Sep 2018 Archive, part c

Since bus prices from where I am to London are surprisingly cheap, it looks like I'll be there as well!
~Ak

hS, you might remember Voldemort from the 2014 Gathering?

One of my flatmates and I went to the British Museum today and I made it my goal to find He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Well... I did.



*grins*

I'd have to talk to my dad though.

(I'm not one to break a theme, after all. ^_~)

We should be able to come, but will have to bring the kids along. If the Gathering takes place at a museum-y-type-place, Kaitlyn has offered to split off with them once they get too antsy. So... how does the Science Museum sound? It's free, it's easy to access (right next to the Natural History Museum), and it's the one we were going to do last time if we had time, but didn't.

Also, y'know... science.

hS

Do I count as a local now? :P

So... I was looking at going to London for MCM con as tickets are still available, however if I did that I wouldn't be able to go up to London on the 20th as well (because of family things).

But I can swap things round real easily because I haven't actually booked anything yet.

I'm Twistey, and I do believe I'm the Board's resident wild card. Here, have a Very Flat Flamethrower. Welcome aBoard!

-Twistey

Have a cupcake!

Have a suit of very used and slightly holy Imperial Guard flak armor, guaranteed to last you your entire life! (Average lifespan of deployed Imperial Guardsman: 15 hours)

Have some glowsticks. You'll never know when you'll need em.

Hello! I'm new too, haha. I see we both like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. Abd no sweat on the Australasian English tging - I was raised eith Canadian English, which is also different from American and British English (in the sense that it mixew the two).

Have one of my own shed feathers and a replica of Ankalusmos that actually turns into a pen!

Have a pile of multi coloured pens. I'm also a fan of Harry Potter.

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

Since you've already got plans to read the Original Series, all I really have left to do is point you at the Constitution. That and TOS are pretty much the only required reading around these parts. Another useful resource you might use is the Wiki; if you have any questions, just look here before asking. We like it when newbies do the research. ;)

(I'm an American student in London right now, so I get a lot of side-eyes for my accent, too. If you ever want to commiserate, just say the word. :P)

I'm glad to see we share some fandoms - I'm also into Harry Potter and LOTR (yes, we accept abbreviations. I think.)

For your newbie gift, have a bunch of purple bananas. I know it's weird, but it's the first thing I thought of.

And I have no plans to murder you.

Discovering your abilities is always a good thing :-)

Speaking of my abilities, I spotted an error:

... Gremlin said wearily, as she starting combing blackened corn kernels from out of her hair.
Should be "started".

HG

(rot13 for spoilers) Ubcrshyyl abguvat vzcbegnag tbg qnzntrq ol gur yvggyr xvq ehaavat nebhaq frggvat rirelguvat rirelguvat ba sver.

One overall thing I noticed is that y'all've done a good job keeping folks dialogue distinct (sure, Gremlin and Gall are the most similar, but Gall's a bit more slangy and informal, is the impression I got).

Aiden calling Fellrazer a puppy and asking to pet him was too cute.

His little bout of pyromania might have had me grinning like an idiot. Fire is very shiny. >:D I think Xericka is going to have her hands full raising him.


(And, reading the reference to the movie-which-does-not-exist reminded me: the creators of AtLA are doing a live action series remake, and they said something to the effect of "doing everything right that the movie didn't". So... fingers crossed.)

Something certainly did go wrong.

"Lord of the Rings" and "colouring book" in the same sentence is something I never expected to see. I definitely like that idea!

Best of luck to the agents in sorting out the RC. Interesting story!

Very funny! I could pretty much tell from the lead-up that something was going to happen, but I wasn't expecting it to be so dramatic. I had forgotten Aiden had firebender heritage! I like Aiden's characterization in general, very realistically "little kid"-esque. But his reactions to discovering fire and playing around with it to experiment were superb. I like how Fellrazer goes from seeing Aiden as a source of cuddles to an actual playmate after the firebending begins, too.

I loved Gall's reaction, too. She's so used to brute-forcing her way through problems, but here, she met a situation that couldn't be solved through punching, and I could read in her dialogue and behavior how exhausting the situation became for her.

Too bad Aiden didn't get to see Dumbo, though. He would have liked the scene at the end. With all the fire.

—doctorlit, worrying about the books in RC 555 now

(Yes, I made that up just now.)

A delightfully domestic read. X)

And that is an impressive maneuver with the DVD. Nice one, Gall!

And then the fire happened. XDDD There will never be a cold night in that RC again! If nights can be said to happen in HQ, anyway.

To clear things up, I have learned that Huinesoron is pronounced "HWEEN-ay-SORE-on."

And about me...

1. My username is made up of English words, so I’m pretty sure you’d know how to pronounce it. And “Twistey” is pronounced how it’s spelled, or at least how the misspelling “Twisty” is spelled.
2. I’m a pasty, skinny white girl, 5’7” and a half, with brown hair about chin length and green eyes with glasses. This time of year, you can usually find me wearing a T-shirt and jeans or comfy pants, with a watch on my left wrist, a bracelet on my right, and a navy blue hooded jacket over it all, but my “official” outfit with regards to how I draw myself consists of a black shirt with a minimalist-style luna moth on it, jeans, tennis shoes, and a grey jacket over it all. You can also put me in a black floor-length robe with thin red and gold trim on the sleeves (in that order from the ends), coupled with a long red preacher-scarf-thing (with some occult symbol on the ends) and a talisman with a large red jewel in the center. This odd, cultist-y ensemble is for reasons I shall explain further in point 3.
3. I’m the PPC’s resident wild card, and I always have been. I found the PPC by chance, I joined on an impulse without any prior research whatsoever, and I’ve been off-and-on falling down the metaphorical stairs and having to deal with the consequences ever since. As such, a lot of the jokes I make about myself on the Board involve me doing things that either are outright stupid or leave everyone scratching their heads. Also, with regards to the virtual persona I’ve created on the Board, thanks to the power of badfic, I’m mostly human but partially a decoy (from Wolfenstein 3D - ask me if you want to know more about them, including their canonical name). So you can make fire jokes, you can make mannequin/puppet jokes, you can make occult jokes, and you can make "unable to open doors" jokes. Finally, I also love anything glowy and sci-fi, or that otherwise looks cool, and as I was raised on music, I love putting music in the background of things.

-Twistey

1) "DELL-ta JU-lee-Ett". Emphasis on the first word can flip to an exasperated "dell-TAAAAAA" if necessary.

I... really was hoping people would take it in the more mathematical reading of "Δ Juliette" and shorten it from there to "Juliette", but such was not to be.

2) Tallish, slender-ish, has dark hair but keeps ending up dying it lighter. Wears flannel and hiking boots, but in a femme way. There's a whole video, if you're okay with corporate PR blogs

3) In no particular order- I'm an engineer, a nerd, used the internet before the invention of HTML (Dialing into the library server with telnet!), a currently-grounded aerialist, and occasionally rather unhappy about the lack of left-handed player characters in video games.

1) Haye neh Sauron.
2) Tall yet stocky male, late teens. Browm hair cut fairly short, brown eyes with grayish rims around the irises. Wears glasses with rectangular lenses. Favors cargo pants, Large brown birthmark about two or so inches across just above left knee. Stubble on face. Large-ish hands.
3) THE CHICKENQUISITON HAS BEEN NOTIFIED OF YOUR HERESY.

1. "Ypsi" is pronounced "ip-see." "Fang" is just pronounced "fang."
   
   2. I'm chubby, short, and white, with hazel eyes and fluffy, blue-black hair. My fashion sense can best be described as "somewhere between emo, punk, and nerd," which is also a good descriptor of me in general, really.
   
   3. Uh... I'm associated with necromancy, I guess? It seems to be a (semi-intentional) running theme with me, at any rate.

1. Neh-SHO-mah (Last syllable is basically a schwa, and the first one tends that way, too. It is indeed quite a common sound in English.)
   
   2. I'll do you one better: recent-ish photos from the 2014 Chicago PPC Gathering. Also featuring Phobos and Irish Samurai.
   
   But, if you can't access Photobucket (which I really need to leave anyway): 5'5" white woman, 33 (but people keep asking me if I'm in school), skinny, dark brown eyes and glasses, a whole bunch of short, straight, dark brown hair (I get it cut once in a Rachel Maddow-ish style in the summer and let it grow out over the year; it ends up sweeping back over my ears), kinda heavy eyebrows, kinda pointy nose, more leg and less torso than is sensible for my height.
   
   I try to wear flattering shirts ("blouses" if we must) these days, for work and because I like it. I find interesting things in various colors and patterns in resale stores. Tend to favor blues and reds, but I can go for just about any color except yellow, bright orange, or bright/too-yellow green, since they can make my skin look greenish or jaundiced. Usually pants, often grey or black, but sometimes a long skirt; my usuals are khaki, dark olive green, and blue.
   
   On my left hand, a white-gold engagement ring with a white- and rose-gold wedding ring (visible here). On my left wrist, a sterling silver cuff bracelet inscribed with "not all who wander are lost." (Serious Tolkien buffs will note the missing word "those" between "all" and "who.") I also often wear a necklace. My default is a little silver dragon curled around a green cut-glass stone (this guy).
   
   3. I dunno. You'll just have to get to know me better and figure it out. {= P
   
   ~Neshomeh

1. My username is easy to pronounce, not much to say there.
   
   2. Appearance: Average height, Caucasian, brown hair, and blue eyes, borderline overweight. I also wear glasses and prefer dressing casual in jeans and geeky t-shirts. I never go anywhere without my iPod, due to having something of a YouTube addiction. An all-around geek, basically.
   
   3. Not sure if I have anything meme-worthy, so I'll just go with this: I am not a people person - being shown what people are capable of at a young age kinda messed me up a bit - so I'm rather cynical also somewhat OCD (possibly issue to being Autistic) and borderline paranoid. I tend to prefer fiction to reality and have a whole bunch of weird interests and opinions, which may or may not be contradictory.
   
   So yeah, that's me in a nutshell.

1/
#How do you say a name like Huinesoron?
#How do you wrap your head 'round all those vowels?
#Here's how to pronounce the elvish 'Huinesoron' -
#A 'Hween' and an 'eh', a 'SORE' then an 'on', that's how!#

Yes, as at least a couple of said, 'hween-eh/ey-SORE-on' is about right. But honestly I mostly pronounce it 'aitch-ess' too. ^~

2/
#Tall and proud and wond'rous fair
#The people of the Dark and Air
#Hold high the iron that they fear
#When the Fair Folk come, don't let them near#

... no?

All right, all right... male, average height, fairly skinny, brown hair with a touch of grey (think Reed Richards - or at least, I always think Reed Richards). Generally a bit of a mess; I tried having a fashion sense once, but it didn't agree with me.

I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of pointy ears.

3/
Well... the other description of me is 'all of that, but with lab coat, goggles, and manic grin', because I'm a professional analytical chemist. ^^ (Actually these days I'm a professional paperwork chemist and lab supervisor, but I still put the coat on quite a lot. And the grin.)

hS

Heen-ah-so-ron. Swear to God I have no idea how my brain got there.

1) Exactly how you'd expect: Ay-See. I had a different name when I joined, but we do not speak of such dark matters. :P (Seriously, it sucked.)

2) 5' 5", male. Stocky and muscular, grayish-brown hair (heh, if you think going gray in your 30s is bad, Hellga, try going gray at 15), blue/green/gray eyes, stubbly mustache. Wears baggy shirts with either stripes or fandom things on them, and dull-colored pants/shorts.

3) I mean, I'm extremely stereotypical, so that might help with memes? I embody stereotypes such as 'socially awkward homeschooler,' 'gay dude who loves chick flicks and YA romance,' 'comic-book-reading nerd,' 'crazy Star Wars fan,' 'PPC member who was refused Permission and is too scared to try again,' and so on, in that vein.

1) Hellga is pronounced Anna. Yeah. Though back in the last millennium when internet was young and I didn't use my real name anywhere online, it was HELL-gah.

2) Tall (5'10"), reasonably in-shape woman with eggplant-colored shoulder-length hair (going gray in my 30s kind of sucks, but if I have to color it, I might as well color it something fun) and brown eyes behind pink-rimmed glasses.

3) Most people think I am kind and friendly when they look at me. This is merely part of my job. I am actually very evil (but too lazy to actually do anything evil... other than increasing entropy of the universe, of course). Oh, and I speak English with an accent that I always ask people to guess, if they do ask me where I am from. :)

But I'd pronounce it Hwein-so-run. That's probably wrong, which is why I usually just call him hS when I'm talking.

As for how to pronounce MY name, it's long documented that, as a result of my upbringing reading, I actually pronounce it wrong. I pronounce my name Thoth (exactly how it's spelled, approximately "Thawth", in my accent). But more correct pronounciations approximate "Thothe", "Toth" or "Tote". I denied this for a while, but it's true. God of knowledge, I am not.

Physically, I'm... hmm. Chubby, physically unfit, short-ish brown hair, brown, something on my face that I'm trying to keep from being a neckbeard (with... some success), hair all over me (seriously, lots of hair. Not more than anyone else I've ever met or anything, but...), and I'm typically dressed in whatever came out of my wardrobe first, in the kind of total disregard for fashion that can only exist out of habit, with a general messiness and disorder around me to match. Rarely seen without a book and/or headphones.

I'm a programmer-y type, avid writer, 40k obsessed, and kinda lazy. I also firmly believe that the best single-player and multiplayer shooters ever were Doom (1993) and Quake 3 Arena respectively. Half-Life is good too, but... different.

How to pronounce "Huinesoron": learn Elvish.

1. I doubt anyone is confused by mine, but it's "lit" as in "literature," not pronounced like "light." For the record, I've used this name since long before "lit" became internet vernacular in the last couple of years.

2. 5'7". Brown hair that is officially buzz cut low, but I let it grow out to roughly bowl cut length before I buzz it again, because it's a question of convenience (not spending time on my hair) rather than appearance. Um, white boy, thirty-two years old. Above-average muscular arms and legs, but shapeless blobby torso. Eyes that look blue or greenish depending on what clothes colors I'm wearing. Scar on white cheek from a toddler-era surgery. Always clean-shaven when in public. Need thick-framed glasses for distance vision. Tiny teenager hands with short fingers. Usually wear cargo shorts and collared shirts. Prefer flip-flops over tennis shoes, but open-toed shoes aren't allowed at work. Forego socks early in morning so they don't get wet spraying down exhibit rooms. Terrible at describing appearances.

3. Not really sure what's being looked for here? I feel a desperate need for stories, to the point where I pretty much call consuming fiction "feeding" in my mind any more. Don't like people, and feel U.S. society teaches people too much to obsess over feeling fun and happy all the time, when our time is best spent taking care of the planet so our species can endure for forever. Obsessed with the idea that only things that last forever matter, and put as much of my time as possible into workaholism because the work I put into the world is the only part of me that will last forever. Also secretly desperate to become immortal somehow. Incapable of sitting still and just relaxing/thinking, always need some form of "assignment" to occupy my brain.

—doctorlit doesn't know where to go from here

Snowy's close to correct, but I've been under the assumption that it was "Hween-ay-sore-on".

(hS is going to come back to the Board tomorrow and laugh at us, I can already tell. XD)

So...

1. Iximaz! It's Ix-ih-maz, with the last bit pronounced like razz berry. ;)

2. Um... tall for a girl, short for a guy, underweight, brown hair (currently blond on the top but I'm growing it out), high cheekbones, and the very Sueish green-with-a-gold-ring-around-the-pupils eyes. Lots of piercings and geeky tattoos. I also have two very large pink scars across my now-flat chest. :)

Denim coat, black T-shirt, jeans, and black Converse every day. Sometimes I add a maroon zip-up hoodie if it's cold outside. I am not very varied in my clothing.

3. Quack.

Has the pronunciation of names been a difficulty for so long?
Because that's a long time (A previous thread tells me he's been here for 15 years, wow.)

Well, if you wish to know; brown/dirty blond hair, brown eyes, glasses, mildly tan, mid height. Whatever's one hand is what I wear.

And I suppose your the resident meme maestro?

-Shade

1.It’s pronounced exactly as you’d expect.

2. Nothing like you’d expect a Snowblaze to look! Teenage girl, thick brown hair, taller than average for my age. Usually wears some shade of blue or purple. Or, if that’s too boring, make it up!

3. Maths jokes and obscure Middle-earth references are two things I’m a fan of, if it helps.

1. My username isn't pronounced weirdly, so I'll say this instead: if it's too clunky "Moons" tends to be the easiest part to make nicknames out of.
   2. Teenage girl. Average height, very skinny, pale-ish. Shoulderblade-length wavy (and usually pretty messy) copper hair. Bangs. Green eyes, glasses. I have a sharpie tattoo on the inside of my left wrist (a semicolon with the name TAYA written under it) and make an active effort to never cover it unless it's cold enough to be wearing gloves. I usually wear a chaplet of blue glass beads with a Celtic knot pendant at the back, and a short beaded strand finished with a wings pendant hanging from that. I like shawls and wear them even in the summer.
   3. Whenever someone uses "god" as part of an exclamation, I'm more likely than not to respond with "yeah, but which god?" I'm very picky about music and get kind of defensive about my tastes in it. My mental health is a train wreck and I make no secret of that fact.

God, this has plagued so many people and I've never really bothered to establish this.
1. Max eh well. Not an emphasized eh, like the stereotypical Canadian Eh, but sort of like the 'u' in ugh.
2. Tall. Can't remember my exact height right now, but 6 ft plus. Currently sporting bleached blond hair, with lack roots. Blue eyes. Paler than Dracula skin. (I should probably go outside more.)
3. "pm me for nsfw memes"

But every time I try I get it wrong in increasingly ridiculous ways. I think my last attempt came out as something like "Hew-sar-een-ian". I just refer to him as hS if I can.

1. My username is pronounced "Albin", naturally.
2. I'm blonde and white and short and female and wear almost exclusively black clothing.
3. I don't exactly know which parts of myself are meme-worthy. I once bought a life-sized cardboard cutout of Anakin Skywalker because someone told me I wasn't allowed to like him as a character? It was pretty glorious. She said that and then a few minutes later I just texted her a picture of my order confirmation with no further explanation.

Nobody tells me what I'm allowed to like.

As for me...

1. It's just the letters! ;)
2. 5'3'', dark brown hair&eyes, medium build. Nothing particularly notable (except maybe my forehead? Also I'm Autistic, and while I'd hardly believe any stereotypes stemming from that, I definitely get a different 'feel' about myself from looking at photos than what I get looking at photos of neurotypical people.
3. ???? My wit has only sharpened in the time I've known this board. "All your memes are belong to me" maybe?

I probably should've read the other parts of your Permission attempt before I read this one, as this left me just a tad bit confused (not too much, though). My favorite part was "Are you some kind of Communist? Are you some kind of Capitalist?!" That made me laugh.

-Twistey

This was the post in which I asked for an additional writing sample, for reference.

I'm going to lead with this: Permission granted. This piece addresses most of my concerns, so based on my previous post, I'm happy to sign off on this. Good job!

The reason for that 'most' is the characters themselves. I can see you've tried to work in both 'Gibbs is a lizard' and 'Bradbury is Argentine', but the way you've done it is fairly superficial. I can demonstrate this in five words:

Colonel Bradbury’s Old White Lightning

-Why 'Colonel'? You use the Spanish Policía Militar and Subteniente, but then return to English for the booze.

-Why 'Bradbury'? He's Argentine! Here's a list of common surnames in Argentina, actually around the time Bradbury was born. Note the lack of stereotypically English names. Now, he could be a son of immigrants - but then why is he named Caleb? Here's another short list.

-Why 'Old White Lightning'? That's a US English term for illicit booze (ie, moonshine). What's the Argentine term? That was an excellent place to show off his heritage, but you chose(?) to stick with an American term instead.

My point isn't so much that Caleb Bradbury can't be from Argentina, but that there doesn't seem to be any reason to think he is. Yes, he uses a few Spanish terms. But he's still blatantly a Victorian English pip-pip-chocks-away-chap. I don't understand why you would assign him a really interesting backstory, and then essentially ignore it.

(For the record, Wikipedia doesn't list Argentina's variant of moonshine, but points me at Peruvian pisco, or Ecuadorian puro, trago, puntas or fuerte. That took me about two minutes to figure out.)

Gibbs is much the same. He's a giant lizard whose people run the world! Other than 'two of your huuu-man centuries'-type talk, there's nothing to showcase that at all. I can think of half a dozen ways to play off it with the story Bradbury tells at the beginning (his people are so hierarchical that lying like Bradbury did would be high treason! Or they're so used to lying to the humans that he just assumes this is normal! Or he doesn't know what a 'caught marshall' even is! Or he doesn't Get lying because his race can read emotions and sense dishonesty! Or he just figures this is how departments get created in human militaries! Or... etc etc etc); instead, he reacts like anyone else.

Which is fine sometimes; no story can hold up to 'Agent Qaarg, who was an alien, alienned alienishly up to his partner and said, in Alienese, "Hi; I'm an alien."', but if you don't give us anything to differentiate him... why make him a lizard at all?

So that's my concern, and the thing I think you should look into. But Permission Granted, woot woot, on you go. :)

hS

I hope you used the standard summoning ritual involving chocolate. {= P

My e-mail should be visible in my username above. Fair warning: I am the worst beta because I procrastinate and take forever to get things done. I can also be a little persnickety. But I am the best beta because I'm not afeared of NSFW or continua I don't know, and I will catch the majority of any SPaG errors that may be present. {= )

~Neshomeh

Alas Nahnkek here.

Thyme 2 Dye

Is the name of my Fallen London fella.

Duel to the death with me! Deliberately send me options to betray me, I'll be right!

I'm Calliope of the Vale - if you end up not being able to contact me, zip me a message with your name and I'll drop a Calling Card.

(Also, for those who care, I have achieved Person of Some Importance (POSI) status. Which mostly just means I have access to a few more questlocked areas and can get addicted to laudanum.)

I'm qwertyuiop924 (Yeah, I know...), and my underlying account name is "thoth/9". Yeah, it's different. Because storynexus and weirdness.

I'm StarSong212 (it's a burner account, though, because I'm planning on Seeking). When I start my permanent account (which will likely not be for a while because I haven't even started Seeking yet) I'm planning on calling it something along the lines of TheRenegadePriestess.

I mean, I wish I could play. I keep getting a blank screen after I create a character.

/adds Tomash/

Contact me here!

I've been curious about the game for a while. Let's see how this goes.

I agree with all of this, although I didn't read this one till after I finished the rest of the series. So most of what I enjoyed were the moments we got to share with the Ka-Tet again. I love the development they share throughout the whole series--they really feel like a family and they seem so *real* and natural. I found myself sliding back into the atmosphere of the setting as if I walked with them. Also, did you read Hearts in Atlantis? I was pleasantly surprised to find a short Roland story mixed in with the others! Namely, Little Sisters of Eularia. (sp.?)
Also. I wonder if Tim's quote, "GET ME OFF THIS [CENSORED] ISLAND" was in the version Roland's mother told him as a child...
Anyhow. Glad to see more Boarders have made the pilgrimage to the Tower!

*fights the urge to pretend I spaced out and thought you were a newbie in order to give you a virtual present because I love giving virtual presents to people*

-Twistey

is what you're saying? ;)

I kid, I kid! Dai Stiho, Helsinki!

I myself, at least during my Scratch days, have had a history of trying to do long-term things and then immediately dropping them as soon as I got distracted.

-Twistey

Especially with ambitious, large-scale projects. I'm honestly more surprised when they work out, if that's any comfort at all. I'm sure nobody is really angry or anything. *hugs?*

~Neshomeh

Thanks to hS for the explanation!

-Twistey

The code for linking something looks like <a href="http://www.link-goes-here.com"&gt;this&lt;/a>; the code for embedding an images looks like this: <img src="http://www.link-to-image.com"/>

You'll need to host your image somewhere online; I use Imgur these days, so this code:

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/BtfBUVj.png"/>

Gives this:



You're absolutely right that this should be in the Board FAQ; I think I can throw something together.

hS

Just realised that the time stamps are US. Nearly 10 pm here and I was scratching my head, not enough caffeine.

Reiteration on the idiot thing.