm not surprised if I missed something.
I also finished the entire TIANATDATPPC last night.

And, Alliance. I still lost in most of the Horde cities.

Pronounds are she/her.

As for favorite mission, I can't quite decide. It's probably a many-way tie between Cupcakes, Forbiden Fruit, the Rose Potter series, Unholy Lich-Bunnies, Celebrian, and Harry Potter and the Butt Coffee. I actually had to go back and reread that last one when I realized that the Agents were pokemon.

>>

<>

*spikes the punch with the void*

Or, more accurately, a nearby agent dressed in a big pointy hat and gray cloak who was carrying a long staff. This, combined with the long ragged white beard Peregrin had already had, made him look rather like Gandalf.

"We have plotholes. That is, arbitrarily large amounts of candy, if you happen to think that is a good idea. I would not recommend it, but, well, I am not you."

A skinny young man in a dark blue suit and brown coat walked up to the kids, grinning. "I agree with the kid in the silverware hat, candy's really the best part of Halloween. Certainly the only part I ever paid attention to. I'm Chris, by the way. Pleasure to meet you."

"I love your costumes," said a mid-sized brown horse. "Someday I'd like to try making one of my own, but when you have illusion magic you don't really need to. Tell me--" she turned to the girl in khakis "--are you dressed as anyone in particular or just a generic explorer?"

It took him quite by surprise, though it really shouldn't have. It had been a drunken and emotionally tumultuous evening, with a healing thrown in to boot, and that would tend to catch up with anyone.

Jenni smiled at him. "Maybe we should all think about going home."

(( I'm pretty much out of ideas. Jenni would love to engage Thoth in a philosophical conversation about the interconnected yet separate nature of the immaterial realms of the multiverse, but I feel like that would be rather dull for everyone else. ˆ_ˆ; Shall we wrap it up? ))

"Wait, wait." Derik waved his hand. "Say rather, 'endeavor not to'. World of difference."

And...

Jenni sighed. You could lead a horse to water, etc. Oh well. This one wasn't hers, and there was only so much meddling a new acquaintance would tolerate. "All right. Sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. Are you sure you want to jump back into that circus, though?"

(( Not trying to dissuade you, Boarder!Ix; just Jenni being Jenni. {= ) ))

"That's cool. Did he tell you to do the scary grin at people who are bugging you? That's always hilarious. C'mon, give us a scary grin!"

Meanwhile...

Derik managed to weave his way out of the crowd with a minimum of awkward collisions. After relieving himself, he felt a bit better; a full bladder could wreck even a sane and sober man's mental coherence. He washed up, splashed his face, and stood staring at the mirror above the sink. The symbol of the Green Lanterns stood out on his chest.

"Willpower," he muttered. "You're a disgrace to that uniform."

Leaning against the wall outside, Jenni started at a crunch of glass and a muffled yelp. She spun around, quite prepared to barge in, but the door opened before she could get her hand on it and she almost ran into Derik coming out. Startled in turn, he reared back, flailing, and they grabbed onto each other's arms.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, scowling. He'd restored the green domino mask over his eyes.

"What are you doing?" she retorted. She turned over his right hand, took in the freshly reddened knuckles, and looked up in expectant concern.

"Restoring a measure of clarity," he answered. "Don't look so panicked, it's not a habit. But it is effective."

A thousand protests were on her tongue, but she swallowed them. "All right. Now what?"

"Now I go back and apologize like a man, tell the story I promised, and go home before anything else ironic happens. Coming?"

Jenni sighed. "You bet."

(( Aaaaaaangst angst angst angst. Sorry if that was a bit on the darker side, but once the image got in my head, it wouldn't go away. Building Maintenance is going to be ticked off about that mirror. {= P ))

"Gods and demons... Derik, I'm sorry. We've all lost friends, but... I couldn't imagine..." He trailed off.

Thoth merely stood silently. His focus didn't seem to be on the world around him, or anywhere close.

Theo said as he walked up to Thoth, giving the Space Marine a once over. "I could have sworn that that's the colour of a Space Wolf though. Kudos to you for giving it a go."

For his part Theo was dressed up in black trouser, with a red t-shirt that was covered by a black coat with red lining inside, black and red gloves covered both of his hands while an ornate white and red mask covered his eyes. "Although I warn you, this stupid mask gives me less than ideal vision."

"You're one to talk about less than ideal vision" Cinnabar said as she pushed through to where her partner was standing, she was wearing ornate red, black and gold robes with a heavy golden helmet on her head, rather thin eye-slots the only opening in it, meaning she had to remove it every time she wanted to eat or drink. "I still don't know how you convinced me to wear all of this."

((Thoth's... predicament made me laugh a lot, so that kudos is genuine. Theo is meant to be: http://rwby.wikia.com/wiki/Adam_Taurus Cinnabar is meant to be: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Bestia I just had to pick really hard to describe costumes didn't I?))

Zeb paused, sniffing as he inspected the masked figure. "It's the Detective!"

"Ahaha, I think you must be mistaken," the Aviator said, putting a green hand on Zeb's mane and trying to steer him away.

"Your pheromones just spiked, so I know it's him!" Zeb said happily. "Hi, Dee! How're you doing?"

"Dee, Dee," Elanor said, waggling her silver slippered feet as she tried to get down from the Aviator's arms.

A startlingly perfect recreation of Mystique approached Marina, her teeth startlingly white against her blue skin. "Harry Dresden, unless I'm mistaken?" She held out a hand. "Dax. Just... Dax. Intelligence."

Agent Matt adjusted his kasa straw hat and looked at the very thin figure in front of him wearing a Batman costume that seemed a little bit too big.

"Of all the superheroes, you've decided to go with... Batman?" He asked.

"Yep." Izzy nodded, making the cowl slightly waddle. She then cleared her throat and added in a very raspy voice, "I'm Batman!"

"Are you sure you wouldn't be perfect as somebody else?" Matt added, waving his papier-mâché staff with a Chinese lantern hanging from the tip.

"Nope!" Izzy grinned and grabbed her partner's sleeve. "Come on, let's go get the food. Being the vengeance and the night really makes you hungry!"

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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Hi Pasty Greens,

You are right and I actually agree that it's much more natural and much more organic to find a real badfic. In some cases, much more satisfying as well.

I mentioned somewhere in this thread a bit more about why, but I'll sum it here: around 2010, the PPC came under fire publicly when a writer accused them of cyberbullying other people over their Mary Sues. It was quite a lot of bad press. I am cautious by nature, so rather than try to manage the risk of accidentally stomping all over someone's ego, even by accident, I've decided to eliminate the risk entirely.

This is just something I will do on my own, since I believe that other people here may be more capable of managing that risk than me.
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To answer your question: I personally think so. If you're (say) interpreting a quirky turn of phrase overly-literally, it's much more entertaining to know that it's 'natural' than to know that you wrote it yourself.

But other people disagree. In-universe, all badfics sporked by the PPC exist on the same level. Out-of-universe, there have always been people who preferred to home-brew. It's not forbidden, though my opinion is much the same as yours.

hS

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Hey Huinesoron,

Inline:

> Now, onto the request itself. I'm going to go through this in
> order and comment on what I see:

Thank you for having a look at my piece and approaching it with an open mind. I would really like to know what you felt about the story itself, especially with respect to John and Ayumi's chemistry and the way they interacted, since I haven't written this pair of characters before. Much of this was very off-the-cuff, so I'm eager to hear feedback on it.

> -Your need to put PGP signatures on everything feels kind of l
> ike a lack of trust in the PPC. Okay, you use Tor - that's not
> actually banned. But assuming that we'll look at a troll claim
> ing to be you and go 'onoes we must have misjudged TripleDES a
> ll this time BANBANBAN' is... strange? Because we're not actua
> lly sitting here looking for any excuse to ban you.

The reason I put PGP signatures on everything is not because I distrust the PPC, it is because I do not trust other users on Tor.

What my worry is, may be something like a user such as Bramadin, who had previously attempted to claim my identity and pose as me, or perhaps some Internet troll coming in and misbehaving while trying to pose as me. It would be fairly difficult to ban an abusive user that also uses Tor without banning me in the process as well.

I understand the risks of using Tor to access public sites, and have come to expect that occasionally, Tor may be blacklisted on sites I visit because of abuse or spam. If that does happen, I'll understand and won't take it personally, and will return when all has settled down (although I might try to contact you by E-mail to see if everything is alright first, or I might wait for an "all-clear" from someone in the PPC before I try to come back).

The PGP signatures are a little bit of insurance. They're a technological guarantee that while someone may be able to steal my screen name, they won't be able to steal my online identity with you guys, so long as you guys have the real key that belongs to the real me. [See Footnote 1]

If you guys have my real, genuine key, you'd be able to tell immediately something is amiss if the signature verifies to another key, or if the signature fails to verify and gives a "BAD SIGNATURE from TripleDES!" error. This has the effect of being able to reduce the question of security down to two factors: the security of my computer, and the security of yours.

It's a bit overkill, but, as you guys may have noticed, senseless overkill is a bit of a pattern with me.

> -Given that people may be using either a phone or a browser, i
> t's usually better to provide something that can be read on ei
> ther. Google Docs work perfectly for this, since they adjust t
> o the screen width. Your Permission Request is very difficult
> to read on the PC. It's also hard to copy and paste quotes fro
> m, since things like linebreaks don't show up at all on the co
> py.

Sure. Thoth had a suggestion below, so I'll add another response to theirs, and I'll address this there.


> -The reason for the character bios being requested at 200 word
> s is that you shouldn't need to put much in them. The purpose
> of the bios is to check that you haven't slipped something Suv
> ian into the backstory or powers that doesn't show up in the w
> riting sample. That's it. It's not so we get their entire life
> story.

No problem, I'll try to keep things brief from this point on if asked.

> -'Because I don’t feel right bullying other people over their
> Mary Sues...' This is an immediate warning bell for me. Do you
> think the PPC is about bullying people? In your explanation to
> Iximaz, you use language such as 'taking huge amounts of flak
> and ridicule from someone anonymous', which suggests you kind
> of do.
>
> That isn't what we do. The PPC community is very clear about t
> he distinction between authors and their characters. Comment o
> n the characters doing stupid things, but never say a word abo
> ut the authors. And that's not in a 'nudge nudge, that Sue is
> so badly written she probably lived in her mother's basement i
> n a previous life, NOT TALKING ABOUT THE WRITER hehe' sense -
> it's that we recognise that writing is an art form, and one th
> at takes practice. We were all bad writers once, and many of u
> s have PPC'd our own stories for it. That doesn't say anything
> about us as people, and if anyone thinks that poking fun at ba
> dfics is a stand-in for mocking the authors, I advise them to
> think again - several times.

I understand your concern with the idea of bullying other people over their Mary Sues. I've actually followed the PPC for a little bit longer than I have let on up until now. I remember reading an article that Neshomeh had written sometime ago in response to accusations of cyberbullying. If my memory serves it was a response to a certain "Bosette" that had argued that writing Mary Sues was empowering to women. I recall it being from maybe around mid 2010 originally although I know that it may have been brought up a lot, since it's appeared several times sense.

With this in mind: I want to stress that I intend to homebrew my own badfic simply because I want to be able to err on the side of caution. This way, there can be **no possible way** I could ever be construed as having been engaging in cyberbullying, since there would be no perceptible target, except a fictional author, that doesn't exist.

It's overkill, but again, overkill is just in my nature.


> (Also, I realise you're into the crypto thing, but honestly? I
> t's ridiculously easy to find my name on the internet, but I'd
> still be 'anonymous to the majority of bad fic authors'. So is
> every reviewer on Fanfiction.net. Most people don't try and fi
> nd out who's 'really' talking to them.)

I tend to be a little bit cautious, that's all.

> -Your first agent is a canon character (indeed, the main prota
> gonist), albeit in a fiction canon. There go the alarm bells a
> gain. Have you read Jasper Fforde's Jurisfiction books? Becaus
> e it seems like your notion of how the world of fiction works
> is closer to that than to the PPC's model. You talk about John
> Smith has since sought work as a fictional character in other
> venues, but in the PPC multiverse, canon characters don't get
> to wander off when their series ends. They exist in closed uni
> verses - 'realised' to a greater or lesser extent, but always
> there. They don't move between them, and they don't 'notice' w
> hen new installments come out - that's just their timeline, fo
> r all it's still being written.
>
> -Your second agent is also a canon character, and has exactly
> the same issues: she exists in a world where she can wander be
> tween fiction at will, and is 'out of work' since her show's c
> ancellation.

I have actually not read Jurisfiction! I will have to.

I wanted to take the metafiction approach since I believed that taking a much more bold-facedly meta approach would allow for characters to also be show more in the way of self-awareness. It would make breaking the fourth wall a little bit easier, and I thought that having been from failed continuities themselves could also give them some idea of what happens when the creative process slides downhill. I've noticed that several other writers use redeemed or atoning Sues as agents and thought to take it to something of a next step. If this is incompatible with the current continuity though, I understand and will take this into account.

> -You also talk about 'a character shield which is powered by t
> wo AAA batteries... protects a character from all harm... only
> for the hero designated by the writers'. Again, this assumes a
> completely different worldview than that used by the PPC: one
> in which writers wander into their fiction, and are known by t
> heir creations (and can issue technology to an entire genre, s
> omehow). I'll admit it's an amusing idea, and would work pefec
> tly in Jurisfiction, but not in the PPC.

One of my major sources of inspiration for this was *The Last Action Hero.* The idea of an Action Hero and his Archnemesis winding up in the real world, where the rules aren't decided by the pen of the author and the Hero isn't going to triumph all the time just because of authorial fiat really appealed to me. I thought the same could be applied to a Mary Sue. After all, I feel that John Smith himself would, in his home continuity, be walking a very fine line himself. There are after all, many similarities between an Action Movie Hero, and a Mary Sue.

> -You wrote over 500 words on their car. Here is what you actua
> lly needed to write: 'Instead of a normal Response Centre, Joh
> n and Ayumi use an old car, to make them more like a buddy cop
> movie'. That's what I mean by overkill. :)

Sure.

> -If your agents are in the Department of Floaters, their depar
> tment head is the Floating Hyacinth, who isn't prone to yellin
> g. 'the trope of an angry, yelling police chief' may well be c
> ommon, but it would be a big change to the PPC canon.
>
> -The Department of Floaters isn't just about what canon they w
> ork in - it's about what type of missions they tackle. From th
> e All-Purpose Department wiki page:
>
> The All-Purpose Department contains agents who are willing to
> work in only one fandom but accept all types of missions. Com
> pare to the Department of Floaters, whose agents may work in
> any fandom and take any type of mission, and the DMS and DBS'
> s Freelance Divisions, whose agents may work in any fandom but
> only do assassinations or exorcisms, respectively.
>
> So if you're only intending to tackle Mary-Sues, pop them in
> DMS-Freelance instead.

Will do!

> -Surprisingly, I have no problem with the idea of a portalling
> car. I'm not sure what the 'real' effect of the travel montage
> is, though - what do John and Ayumi actually experience? Do th
> ey sit in the car and watch it play out on the screen? Do they
> get teleported from scene to scene?

The effects of travel montages and what the characters experience actually were a bit of a joke even before I thought of this series. For instance, if the travel montage is meant to represent a long period of time where the characters are boarding a flight, then why do they pick up the conversation that they were having before the trip back up immediatey from where they left off the moment they get off the plane or the montage ends? My guess is that when that happens, travel montages are very nearly instant to the characters, or take *exactly* the same time they take us, the audience, to watch them occur!

> -'Typical for police dramas, both Ayumi and John carry badges.
> ' Uh... what canon are you writing for, again? Because it does
> n't sound like you want to write for the PPC at all.
>
> -I'm looking through the 'writing sample', and... you're not w
> riting the PPC. You don't mention anything from the PPC. Other
> than 'killing badfic', your story has nothing to do with the P
> PC.
>
> So... good news! To write a buddy cop show about John and Ayum
> i, badfic police extraordinaire, their quirky old car, and the
> ir shouty Chief who wants Their Badges And Guns You're Off The
> Case, you don't need Permission! :D You can write it, post it
> somewhere (I recommend fanfiction.net, though some prefer Arch
> ive of Our Own), and let people read it! I'm sure there are pe
> ople here in the PPC who'd love to beta it for you - folks who
> se interests include the intersection of anime and action - an
> d we'd be happy for you to plug it on the Board when it's up s
> o we can take a look.

If you guys are going to be OK with me publishing here, I'd really like to, PPC spinoff or not. If need be, I'll preface my stuff with a disclaimer stating that Watanabe & Smith is not a part of PPC Continuity, so that way there can be no confusion at all. After all, if I've got a disclaimer stating that the stunt driving that I haven't written yet isn't realistic there's always room for more disclaimers or notes.

> But it's not a PPC story, so it doesn't need PPC Permission. C
> ase... closed.

Alright, I'll bear that in mind.

Thank you very much. I'll get to work immediately.

~3DES.




Footnote 1: A determined troll could create a counterfeit key, upload it to the keyserver, sign messages with it, present the counterfeit key to you guys as the real one, and if nobody bothers to check the signatures, then they might be able to pass off as me to someone who doesn't check the signatures. An even more determined attacker might upload thousands of counterfeit keys to the keyserver all with the identity "TripleDES" on them as a crude form of a denial-of-service attack. A very, VERY determined attacker could hijack the DNS (not usually something I would trust your average pissed off fanficcer to be capable of doing, but it's not hard since DNS wasn't ever meant to be secure) when you attempt to look back and see if the signing key has changed and verify it against the original fingerprint I posted with messages of their own, which would be able to trick anyone who hadn't obtained my genuine, original public key. An adversary with state-level resources could spend a lot of computing power and time to generate a key that produces a fingerprint collision since PGP uses SHA-1 for the key fingerprints, but my threat model doesn't at this moment account for that kind of an attack. Until a sufficiently powerful computer that can efficiently solve the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem or my computer's cryptographically secure random number generator suffers a nonce collision since I use ECDSA which consumes randomness to make each signature, I do not believe crypto, Tor, or protocols to be the weak link in my own security.

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I make no comment on hS's Permission stuff. However, I do have some comments on his housekeeping section. Or rather, a suggestion.

hS suggests Google Docs for 3DES's Permission prompt and other writing. Unfortunately, I doubt that 3DES will find this acceptable. So I'm here to suggest some alternative formats that might be more acceptable. And yes, just to get this out of the way, all of these formats are mutable. If you're worried about someone putting words in your mouth... well, that's what the sig's for, innit? :-P

-TXT: Not ideal, formatting-wise, but fairly universal.
-Markdown: Readable as TXT should push come to shove, but DES can probably find a reasonable host that will compile it for him.
-HTML: Either compiled Markdown, or handwritten. Once again, I'm sure DES can find a reasonable host.
-DOC/DOCX: practically a standard by this point. Not ideal - for one thing, not viewable in a browser - but it gets the job done.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

I understand.

I think when I sent it to you, I may have converted back into to base64 or encrypted it directly with your public key rather than encrypting it symmetrically and sending the ciphertext in the plain, since my E-mail provider doesn't support IMAP/SMTP with Thunderbird. It may not open cleanly, if that's the case just discard it.

I apologize for the inconvenience.
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And a little endearing, too, assuming that TripleDES isn't trying to hack us and instead is just trying too hard.

Heh, to think of it, Triple came aBoard before I did and I haven't even made one attempt yet at getting Permission. Slow down a little bit, my dude. Get to know the place better. Read a lot of the Wiki and get a general feel for us. Maybe then you can try again.

-Twistey

I looked in the PDF, and I'm pretty sure that the reason it's so big is that 3DES is using a very large font size. Seriously: I'm reading this on my phone, and I never had to zoom in on the text at all.

As for concerns about the file... By default it will open in a PDF.js window embedded in the webpage 3DES linked you to. So for it to damage your computer, it would not only have to find an exploit in PDF.js, it would also have to break your browser's sandbox.

TL;DR, the PDF is safe to read on the webpage. If you're really paranoid, I can check the PDF sources, but I find it unlikely that there is any danger there whatsoever.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Hi Huinesoron,

For convenience, I've used a template that is optimized to display on E-book readers and mobile devices. This meant using a small page size with an oversized typeface, as well as a font that offered generous spacing between characters to avoid the characters intersecting when viewed on small or dimly lit screens. I also was generous with the whitespace for pagebreaks and headers to allow for easier navigation within the document file. As a result, each page only has a relatively small amount of text, compared to what you would find on a letter sized page with a more efficient typeface. I also felt that using PDF would be the best choice rather than .epub, since the NextCloud server that I use offers an integrated PDF viewer. This would also ensure that what I saw on my preview would be true to what anyone else saw on theirs.

Some of the content as well has to do with the background of why I made the choices I did when designing the characters, as well as the historical basis in which I made the selections for them. This is because of the genre and aesthetic I've been trying to achieve, since Watanabe & Smith is designed to be a homage to a few of the "Buddy Cop" TV shows of the 1970s to the 1980s. This is not essential to the story itself, and is more for future reference and understanding where I plan to go with the series in the future.
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And... hat isn't on, but mate, I think you should also stick around a bit longer so people get to know you beyond "That guy who shows off with his PCP signatures".

So the mini-Aragogs just poop out little pills? Oh dear goodness.

Bay produced the TMNT live-action movies, and look how those turned out!

The statement by Paramount that Bay isn't directly involved wasn't released until just yesterday, so chalk it up I guess to both me and my agents merely going off what we knew at the time.

I'm still questioning the very concept of a live-action Dora movie in the first place, but I guess that clarification does soften the blow somewhat.

It's really happening, and confirmed by multiple news outlets too.

I haven't seen the CH parody myself, but I have a habit of distancing myself from anything related to that show, even parody/satire. I've found myself getting irrationally angry at the mere mention of it for years, which is bizarre even to myself - because really, what kind of person would experience complete and total revulsion over an innocuous preschooler's cartoon? :P

The trick is not to hide to the exposition, it's to make it enjoyable. Heck, if you're writing in first person, you can have a character straight-up explain to the audience. The Dresden Files does this all the time, and it might get annoying, but it doesn't because 1) The exposition is largely kept very brief, and 2) it is absolutely dripping with personality: this isn't the writer telling you a thing, this is Harry explaining his world.

The Eddingses loved doing this, using a fake historical account as a prologue. The Belgariad starts with what's basically a religious story; each book of the Tamuli starts with a scholarly study of the events you're reading about. Heck, Tolkien does it, too, name-dropping King Elessar in his discussion of the Red Book.

What they do is to introduce you to the world and its background without having a character say it to another character. If the Prologue can tell us that Middle-earth is 'Earth but long ago and with elves', then Frodo doesn't need to have a conversation about it with Gandalf. ("Gosh, Gandalf, I do wish you'd tell me that old tale about how the world was created, I always so love to hear it...")

Another example is Brandon Sanderson (again!); each of the Mistborn books has false-document quotes at the head of every chapter. They let him feed in the backstory that everyone in the world already knows, while at the same time using it as a storytelling device and subverting it (by casting the setting's myths as a diary, I seem to recall).

The trick to doing this successfully is to use your false-document (or any other form of exposition) not just as exposition, but as part of the story. Check out the opening of Serenity (y'know, the Firefly movie), which manages to recap the relevant backstory from the series as part of the introduction of the villain. If you have a mentor to deliver information, make her teaching style relevant to the plot - the Wonder Woman movie gives us its founding myth as a bedtime story for Diana, which builds her relationship with her mother, feeds into her motivations, and - through what she is and isn't told - helps to establish both conflict and the plot of the film.

And for the love of all that's fictional, never do what some comic books do and have your hero yell "I'm trying to use my laser vision to stop you, but your forcefield is making you immune to it -- how?!". Trust your audience.

hS

I think the best mindset towards exposition is: No exposition.

Or, to be less hyperbolic, with regards to explaining how things work in your story, you should try and take a very minimalist stance (or, at least, that's how I do it.) One of the things I've found in writing - not just with magic or technology, but writing in general - is that you are essentially trying to get heaps of information into the heads of your readers, without them knowing or feeling like they're having information shoved into them.

This is the difference between telling, and showing. In terms of characterisation, you can just say: 'Jim Jackson is a very angry man' - you are delivering the information that he is angry, but the readers can see, so obviously, that you are just shoving that fact down their throats. It's awkward, and takes them out of it. Meanwhile, if you have Jim Jackson get very angry at something, snarl, throw something and go red, the information - that he is a very angry man - is delivered, but so is an actual event in the story. Rather than feeling like they've just read an infodump, the reader feels like they've simply read an occurrence in the story - which has also had the effect of telling them that Jim Jackson is an angry man. It fits right into the flow of the story, and doesn't feel awkward.

It is a similar thing, then, with magic and technology. In essence, you 'disguise' information, by weaving it in alongside something else. Remember that all these sorts of rules can be very vague and floaty - it is possible just have a short paragraph explaining how a magic or technology works, so long as it feels like it still has a role in the story beyond just 'explaining.'

I've found a lot of times that, if you're sneaky with it, you can pass off a straight explanation as a character simply thinking of the technology/magic in question, as they look at or approach it or such. Which works even better, then, if you use that to also show their character - like having them think that force fields are cheap and lame, which shows that the world has force fields, that they aren't rare, and that our character finds them lame and is probably a dope. In doing so, the information is successfully disguised! But that's, ah, only one example. So long as you get it disguised.

You also need to consider the relevance of the information you're delivering - essentially, be on the prowl for unnecessary information that can be removed, and considering what information can't be removed.

Going back to the minimalist thing, you will only want to explain things that are actually relevant to the plot and the character - there is no point going on, in detail, about Jim Jackson's fondness for dolls and motorcycles, if these are irrelevant to the occurrences of the story, both the plot and his character. Even if you show, rather than tell, about his fondness for dolls and motorcycles, it's still irrelevant.

Similarly, with magic and technology, you should use its relevance to your story as a basis for the existence of an explanation for it - what would you lose, if you removed the explanation for this technology? Would the story make no sense, would the world make no sense, would a point you want to get across with the story not be there? Does a person reading this need this information, for the story, or world, to feel complete? You should, in essence, consider - very specifically - what it is you want to do with the piece of introduced technology or magic. If you're not losing anything by removing it, and it's not doing anything, it's probably going to be very distracting, and ought to get a chopping.

Going back to my force field example, above, it is necessary to know about force fields in the world - to explain how they can have their ship defend itself, so that it makes sense when, later on, the force field is used to defend said ship, and to demonstrate that the existence of force fields is a part of this particular world. What you don't necessarily need to know is how the force field works, or how the voltron crystals that make up its motor are made out of diamondised grapium that are flux capacitated to the nth dimension, or that it it was the Jim Jackson and Co company that built it. These pieces of information are not relevant to the story, world, or plot.

But!

You will need to demonstrate that information if, for example, the main character deals in diamondised grapium and it's a big part of the plot, or if, for example, you wanted to make some sort of statement mocking big corporations, and mention the shoddy job Jim Jackson and Co did in building the force field, or so on, so forth.

So, er, there you have it, I guess! If you want to have exposition, you ought to consider, essentially, how you deliver it, and what you are delivering (and what doesn't need to be delivered.) Explain only what is precisely necessary, and make sure it never feels like it's only an explanation.

This, of course, is all just how I write, and is all guidelines, and I'm sure other people may think differently, and I'm sure there will be cases where you'll be entirely within the right mind to go against these guidelines. So long as you know what you're doing, and why, and all!

Well, there are couple of ways this could happen.

If you have an inexperienced protagonist, or inexperienced character in general, you can probably have a mentor explain the system to said character. For example, much of what is said about chakra usage in Naruto comes from Naruto's various mentors explaining different aspects of chakra usage. This appears natural since a teacher has to explain things to a student in order for the student to learn.

Another way would be to drop some hints here and there and have the audience connect the dots. This can only be done if there was previous explanations on the basics of the world concerning the hints. For example, a user of a mangekyou sharingan would gradually go blind through extended usage. However, Obito used his mangekyou sharingan a lot and isn't blind. The answer widely accepted by the fanbase is that because the right side of his body is made of the cells of Senju Hashirama, his eye is constantly being healed. Fans came to this conclusion because it has constantly been stated and shown that the cells of Senju Hashirama has remarkable regenerative properties, hence, the fans connected the dots and came to this conclusion despite no offcial answer being given.

If there is fighting going on, some minor exposition can be given by showing the thoughts of a character. It could be anything from strategizing or analyzing an opponent's techniques. For example, when Saber was hit by Gae Bolg on Fate stay night, her thoughts were shown to the audience as she tries to figure put exactly what happened. "No, that was a reversal of cause and effect." From this, the audience learned what Gae Bolg does from Saber analyzing it.

Also, sometimes exposition dumps can't be avoided, especially for really complicated universes such as Nasuverse. In this case you can "show and tell"; show what is happening, but incorporate some exposition into the description.

Rough summary:
-use training scenes.
-make the audience play detective.
-have a character analyze their opponent's powers.
-sometimes you just have to use information dumps.

My NaNo last year both succeeds and fails at this: a chunk of the plot is about figuring out what this new piece of technology can do, and I then make use of the details to make the finale work. (Being NaNo, obviously it's still pulling things out of nowhere at the last minute...)

Sanderson discusses Tolkien, and I think the tale of Beren and Luthien is a useful example of 'hard' magic. Luthien shows off her key powers - enthralling people with song (to Beren), shapeshifting (lengthening her hair), and bringing sleep (with the nightcloak) before she even leaves Doriath; she then proceeds to use those three powers pretty much exclusively through the rest of the story. Nargothrond? Put it to sleep. Tol Sirion? Knock Sauron out a bit with her cloak (then borrow his magic for the rest). Entering Angband? Shapeshift into a vampire and put the Wolf to sleep. Stealing a Silmaril? Enthrall Morgoth with song and put him to sleep. Then we have some generic healing (which she already did for Beren after rescuing him), and... nothing else until she's enthralling Mandos with her song.

If we didn't know that Luthien's song was captivating, her using it to overcome Morgoth would be a weak resolution of the plot (especially if we also didn't have the duel between Finrod and Sauron to look at). But Tolkien introduced it early, used it repeatedly, and gave it a firm place as a part of the magic system.

Contrast with Gandalf, whose powers are (as Sanderson says) very loose. He can fight stuff. ... yep, that's about it. And the biggest things he pulls off with that? Knocking a Balrog off a bridge, making an already-defeated Saruman a bit weaker, and rescuing Faramir from the Nazgul. The plot is never continued by 'oh, btw, Gandalf is strong enough to just beat this'.

~

The one place I disagree with Tomash is 'you just need a line or two that somehow establishes how the power goes and doesn't go, preferably before it becomes super-plot relevant'. That's Tell, Don't Show right there. ^_~ Far better would be for us to see how it works. In a movie, you might demonstrate that vampires don't appear in images by cutting from them robbing a museum (say) to a shot on the security monitor of the exhibits moving by themselves. In a book, you could clue it with your human character noticing that there's no photos of Secret Leah Vampir in her flat, for instance. It doesn't have to be explicitly stated with a waving flag; you can allow your audience the satisfaction of piecing it together.

hS

They get placed in whichever direction you're facing (I don't know about the others, but Light Gray has the partial circle appear in the top-right corner from the player's perspective, I think.)

Is there a spawn egg for the Illusioner? I don't think I saw one, but I'm wondering what exactly it does.

Interesting little detail, by the way: The achievement for killing the Ender Dragon is now called "Free the End," which means the player now has a reason to kill it, instead of just "because I can." (I like dragons :3) I have yet to figure out, however, why the player is supposed to summon the Wither if it's just going to cause so much damage and you're just going to kill it anyway. Also, if the dragon is evil and its egg is "The Next Generation", why do you want the egg? Bit weird but it's progress.

-Twistey