Jul 2018 Archive, part b

Also, classicfilmfan, what classic films are alluded to in your username? This has been bugging me ever since you joined.

Oft have I studied the multiverse in which we dwell, and the other with which we have experience; indeed, I might say that it has become my life's work. Though many are the theories of the structure of reality, I hold myself a confirmed advocate of the Rose.

That there are but twenty multiverses (or belike one and twenty, should the Tower of Reality be shown as truth) is proven by the mathematical beauty of the structure: how might one argue for more, when the locked triangles of the Rose show their perfect geometry? No, say I: in multiversal physics as in nature, simplicity and beauty are the surest indicators of truth.

((Norlossë is an in-universe character, and is not necessarily right. :) ~hS))

. . . can eventually come up with ideas for more than 256 multiverses, yeah? And since our scope is limited to what we can imagine, I'm suspect there are far more than any countable number of them. So I'm a proponent of infinite multiverses, myself.

—doctorlit, comforted by the thought that reality is a very big place

Somewhat unrelated, but http://orteil.dashnet.org/nested this is a somewhat accurate simulation of everything. From the same people who made cookie clicker.

Basically, if you're a fan of the Tale of the Five books, uh, GO GET THEM NOW.

Also: MYSTERIOUS NEWS COMING NEXT WEEK.

...but I can't edit the page. I can only view the source. Why is that? My account's SkaterTheDJWolf on the wiki, by the way.

https://ppc.wikia.com/wiki/Unclaimed_Badfic#Anime_and_Manga

https://features.peta.org/pokemon-black-and-white-parody/

I'm not sure if this counts as badfic, seeing as it's a game, but man. It corrupts and twists the ENTIRE Pokémon franchise, nearly ALL of the enemies are character replacements, with Ghetsis probably being the only possessed one, Pikachu is replaced, the game mashes together the anime and the Black and White games heedlessly, resulting in MAJOR anachronisms, and Strawman!Not!Ash apparently gave away (or sold) one of his performers to Drunk!Not!Cheren, which just doesn't make sense. It's a game that sacrifices all forms of character development and logic to push a petty, stupid agenda about how a game about love and bonds somehow teaches kids to abuse animals. But hey, it's SATIRE, so they can twist the characters and replace and possess and corrupt them as much as they want because "it's all for a good cause."

Whew. Ranting is satisfying.

This one's a Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's fic titled "Sixth Signer". The link is here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10250024/1/Sixth-Signer

She's the Sixth Signer (That's basically the 5D's equivalent of a Tenth Walker), Yusei's younger sister (Let's charge ahead of time for Yusei having a younger sister in the first place: his parents died when he was just a baby in the meltdown that split New Domino City and the Satellite apart, and he survived because he was launched into Satellite in an emergency escape pod. His parents didn't survive to have another baby.), a very powerful psychic with weather powers (Psychics exist in this continuum, but this is obviously an excuse to make her more speshul), and she just jumps in halfway through 5D's without explanation (If she's Yusei's sister AND the sixth Signer, where was she during the whole Dark Signer fiasco?). A Mary Sue if I ever saw one.

Already said my piece on it in the Lounge, but I'll say it again over here.

Over in the *Terraria* fandom (which luckily doesn't seem as prolific as some others, but that's no reason to let it go unprotected), I found this shining example of a badfic.

The fic in question is unfinished- only the first chapter exists, the writer having abandoned it back in 2012- but it already seems to be something that the Department of Technical Errors would have a field day with. The fic ignores the fact that paragraph breaks exist, generates a Mini with the title *alone*, cuts the benefit a player would get from a Life Crystal in half (you get 20 max HP from using one, not 10) while simultaneously misnaming it a "crystal heart" (which brings to mind a certain artifact from the My Little Pony continuum), forgets that the player character is supposed to start with a copper shortsword as well as the copper axe and copper pick.

On top of that, the fic also severely warps the character of the Guide, transforming him from a helpful, no-nonsense walking tutorial that helpfully directs you to sacrifice him in the name of progress once you near the end of pre-Hardmode, into a coward that goes flamethrower-crazy and then breaks down into a sniveling heap when called useless, and actually fears for his life just long enough to guilt-trip the Sue!Player into building a house for him to hide in... which he promptly abandons in favor of becoming a pseudo-player character, and tagging along with the Sue!Player while they go mining. (And even then, if the player character knew how to play Terraria, he shouldn't have needed guilt-tripping in order to want to build a house for the Guide, as well as several other houses for the various other NPCs in the game, most of which act as merchants.)

So, yeah, we're dealing with a Sue!Player *and* a possibly-character-replaced Guide.

You specifically plugging this fic and drawing attention to the author oversharing information, and adding in "that is one of the most dangerous things you can do on the Internet - or so I am told. ;)" complete with winky face really, really makes it come across as less 'I'm worried about the writer' and more 'nudge nudge wink wink wouldn't it be awful if someone doxxed them? ;)'

What worries me is that it's not just the author's book - it's their father's book.

Thank you all for the gifts and advice! I apologize for the SPaG in mi earlier posts.

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

Since Ix hasn't been around to do it yet, may I point you toward our Constitution? That and the Original Series are pretty much the only required reading around here, and it looks like you've already read TOS. {= ) The wiki also has several pages designed to help newbies figure out what's what.

Please use your best SPaG while you're here. Posts on the Board can't be edited, and we are a group dedicated to good writing, after all. Thanks!

~Neshomeh

Oh omt, I an Pagan/Wiccan. Hover do not ask me to hex/curse someone,please!

Have a bottle of some mysterious blue stuff. Nice to meet you!

Hello there. Have a pile of multi-coloured pens.

Have a potted aloe plant and a leatherbound treasury of the Wizard of Oz sequels.

I'm not super familiar with your fandoms on AO3 (though I've heard of Andromeda). What sort of things do you like in general?

Have two cents, so you can put them into discussions later!

What drew you to the PPC?

- Tomash

I don't recognize the fandoms you have over on AO3, but I'd like to learn more about them from you. :> And library computers FTW!

And there may be some archives of PPC work (particularly Neshomeh's) on AO3, if you go poking about the tags.

Feel free to comment on older threads here! This isn't the Discord, so the update rate isn't breakneck or anything.

/hands over a piece of white chocolate bark - though I can swap it with another kind, at your preference~

Have a half-kilo of lembas bread.

Anamia's Corner has been rendered into code that doesn't offend every sensibility I have! And it wasn't even as hard as I thought it would be! {= D

That's not to say there's nothing left that needs doing—again, with something this big, there are bound to be things we've missed—but that's down to the level of minor errors, inconsistencies, and things that just personally bug me. For practical purposes, the task is done. I might even see my way toward adding content again, since it will be so much easier now.

But not right away. Baron Hieronymus needs to pick out his new accommodations first. ^_^

~Neshomeh

New Tales of Hieronymus

Previously in this series: The Stubborn Knight (revised version).

The Archivist’s New Apprentices

Out of nowhere – or probably: elsewhere – Hieronymus the hermit, part-time knight and archivist’s apprentice, appeared in the courtyard of Castle Archive. He stayed there for a minute, marveling in the beauty of the place. Then he turned to the portal that led to a hallway, a flight of stairs and – beyond the stair, on the second floor – the corner where he used to store his staff and flask while he was at home. But he was stopped in his track, finding the portal locked and a message attached to the heavy wood:

Stairs and corners out of service due to renovation and refurnishing.
Please join us at Los Taelis.
We have a chamber prepared for you.

For once, the Kar'eer Forest stayed out of the way and Hieronymus did not get lost again; he crossed the Turaipod Heights rather smoothly and arrived at the fonts of the Kattekri-tri in no time. Fort Los Taelis had been established through contributions from many knights of olden times, conglomerated in ways that did not help to make navigating the place easy. Headquarters appeared to be the obvious starting point, but Hieronymus had no idea how to proceed from there to find Baron Neshomeh or any hints at his new chamber. He did not need to worry; help was on the way.

Out of nowhere – or probably, Genie space – the shape of a glowing red-gold fox appeared. "Welcome back, Sir Hieronymus," the Djenni said, with the echo of a distant whisper that implied speaking for the Lady. "We are currently rebuilding Los Taelis in a more consistent manner. The new magical signposts at Headquarters, based on a design proposed by Master Huinesoron, will help you find your way around."

The hermit had already wondered why Los Taelis looked so different from what he remembered from his previous visits. It was still mostly made of brick-sized books, with an occasional scroll used as a sill or lintel, but gables and thresholds appeared to be more ornamented in ways that made the buildings, despite their different functions, look more similar. And the whole thing looked unfinished, and somewhat alive, with bricks moving around, scrolls unrolling and rerolling themselves, and ornaments appearing in unlikely places, only to suddenly dash off to where they actually belonged.

While looking around, Hieronymus noticed a desk set amidst the central yard, covered in construction plans, sketches and scribbles. A nondescript figure sat on a stool at said desk, shrouded in magic.

"Did you meet Sir Thoth?" asked the Djenni, the echo gone from her voice. "He is in charge of everything that can be done automagical."

Sir Thoth hunched forward, his fingers moving rapidly over diagrams and formulae, and another series of ornamented bricks were hurled about, some right through the flinching hermit’s chest.

"Don’t worry," the Djenni said, baring her teeth in what probably was meant to be a smile. "Weaving his magic, Protector Tomash set up a multitude of parallel realities, so that you won’t get into each other’s way. In the end, all your achievements will be combined and moved to the true Los Taelis."

Hieronymus was so used to weird stuff happening to him, he did not even bother to check for any holes in his body or his robes. But something else worried him. "Protector Tomash? Sir Thoth? All the advanced magic and automation? Are you going to replace me?”

"Did you not hear us say ‘you’?" The whispering echo returned to the Djenni’s voice as she spoke. "There is still a lot of tedious manual work to do for our oldest apprentice."

---

DISCLAIMER: The Djenni belongs to Neshomeh and is used here based on non-objection. Baron Neshomeh, Baron Huinesoron the historian (and, in the context of this tale, a master archivist like Neshomeh), Protector Tomash, Sir Thoth and Hieronymus the hermit belong to the respective boarders they represent.

A/N: If Los Taelis had existed at the time, Hieronymus the hermit would have asked for a corner there rather than in Castle Arkive, so it was time to move. But since a Corner (Anamia’s) already exists at Los Taelis, he may deserve an accommodation upgrade.

---

Next in this series: The Baron on the Rock, Part 1, Part 2, which is actually Part 3 of these New Tales.

HG

I especially approve of the links to the original pages - I should probably do that to, though at my workrate hahaha.

hS

I was one of the people working on Lost Tales, and I primarily did automatic conversions. I did these conversions using a tool called "regular expressions," which I thought might interest some of the more technically minded among the boarders. Well, the technically-minded boarders who don't know what regular expressions are already. I get the feeling my audience will be vanishingly small... we'll see. Anyways, basically, regular expressions can be described as text search on crack. And also search and replace on crack. Sound interesting? read on.

Normal search functions allow you to search for a precise fragment of text. Maybe you can search out all the instances of "Hello sweetie" in a document. Maybe case-insensitive search if you're really fancy. Now look at this:

/ ... /

That, believe it or not, was a regular expression. They're typically surrounded by slashes when we write them out like this, for reasons which could take too long to explain. Anyways, a dot is regular expression for "any character". So this will find any three characters (doesn't matter what they are: punctuation, letters, numbers, whitespace, whatever) surrounded by spaces. Cool, huh? No? It's basically useless? Okay, try this:

/[0-9]{3}-[0-9]{3}-[0-9]{4}/

This will find any standard-written, dash-separated phone number in a document. How does it work? Well, those brackets ("[" and "]") signify a character group—that is, a list of characters where we want any of them. You can also specify ranges of characters. In this case, I specified the range 0-9. So any digit. The braces say we want a range {3,5} specifies we want between 3 and 5 of whatever came before it. In this case, I gave {3}, and what came before was a character group meaning digits. So we want three digits, then a dash, then three digits, then a dash, then four digits. Simple, no?

Actually, wanting digits is so common there's a neat shorthand: \d. So the previous can be re-written as:

/\d{3}-\d{3}-\d{4}/

Much simpler.

"But Thoth!" I hear you cry. "What if I want to match a literal period? Or maybe I want a literal brace, or something?" Fear not, my friends. Just stick a backslash in front of the character you want. So:

/.{\*/

Will search for ".{*" exactly. Right, here's a real regex I used (sed ERE, for those of you who already know what's up and are wondering) to lowercase all the HTML tags in Lost Tales. Okay, not the actual one, that one had a really nasty bug. This is a version without that bug:

s/<(\/?)([A-Z]+)([^>]*)>/<\1\L\2\E\3>/g

Okay, that's terrifying. Let's take it apart. That 's' at the front isn't a regex thing, it just tells the tool I'm using that I want to do a search and replace, or a "substitution." The g at that back, likewise, tells the tool that I want to replace every piece of text that matches, not just the first. That forward slash in the middle separates what I'm searching for with what I'm replacing it with. When we take all that junk out, and just look at what I'm searching for, we get this:

/<(\/?)([A-Z]+)([^>]*)>/

Okay, that's terrifying. Let's break it down.

<

This just says to find the literal character <. That's it.

(\/?)

Okay, these parenthesis mark out a capture group. They're not literal parenthesis, they're just here to group together parts of the expression. Also, every capture group is assigned a number. This is capture group 1. Which will only matter much later.

Anyways, what's going on inside? Well, the backslash is a literal escape. So we're looking for the literal character "/". And then there's a questionmark.

The questionmark means "maybe". So, we're saying there might be a slash, or there might not be. If there is, put it in group 1. If not, just put emptiness in group one.

([A-Z]+)

Group 2. We have another range of characters. This time, it's all the capital letters. The plus means "one or more". So we're looking for one or more capital letters, which we'll put in group two.

([^>]*)

Group 3. Another character set. But there's a caret at the start! that means that we actually are looking for the reverse. So, this character set matches anything that is not a ">". And the star means "zero or more." So, if there are any characters that aren't ">", stuff them in group three. If not, don't make a big deal about it.

>

This is just a ">". It means that there's a ">" here.

So if we put it all together, this regular expression first looks for a "" (those characters, or lack thereof, make up group three). Finally, it wants a ">".

Gee, I hope that makes sense. I'm kinda bad at explaining things. Anyways, here's what we're replacing all that with:

<\1\L\2\E\3>

Let's break this down too.

<

Okay, the first thing we're going to put in is a "<".

\1

So, what this means is "whatever was in group one on what you matched." If you'll recall, that was either a forward slash or nothing.

\L\2\E

\L means "turn anything between me and '\E' into lowercase." \2 is group 2, the uppercase letters.

\3

Just put down group 3. That is, recall, stuff between the uppercase letters and a ">"

>

Put down a ">".

So, if we put it all together, this:

s/<(\/?)([A-Z]+)([^>]*)>/<\1\L\2\E\3>/g

Means, "Find every piece of text that starts with a '<', which may or may not be followed by a slash (remember if it is), proceeds with a series of capital letters (remember them), and then whatever else (but remember what's there), followed by a '>', and replace it with a '<', and then a slash if there was one originally, and then that series of capital letters, but lowercase, then whatever came after, and then a '>'"

Phew, that's a mouthful. Aren't you glad you can just write that mess of punctuation instead?

Now, regular expressions (which work more or less as I described, consult your local text editor/tool documentation for variations) don't work everywhere. However, they do work in most programmer's text editors (If you don't use one of those already, then on Windows, I suggest notepad++, and on Mac I'd endorse Atom). If you work with HTML or other plaintext all day, you owe it to yourself to learn them, and there are a lot of excellent online resources to help you do just that.

Hopefully helpful and/or informatively yours,
Thoth.

(Since the other matter seems to just be a loading issue...)

The back button on mission two of the TOS links back to itself, instead of the first mission.

That said, it appears to not be working on this page.

Going through the links in order, starting with the TOS, to make sure all the links DO go somewhere. ;) That's the first one I hit upon. 'S good work!

Thank you to Nesh and everyone else who contributed to this! =D

But while rereading "Pick your Poison" to get the context, I may have picked some glitches:

But the truth is, this is isn’t your story, or your world.
"is" shouldn’t be there?

You do not have a daughter—or a wife, for that matter—and have never met anyone else currently standing this room.
Missing word "in"?

And there may be another one in "Because we like you":

He impacted the wall and bounced off onto to the floor.
Either "to" or "onto" should not be there?

I liked Miss MacKinnon’s part best.

HG

It was cute getting to see Mollie and Ollie get settled into the Nursery. And Miss MacKinnon recounting her first reaction to seeing all those books was great. :)

I assume we can see a follow-up in 2025?

This was really cute and made me smile! I'm a sucker for stories where people fight and then both realize they overreacted or didn't quite get it, and this is a good one. (Though personally I would have reacted pretty much the same way as Doc about the books -- maybe I should reexamine my priorities.)

But yeah, I really liked it! A fantastic interlude!

I'll have to give it another read without the beta hat on. Cheers!

~Neshomeh

-Drat, it cut off. =p Hopefully my message remains obvious.

And I really like how Vania explained traversing HQ. These discussions are always a treat to read!

And YAY for the Pinkie Pie cameo~

Doc's reaction to the [SPOILERS] was priceless. X)

For the Pokemon-style exorcism (which uses a piece of canon as a Silph Scope to reveal where you're supposed to aim, and either smoke bombs or thrown Sue-Wraiths to knock out the Sue-Wraith), why are smoke bombs used?

I get the projectile Sue-Wraiths, they're explained as "Ghost-type attacks" and yeah, you're literally attacking a ghost with another ghost, but the smoke bombs are supposed to be... Dark-type? Except Smokescreen (the closest analogous move to a smoke bomb) is a Normal-type move, not a Dark-type move, and it's mainly associated with Fire- and Poison-type Pokemon. The only Dark-types who get Smokescreen as a move are the Greninja line (who get it because ninja) and Spiritomb (who only gets it through breeding).

I personally would suggest a silenced firearm (doesn't matter what type, although you probably want a pistol, not a rifle, for range concerns) instead- the Dark-type are known for sneaking, backstabbing, and striking from the shadows, and an unexpected silenced pistol round in the back of the wraith's head could be viewed as the move Sucker Punch (whose Japanese name translates to "Surprise Attack"). Alternatively, one could instead just capture the spirit when its back is turned without an opening shot, and charge the Wraith while it's in the jar- which again, could be considered such Dark-type moves as Thief, Sucker Punch, or Knock Off.

...Or, you know. Just have a Pokemon on your team with a Dark or Ghost type move.

If we ever become a canonical department, and then find some agents who are sufficiently versed in the Fallout canon, we may do something about it.

The Snowdrop, Unofficial Head of Department, Uncanonical Department of Inaccuracies

---

Hi, Hieronymus Graubart here. Welcome back; I remember you.

Officially taking note by PPCing the mission is all we potentially can do to prevent the undead Stu from coming back and complain about not having been slain properly. Unfortunately, the Department of Inaccuracies exists only in the badfic games yet.

Also, I’m currently hosting copies of ShatteredSanity’s missions on my Google account, and I intend to move them to The Lost Tales so that they won’t be lost.

HG, Archivist’s Apprentice

I think I remember you as Anonymouse. Good to have you back! Have a potted aloe and a Spanish verb tense workbook as welcome back gifts!

(Also, I just want to say that it makes me happy to see people type out long, detailed rants about their favorite canons that show how much they know and love them. So your post made me very happy, even though I don't know Fallout.)

I pour forth the holy libations to celebrate your return, and give unto you a half-kilo of lembas and a laspistol!

It's been a while indeed! Have a plate of welcome-back SPaGhetti. :)

Take a bolter and a mug of Klah. It's the only drink I offer that's relatively harmless.

And it's nice to meet you! We could always do with some more RPers. What're your fandoms? (other than fallout?)

Also, since you are a Fallout fan... Bethesda Fallout or Interplay Fallout?

First off: hi, welcome back again; I remember both your previous names. ^^

Right, those charges. The second one is actually addressed by the mission, which says this:

“ Where did he get one of those?” Sylvia asked, shocked. [...] will you please write down that charge. Bullet proof vests aren’t all that common in the Wasteland.”

So the charge is really 'having a rare bit of kit without justification'. You can certainly argue that it's an inaccurate description, but it looks like the mission comes from the period when people felt they needed to list every single charge at the end, which means there was pressure to make them short and snappy.

As for the main charge you object to... yep, it looks like the agents were just plain wrong there. ^^ It happens. Heck, Jay and Acacia once came very close to charging for not having Legolas leave Middle-earth right after the War of the Ring. Coming back to Sylvia and Natasha, they immediately after the discussion of the gun (which presumably has a snakeskin grip, rather than a complete snakeskin handle, which would be... floppy) act bewildered why anyone would use the skin of a dangerous animal to make a holster. Given the existence of crocodile-skin everything, that's a really weird objection to have.

It looks like Sylvia is from the Fallout continuum, so you can probably chalk it up to her making assumptions based on her knowledge of her world, rather than actually checking up on it.

I find it interesting that both 'special' items come from the same character (he doesn't happen to have a Deathclaw skin holster, does he?). If I was doing this mission and knew enough about Fallout, I would probably summarise them all into a single charge: murdering Joshua Graham and nicking his stuff. ^_~

hS

A pleasure to have you back among us. /passes along some chocolate bark/

Wouldn't know anything about those charges, though, sadly. :/

I too live in a perpetual state of salt.

Bleeprin, anyone?

...it could've had potential to be good if it weren't basically a stupid "you-violated-me-now-I-love-you" fic with Fanthulhu beings. The water theme could've been good, and so could the plot. In fact, I could totally imagine the good version of this, based on changes one could make to the plot described in the summary.

-Twistey

That is, if anyone here can get their hands on the original text.

I haven't read through the liveblog, but even halfway through part one, the weird names, bizarre concepts, and unfortunate word choices tell me this would be loads of fun to read out loud. I can't get over the god-thing being called "the Polyp." Seriously, Polyp? That's a thing you don't want your doctor to find in your colon because it might be cancer.

Or, to be fair, "a sedentary type of animal form characterized by a more or less fixed base, columnar body, and free end with mouth and tentacles, especially as applied to coelenterates" or "an individual zooid of a compound or colonial organism."

But STILL. That's about as far from "sexy ocean god" as you can possibly get. {X D

~Neshomeh

I don't have a response to this. No words can explain.

I got all I needed from the description, yeah, that's just painful already. And when your core concept is painful... yeah, I don't want to know about everything else.

Also, you dropped an E from your "bizarr(e)ness" in the last line of your post.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Have some Large Ham!

We writers have a tendency to concern non-writers that way. Your present is, thus, a Writer To Civilian Translation Dictionary. May your conversations with non-writers be less concerning with this helpful book.

-Twistey ;)

Have a jar of fake air (nitrogen).

Have a line of conga rats! Hopefully they'll help make the terror less all-encompassing.

Here, have a triple chocolate (chocolate with chocolate chips and chocolate icing) cupcake! Don't forget to blow out the candle!

For your birthday present, have an Urple Apple Macbook. It's like a normal Macbook except it's wilver with an urple logo.

Happy birthday! Congratulations on becoming an adult!

Take an extra d6, to be applied to a roll of your choice.

Congratulations! It's your new personal best!

Joking aside, you're officially an adult, according to the US. Enjoy your newfound power and responsibilities. Congrats, dude.

It doesn't. But you get used to it and eventually learn to contain the internal voice constantly screaming deep within you.

My cat also says happy birthday. At least, that's what I assume he was doing, since he kept jumping on my keyboard as I wrote this.

Anyhow, have a very happy day! Have a potted aloe plant and an Ant-Man action figure as virtual birthday presents!

Have some cake! It's cake-flavored!