Feb 2019 Archive, part a

Basically, it means that if something is affected, it will react, and if affected inversely, it will react inversely. This applies to electromagnetism and strong interaction, which is the force that keeps atoms together.

Wu proved this does NOT apply to the weak interaction, which is the force that tries to split atoms apart.

I don't know why that's important, but if people got a Nobel over it it has to really be important.

This probably only is for a very specific group of people, but whatever! One of my favorite artists, a guy going by the moniker of "grandson" has released a new song, called "Apologize."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjILi6KaVuY
Lyrics aren't NSFW, but they cover some heavy stuff. It's a little different than his usual intense style, but if you like it, check out his other works. His new, full album will be played on his tour, and released sometime later(?).

Another thing of note was that the movie Polar came out on Netflix. It's pretty bloody and violent (and very NSFW), and felt very John Wick-esque, but I enjoyed it.
It wasn't terrible, and was a simple story. But the main reason I mention it is because deadmau5 did most of the soundtrack for the movie, which can be found here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4hRN5ocMkMzKWnolpT1Rja
It's fantastic, imho. I personally enjoy midas heel and the end theme, the most. The songs carry a sort of eerie, but vibing feel. I don't really have the words to describe music, if it wasn't obvious.

Anyhow, hope your month is starting off well, and rabbit rabbit!
- Helsinki

Shamus Young, its creator said in introduction to the first comic:

"Lord of the Rings is more or less the foundation of modern D&D. The latter rose from the former, although the two are now so estranged that to reunite them would be an act of savage madness. Imagine a gaggle of modern hack-n-slash roleplayers who had somehow never been exposed to the original Tolkien mythos, and then imagine taking those players and trying to introduce them to Tolkien via a D&D campaign."

Good thing you're self-aware, so sayeth the dragon battle comic.

Not like I know what the Knights would do in such a situation. Except Jacqueline would get help from a dragon or a very large pseudodragon, because Jacqueline is me when I was obsessed with HTTYD, and therefore she loves dragons and dragons love her. :P

-Twistey

Once I have Permission, I will only spork a fic if the person who's written it has refused to accept constructive criticism. If I'm not sure, I will do what I can to reach out to them with concrit, and then gauge their response from there. Therefore, I will not be punishing making mistakes, but rather punishing blatant refusal to learn from them.

Also, Despatch doesn't exist anymore, by the way, so we've become even less likely to attack authors in any way except the "my work is me" way.

I doubt everyone here does that, and I also recognize that my response is coming out of nowhere for you, as I am just a newbie, but you can see that there are measures being taken to avoid these things.

*tips hat* Good day. Have a good life.
-Twistey

Nothing bad, don't worry. :) I second doc in saying that it'd be great to get a pointer towards your published writing.

I've just half-mentioned this to Fire Sidoni, but I figure it's relevant here too: I've had a few thoughts along these lines myself. My response has been to alter how I write my PPC missions to make them focus a lot more on useful concrit (literally, my Driftwood series features an Agent Kaitlyn's Concrit section at the end). I'm sure it doesn't go as far as you'd like, but it's something!

hS

Can we get a plug link please?

—doctorlit, ever hungry for fiction

I'm glad to hear those critical thinking skills came online and that you were able to use them to overcome your fears and achieve your goals. All the published writers I know have similar stories about facing not just the possibility of judgement, but real and repeated rejection, and eventually succeeding with perseverance. It's tough, and not everyone gets there. It's great that you were able to do so at such a young age.

As for your accusations, neither I nor anyone else need respond to them, because we already have a recently updated FAQ for that.

Kind regards,

~Neshomeh

First off, Artifexian. Hands down the best worldbuilding channel on YouTube. Covers everything from constructing a solar system to using plate tectonics in your fantasy world map.

Second, a pretty nifty fan project converting D&D 5th Edition into Star Wars. Currently running a game using it for my cousin and my brother, been a ton of fun so far.

And finally, SeeThroughCanoe. They post a ton of cool footage of manatees, dolphins, rays, alligators, and other such wildlife from the eponymous canoe. It's great.

I'm just gonna say it: I think Door Monster might just be the Very Best Thing on Youtube right now. They're fantastically, amazingly funny, and you should go watch them right now.

In other news, John Romero's SIGIL is due for release this month, so people who own a copy of Doom... well, you can get on that.

And if you don't own a copy of Doom you can pick up every pre-Doom 3 Doom game for <$5 on Steam right now. So... get on that. It's Doom. Utter classic, and a total blast to play through.

I've been reading Fabien Sanglard's utterly fantastic Wolfenstein 3D Black Book, but that's unlikely to be of interest to the non-programmers in the audience, so I won't go into detail. Suffice to say, XMS and VGA are two of the most disgusting things I've ever seen. :-(

And yeah, a Steam sale is on. So that's also a thing. What else... Uhh... yeah, I've been writing a lot? But nothing to plug out of that yet.

So here's one good and one bad.

The good: This prompt response by Luna LoveWell. Pitch-perfect and hilarious.

The bad: "The Creation of Life" by Mazeline Gerard. A horrifying Severus Snape/Luna Lovegood shipfic that definitely knows what it is doing is wrong and does it anyway. You may commence screaming internally forever.

~Neshomeh

Hey everyone! Does anyone around here like Pokemon? How about Terraria? Or possibly Metroid, as some have compared this game to?

Well, this game isn't enough like any of those to be a ripoff, so you'll likely enjoy Monster Sanctuary, a low-fantasy monster-training platformer! You play as the descendant of one of four families, descended from the first four Monster Keepers, who saw that monsters could be trained to be the ally of humanity and not its enemies. Hatch a team of monsters, fight wild monsters to make yours stronger, learn about a unique combat and leveling system, and figure out what's behind the unusual overpresence of boss monsters in the Sanctuary...

Or at least you will in the full game. This is just a demo, with the full version still being in development, but it still has a significant amount of content, and I can confess that I have been coming back for more even after the end of the demo's plot. Plus also I'd love to get this game more support in any way I can.

Play Monster Sanctuary on Newgrounds here: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/719932

-Twistey
P.S. Ask me and I can help you if you're stuck for any reason other than a technological one. There's only one place in the game that I don't know how to get to.

1) Heretic. It's fantasy Doom. You can get it on Steam.

2) The Star War Gatherings, which are the Star Wars movies taken through several layers of Google Translate. It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. More information here:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WebOriginal/TheStarWarGatherings

The idea behind this question is that people are accusing far too many female leads of being Mary Sues and far too few male leads of being Gary Stus. This can be solved by having a concrete definition of Mary Sue/Gary Stu. Which we do! :D Also, I'd like to point out that in fanfic, there are in existence many more Mary Sues than Gary Stus. That is not because women write worse, but because women write more fanfic in general. So that disparity isn't a disparity at all.

I'll leave the oldbies to talk about the rest.

-Twistey

There's no way we're going to know each other as I only joined last year. Have a Generic Heavy Object. Useful for dropping on your enemies, but don't try and lift it!

I... guess you're sort of right with the quote, but there is a difference between "Gary Stu" and "protagonist". If you're being optimistic, I'd say it's the same as the difference between "Mary Sue" and "female protagonist".

(If you're curious, the first record of you in the Board Archives is April 2005, and the last is December of the same; doesn't mean much, though, because the Archives are pretty patchy before '08.)

The way I think of it, the original definition of a Mary Sue was 'a badly-written female self-insert'. Over the years, different groups have focussed on different parts:

-The worst kinds have honed in on 'female', and they're exactly what you're talking about. The 'Rey is a Mary Sue!' crowd hit this button (especially ironic since this is the same canon where a nine-year-old flies through an entire hostile fighter fleet and blows up a military starship back in Phantom Menace), and while I'm not going to say they're awful people, their views stink.

-Almost as bad are the ones who focus on 'self-insert' - ie, the 'Rey can't be a Mary Sue because she's definitely not a version of Abrams'. This is not only a tool to put down any OCs in fanfic - most of which is still written by women & girls - but is also disproportionately used against female writers in published fiction. The issue, really, is that it's kept just enough of the 'badly-written' connotation to keep being used as a negative word, while not actually requiring you to check that bad writing is present.

-The PPC has taken what I think is the only reasonable approach: to focus on 'badly-written'. I've personally been advocating the use of Suvian, to refer to both Mary Sues and Gary Stus. Our definition doesn't care about what they're based on or even, specifically, what they look like (the Mary Sue Tests of the past, with 'falls in love with Legolas' and 'astoundingly beautiful' and the like, aren't really used any more); it's all about how they fit into the world - or rather, how they don't.

If you want to see what my approach to this looks like, PPC: Driftwood is the series where I've put it into practice. It's not the PPC of the old days, which did often take the easy path of saying 'she's a girl, she must be an author fantasy and a Sue'; but I like to think things have changed since then.

hS

I don't know if we ever interacted much, but anyway, welcome back!

As to the... joke? Is that a joke? Well, my answer is "a Suvian by any other name smells as poorly written."

And, I must contradict Delta, the definition we're currently using definitely can encompass the likes of Eragon and Drizzt do'Urden (and yeah, Bella Swann, too). While original characters in original works can't pull other characters and settings out of character in the same way as an original character in a fanfiction, they CAN receive incongruous treatment from other characters and break the rules of their worlds in ways that disrupt our ability to suspend disbelief, which amounts to the same thing: a protagonist with poor characterization and no real struggle placed in their path.

And we certainly spork male Suvians, if that's in question. Some examples are listed on the Gary Stu page that 61516 linked.

Not that there isn't bias in favor of male protagonists over female ones out there in the Serious Literature world, and probably in fanfiction, too. But fanfiction has always been more of a female hobby, as far as I'm aware. Speaking of OC protagonists in fanfic, then, you get more female protagonists than male protagonists, and therefore—talking strictly numbers—more badly written female protagonists than badly written male protagonists. Percentage-wise, though, I reckon it's exactly the same. The old saying, 90% of everything is crap, applies to fanfiction and Serious Literature, male and female and everything else, all alike.

~Neshomeh

I was, in the Elder Days, known as Techno-Dann. A few things have changed since then. :)

That's a great question, and one that's come up in discussion here too. My thoughts go something like this:

First and foremost, we specifically only use Mary Sue to talk about fanfiction characters. The measure of a Mary Sue is not how tragic her backstory is, it's not how much power she has, it's how much she warps the story around her. It's how far away from canon she pulls characters, settings, and themes.

We've stuck to that definition pretty hard, too - even in the face of Eragon, Twilight, Fifty Shades... the list of bad published fiction goes on, but those characters are by definition not Sues because the world exists for them, and their themes are the world's themes. Likewise, there are some truly good ladies in fiction out there who also cannot be Sues, because the story is their story: consider Imperator Furiosa from the latest Mad Max, for example. (Innuendo Studios does a really good feminist breakdown of Mad Max and tropes around women in action movies. (CW: violence, discussion of very violent tropes))

To get into some more personal thoughts: I've totally dreamed up wish-fulfillment self-insert fanfiction. I've written more than a few, although I usually lean on original settings instead of fanfic. I recognized them as things I was writing for me rather than the world, and I chose to not put them on the internet. (The earliest sign I have that I wasn't the guy I thought I was? I stumbled across a cache of my really old writing, 2005-6ish, and in every single piece, the character I identified with most... was a girl.) And yeah, it'd hurt to see someone go through them with a pair of Agents and mock them to fictional death, and yeah, I'm not sure if "having the self-awareness to recognize that this isn't something I'm writing to be good writing" is the best test for whether something should undergo that level of commentary.

(Quoth one of the hypothetical agents: "Oh bright Athena, Juliette, will you finish a scene for once?")

Anyways! I don't have any conclusions, but there's some thoughts. The joke is sadly accurate, "Mary Sue" has been an insult thrown at a lot of women in fiction who dared be competent/interesting/capable, and that's rather uncool - but it's also a misuse of the term, and we've been careful with its meaning here. And, yeah, I'm not sure if I'm comfortable making "this is bad art" the punchline of mine? But I've also only written like one mission in ten years.

So, hi! There's a lot of words, I hope you find some of them interesting.

-Delta Juliette

And... yeah, guys do tend to get off a bit lighter. However, the PPC have a pretty stringent definition of what a Sue *is*, which helps us avoid this.

Although I will note some articles I've seen online about this are just... wrong. Like one that claims Paul Atreides is a godlike Stu and that's bad writing nobody noticed when Doom as a series (and particularly Doom Messiah) was all about deconstructing the Messianic Archetype: Making Paul like that was the point, so Herbert could show all the problems with it.

Have a laser pistol.

We currently call male 'sue a Gary Stu.

We have some examples on the wiki:
http://ppc.wikia.com/wiki/Gary_Stu

You did a good job of sporking the "badfic" while also giving us a good sense of who the two agents are.

Casually finding out halfway through the story that Gibbs is a lizard (though it's possible I missed an earlier mention) seems really PPC - like "Oh, yeah, my partner's a lizard. That's normal around here."

The ending where Bradbury tried to pull rank he didn't have at the end was really funny.

"Isn’t the point of this to provide adequate training for new agents, so why is it unable." should maybe have punctuation that isn't a comma after "agents". Maybe a question mark?

You also seem to have changed fonts halfway down page 6.

Those are minor points, though, and overall I'm looking forward to reading more of your stuff.

- Tomash

I haven't read too many PPC stories, but I found this one very engaging and funny.

I remember these two. ^^ I like the... irreverent, I suppose, writing style you've gone for; as someone whose PPC stories can tend to much towards the Take This Seriously end, it's always good to see something that treats the setting appropriately lightly.

I think you've got a nice balance between quotes from the 'fic' and interactions with the agents, and you've also resisted the urge to make it 90 gazillion pages long (unlike certain Huinesorons I could mention). So good!

Still got no idea why you made Bradbury Argentine, though. ^~

hS

This was actually quite an interesting new take on PPC training! Simulating field missions would allow for faster training overall, I think, cutting out some of the "book learning" prep time before agents get thrust into their first actual badfic. I like that it actually starts the simulation in a phony RC, and I love the implication that DoSAT just used a generator to make up a fake badfic, rather than going to the trouble of trying to accurately digitize an existing badfic.

I feel like Bradbury has a bit of a stronger presence in this story than Gibbs does. I've got a good sense of Bradbury's dutiful outlook, and the value he places on his now defunct rank. Gibbs, though, was pretty quiet throughout the whole piece. In fact, other than his height and one allusion to Yark, his status as a giant lizard person didn't really come across much at all. What does he eat? Is the temperature in HQ at a healthy level for an ectotherm? How weird are human social customs to him? (Not that a human self-relating into a body-ball is a good example of human customs, but it's something that might come up more in a more standard mission.) I do suggest giving Gibbs more of a voice in future stories.

I do like the technician quite a bit, though. I particularly like that she clearly has some bad blood with one of the trainees, but still stays professional and jumps straight into her duty in training them . . . right up until Bradbury mouths off towards her at the end. I'm curious whether her silence is her coming up with a response, or whether she's simply left them in the simulation for a while until they're less argumentative?

Now some technical errors, in reverse-chronological order because that saves the nitpick-y one for last:

In the charge list: "'. . . have unreasonable angst about being special in unclear ways . . .'"
"Have" should be "having" to match the rest of the verbs in the charge list.

"'Let’s hold up on that. People deserve the benefit of the doubt.'"
The line break between this sentence and the bold badfic excerpt that follows it is missing. (I think you want one there, though I could be wrong.)

And finally, in your opening notes, the title Lord of the Rings should technically be The Lord of the Rings. Told you this one was a nitpick!

—doctorlit really wants to see Aragorn, Galadriel and Snape fighting crime together as Green Lanterns now

I had fun reading this. ^_^

Your characters are suitably quirky, and I generally enjoyed the dynamic between your characters, although I must say I'd like to see it explored more: Gibbs and Bradbury have very different backgrounds, and seeing them bounce off of one another (and seeing how Gibbs defies expectations, given his rather strange home continuum) would be fun.

Errant notes:

-DoSAT agents being irate. Yes.
-You actually *do* need to tell everyone that your mission is rated for explicit language. We're PG unless otherwise noted, sooo...
-I wanna see more description out of you. All those incoherent perspective shifts and general nonsense no doubt creates a World World that looks like a freaking Escher painting for the agents. I wanna see them coping with that. I want descriptions of the insanity. But then, that could just be me. I like descriptions. :-P
-Your sense of humor is generally really sharp. Try and use that more, develop it out. It was a big part of the draw of the mission.

... very, very insane. In a good way.

Looks like they were giving advice on how to write bad-fic.. Hoo boy.

Okay, I admit this is just an excuse for me to share stuff I've been messing with, but anyone can do it, so...

Design your agents' RC with Floorplanner!

I did my agents' RCs with this a long time ago, but they've changed a bunch of stuff since then. The options (many, many options) all look a lot more realistic now. Downside: no color customization except on walls and floors. Upside: waste hours and hours searching for just the right furniture and accents! It's Fun! {= D (Or be less obsessive and perfectionist than I am, have fun, and also have something to show for it. ^~ )

Suggested inner dimensions for RCs, in meters because that's the default:

Office Single (undivided living/office area) - 4m x 6m
Office Double (divided into 2-4 rooms) - 8.15m x 7.65m
Fancy Single (main area + closet & bathroom) - 5.15m x 8.15m
Fancy Double (main area + 2 rooms, 2 closets, 1 bathroom) - 10.15m x 8.15m

As for exactly how the insides are arranged, I reckon HQ is nothing if not inconsistent, so go nuts. FYI, the Fancy Double is hella generous, like a proper apartment. You probably have to be a veteran and have kids and pull some serious shenanigans strings to get one of those.

Other tips: I've used the Greek Texture surface for the floors. I think the White Lacquer Entertainment Unit with a Mixer Console on it makes a half-convincing console. Stick a Kitchen Single Cabinet next to it and mount a Digital Jukebox Icon Storm on there, and it'll pass for the disguise generator.

The first thing I've updated that I'm calling done is the FicPsych foyer:

<a href="https://ppc.wikia.com/wiki/File:FicPsychfoyer.png">

If you follow the link to the wiki, you can see the old version and the new version to compare. Mainly, the walls are less janky, the nurses' station is built into the space rather than tacked on the outside, and the whole thing is just neater. For reference, the diameter of the whole circle would be 12 meters, the length of the long, straight wall, and so it's 6m from the main entrance to the doorway to Unit A. The curve isn't a real half-circle, but a) I couldn't get the walls to bend like that, and b) this is probably more functional anyway.

And here is Jenni's RC, which is an Office Single:



Notably, this version is pre-Henry, so there's a bookshelf in the place where a kid's bed will go later. I'm less than thrilled with the grassy green rug, but oh well, close enough. At least it livens up the image.

I might put together slideshows of these in 3D so you can see what it's like to be inside, but not tonight.

So, what about the rest of you? Care to give it a shot? {= D

~Neshomeh

One of your characters has to talk their way out of a difficult situation.

...okay, I admit it: I chose this so I could write the sequel to last fortnight's prompt, which will be posted either today or tomorrow. Hopefully.

*Instead chucks a handful of sand, and disappears*

Ready when you are, Twistey! Let the Third Elemental War begin!

First off, only if they're fanfic—yes, there are non-fanfic doujins.

But I honestly do not know if you can missoon them. Dunno if anyone's tried. I think it's rare for any of them to have enough of a plot to be worth missioning...

It's always scary waiting for the biopsy results or MRI scans or what-have-you. And a sigh of relief when you get good news.

(Also, hi, I'm Iximaz! I was a little kid when you were last around, but it's nice to finally meet you!)

That's great news!

It would have been a real shame to have you come back only to find out brain cancer was to blame. >.>

In all seriousness, though, "not cancer" is always good news. I know (from a remove) that having something wrong and not knowing what it is really sucks, though, so I hope they figure out some other answer for you soon. Best of luck.

~Neshomeh

I think you might need to send me the link again

Welcome to the wonderful world of Europa Universalis IV

The above is a map of all the nations present at the start of the game, that being in the year 1444 (the game ends in 1821). More are possible to be founded or punted out of larger nations via a peace deal; indeed, this is a very good way of weakening larger nations like Ming China, the Ottomans, and so on. Not only can that be done, but other nations can be formed if, say, a colony becomes independent or a nation fulfils certain requirements.

In total, not including special tags for things like rebels and pirates or special nations that can only appear in the game when added in via outside sources like Jomsvikingr, the Roman Empire, or Jan Mayen (long story), there are seven hundred and eighty-seven unique nation tags in Europa Universalis IV. Okay, you won't see all of them at once. You can't; some, like the Chinese minors, are dependent on a Mingsplosion (as she is called), which is far from guaranteed to happen and something you really have to hope doesn't happen if you're, for example, playing as Ming.

Oh, did I not mention that they're all playable?

Because they're all playable.

And you can conquer the world with all of them.

There's even an achievement for doing it with Ryukyu. =]

So, updates on the PPC strategy games:

- Plortish Warfare: I put Delta Juliette in charge of the Plort strategy game, as she actually wrote some stuff about Plortish warfare. No further progress has happened about that. She also hasn't acknowledged my promotion of her to the head of the project.

- Mass Mission: I was debating with hS about whether he should undertake the mass mission strategy game. He mentioned a PPC board game he came up with earlier that was really bad. Perhaps fixing that is a good starting point, and then we can amp up the scale.

- Shiny Newbie: hS is undertaking this project, which has gone from being a strategy game to a visual novel. (I think.) I mentioned an idea to him that at one point in time, the player could play as a badficcer who was sporked and got on the Board to look for answers (while not telling anyone who they were), it has not been responded to.

- Boarder Wars: Since I haven't gotten enough support to make an actual Axis and Allies parody, I'm instead going to research on how to make a Boarder-themed Hearts of Iron 4 reskin, which I shall call "Hearts of Bleeprin." As HoI4 is a WWII game, I'm going to make the sacrifice of taking Germany (unless someone legitimately wants it), so who else wants a country?

-Twistey

Have a Generic Sharp Object(TM)!

Aside from one of my own shed feathers, have a diamond pickaxe with Fortune III and Unbreaking III and a plushie of your favorite Yokai! Choose wisely~!

It doesn’t look as if we share any fandoms, unfortunately, For your newbie gift, have some sweets which taste amazing but make you exhausted if you eat them.

Nice to have you around. Do you play any sort of D&D, or Pathfinder? I know there's a lot of enthusiasts around here. Wholeheartedly agree, ramen is fantastic. Take a pair of camouflage print pants. Surprise your friends with invisible legs!

Greetings to our esteemed board, new friend! Have a suit of Imperial Guard flak armor, the impenetrable mantle that is the constant companion of the brave soldiers of the Imperium for their entire lives! (Average lifespan of deployed Imperial Guardsman: 15 hours.)

I also like the carry on films, especially carry on spying.

I'm Twistey. I approve of quite a few of those fandoms. Have some Poe Slaw, which is not real coleslaw but is in fact a Bleeprin-laced dessert. Welcome aBoard!

-Twistey

It's nice to have a fellow CHERUB fan around! Here, take a grey shirt - won't be needing any orange here.

Also take a full set of dice - your choice of color and pattern. Ignore any glitter that's worked its way in, unless you asked for it, in which case, well, enjoy your lucky streaks, I suppose.

Not via Google Docs or anything, just by offering tips on writing a "badfic except it's good" story. Let me begin by saying that you'll have to find some legitimate way to sustain the book once the gimmick of it being a parody runs out. In my game Sue VS Sue, I do this by making the Suvians actually likeable characters who have good personality behind all those cliches and power. You could try taking that route, or you could possibly add a third character who's actually sane, the real hero of the story, for the readers to invest in. Otherwise it'll be just like badfic itself - people will only read it for cheap laughs.

-Twistey

Hello from a fellow D&D fan! I think you'll be happy to learn that there's some D&D-related content that the Board community puts out periodically. For your newbie gift, have a couple spell scrolls, sent to you by my Level 5 elf wizard with a note of kind regards. Welcome aBard I mean Board!

-Twistey

Have an RVN-4X "Raven" BattleMech. Succession Wars vintage, fully armed and operational. Feel free to repaint the armor plates.
https://goo.gl/images/XE655P

Welcome to the Board! Here, have some chocolate and enjoy your stay!

Ooh, what sort of dance do you do? I do ballroom, personally - West Coast Swing is my favorite, and I’ve done a handful of other social, Standard, and Latin styles. I haven’t had a chance to dance in quite some time, though - it’s pretty hard to find somewhere to dance as a female lead in Texas.

Have some NM&NMs, which (if I remember correctly) are laced with Bleeprin.

It's not much, but have some chocolate I guess. Be careful, it has a tendency to explode.

Have a suit of Imperial Guard flak armor, guaranteed for life! (Average lifespan of deployed Imperial Guardsman: 15 hours.)

Have a pen which magically changes colour!

I'm glad that this community has changed people's minds about fanfic. That's a win in my book.

For your newbie gift, here's a vial of white liquid that shines purple and gold. It's a potion made of ground-up Nether Stars from Minecraft. It renders great power, but also causes really bad mutations. I haven't made any in a while, but I decided to make a batch for science! Probably a bad idea, considering that only one person knows how to create the antidote and she doesn't come to the Board that often... but anyway! Welcome aBoard!

-Twistey

Welcome newbie! Here, have some chocolate and enjoy your stay!

Hey, nobody should ever give you flak for being older and in fandom. Have an anti-flak jacket, and a Generic Blunt Object(TM) for beating off anyone who tries. The idea that older women, in particular, should have to give up all their fandom interests after a certain age is ageist, sexist, and generally nonsensical.

If you have trouble finding quality fanfic, may I recommend AO3 (Archive of Our Own, archiveofourown.org)? I find that the quality there is much higher than e.g. the Pit of Voles the Den of Weasels fanfiction.net. (No insult is intended to anyone who reads or writes there - that’s just apparently become the official name for it in my head.)

I noticed in another thread that you’re into MCU, among other things; may I recommend works by Copperbadge (https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge) and SciFiGrl47 (https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifigrl47/pseuds/scifigrl47) as a starting place? I pretty much exclusively find new fic by looking through the bookmarks of authors whose work I enjoy.

Here, have a chainsword!

Hi! Have another exploding chocolate bar!

Hi fellow newbie! As I don't have much I'll give you a feather that you can put on a hat that changes patterns every day.

What are your fandoms? Here, have a furry object, I don’t... think... it’s sentient, but I’m 99% sure it’s not evil...

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

Have a suit of Imperial Guard flak armor, guaranteed for life! (Average lifespan of deployed Imperial Guardsman: 15 hours.)

Oh wow, this picture is absolutely stunning! I love space. I really like a relatively bright red dot more to the low right.

After all the government-mandated small-talk - you know, 'are your intentions hostile', 'will you trade us your spaceship', 'are you now or have you ever been a supporter of the Communist party' - one of the scientists piped up: "Where are you from?"

The alien spokesbeing pointed up at the night sky, picking out a hazy light. "We believe your people call our galaxy 'Andromeda'."

"We know that," the scientist said, "we've been tracking you." She reached into her bag and pulled out a roll of paper, black and speckled with gold and white. "I meant, which star?"

~hS

...I still forget who inspired you, though.

Knights art update: Sakura and Jacqueline are finished, now working on Elinya, for who I already have a design. Pretty sure I've got Scarlet's design planned out.

-Twistey

Here, have a very flat flamethrower and a pin shaped like a luna moth. You might need them eventually. I won't say why.

-Twistey

Have a triple chocolate cupcake! (It's chocolate with chocolate chips and chocolate icing.) Don't forget to blow out the candles and make a wish!

Here's a pack of fancy metallic colored pencils!

Have a cupcake!

Have a suit of Imperial Guard Carapace Armor! It offers better protection than flak at the expense of being heavier.

Happy Birthday! I hope you have a great day!