Well, it couldn't hurt to ask right?

Subject: Well, it couldn't hurt to ask right?
Author: James Shields
Posted on: 2014-10-03 18:31:00 UTC

If you don't know the Canon, then I guess there's not much you
can do about it. It's a pity. I think this story is a diamond in the rough. The premise is great, but the execution is marred by just so many errors.

I can't really do anything about it myself. I would love to, but I don't have permission yet and I don't think I am at the point where I could offer to beta something like this. Though
at this point the fic might be dead anyway, since the author hasn't posted anything since last year

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New team, new mission, and Now Taking Requests. by Huinesoron on 2014-10-01 10:05:00 UTC Reply

Are you ready for this?

PPC: Driftwood is my new series, intended to put a lie to the notion that PPC missions have to be fifty pages long and only released once a year or so. Jay and Acacia put out 25 missions in a year or so, and there's no reason we can't still do the same. For reference, the prologue + first mission here were begun on Monday. See what I mean?

And... I'm taking requests for their next mission, on a 'first come, only served' basis. Specific requirements:

-The badfic needs to be short; not more than 6000 words, please.
-The badfic should be rated no higher than T/PG-13.
-Please tell me why you think it's bad! You can use the Intelligence Report format (below the line underneath), or something less formal, but don't just throw me a link and say 'this is a bad story'.
-The one you can't judge... I have to know the canon! I'm not even going to try and list what I know, so just post and I'll say if I don't. I will note that, barring 'Pokemon games up to Platinum', I don't think I'm familiar with anything in the anime-manga continuua.

So - what've you got for me?

hS

Intelligence Report Template:

Fic: [Title & link]
Description: [Your summary]
Plot Holes: [Brief description]
Problem Passages:
1) "[Brief excerpt]" [Reason it's bad]
2) "[Brief excerpt]" [Reason it's bad]
OC: [Name of main OC, if any]
Type: [OC description]
Offenses Against Canon: [Broad categories of charges]
Additional Comments: [Anything else?]

Well, I liked it. {= ) by Neshomeh on 2014-10-02 16:03:00 UTC Reply

I pretty much agree with what doctorlit said. My favorite stuff was the dialogue between the agents, seeing how their relationship is beginning to form. Seems like they're going to work well together.

Just... try not to make out like writing slowly/not being amazingly prolific is a bad thing? At least one person I can recall quit the PPC because they felt bad about not writing enough (that was Inkling), and some of us can't churn out a gazillion words in a go like you can, whether it's due to time constraints or just because our brains don't work that fast.

~Neshomeh, who will probably never win at NaNo.

For the record, then: by Huinesoron on 2014-10-02 16:29:00 UTC Reply

I am a master at writing incredibly slowly. I still have Kayleigh and Salamander's mission into Dragon Fever on file, which predates most of the planning for Crashing Down - ie, it was begun in 2006 or earlier. I also have Narto and Lou's last mission, and I don't know if you remember the year-and-a-half break I took in the middle of Reorg?

But there are 50+ of us here, and the ten missions on the Wiki front page go clear back to March. Four of them are mine. I'm not complaining that [person X] isn't writing fast enough - I'm complaining that no-one is writing at all.

And yes, that includes me. Agent Huinesoron is in the middle of his third mission, and has been for some time. Then there's all that stuff I mentioned above.

So this is something different. This is putting missions on the Board at a pace we haven't seen in a decade - and on the front page of Fanfiction.net, where many of us got out start.

This... is PPC: Driftwood. And I'm already halfway through Mission #2.

hS has just reread Fine Structure and might be speechifying a bit

Oh, And One More Thing (TM): by Huinesoron on 2014-10-02 16:41:00 UTC Reply

Probably more important than the above, actually...

It's not about writing speed. It's about, as I see it, length. We all (myself included!) have this burning desire to kill the worst of the worst fics by having our agents analyse every line, record every charge, grouch about each problem, and also work in their own overarching plot and deep personal traumas at multiple points in the mission (and let's make sure there's a whole bunch of references to other agents, probably including cameos and and and).

And that's one way of writing missions - but it doesn't have to be the way. It probably shouldn't be, in fact, for the same reason we shouldn't have Emergencies every five minutes - they lose their impact. A series of short, simple missions leading up to the big set-piece can work just as well. That's what I'm trying with Agent hS, in fact.

But equally, we can have short, simple missions without the finale. Why not? Not everything needs to be a gripping saga. Have you never watched a TV show which you wished would stop with that stupid arc plot and just go back to monster-of-the-week episodes? In our case it was The Mentalist. Well, Driftwood is your monster-of-the-week(ish) PPC fix. Go read Agent Huinesoron if you want my drama and arc missions - you won't find them here.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to see a girl about a horse. She thinks she recognises it, see.

hS might shut up now - no promises

PS: I have no idea how this is coming across. I'm just trying to get my thoughts down, not to cast nasturtiums at anyone. Waste of good flowers, that. ~hS

Thanks for clarifying. by Neshomeh on 2014-10-03 17:16:00 UTC Reply

I know you're not intending to cast aspersions (or nasturtiums). I just felt like I should speak up for those of us like myself, who are unable to write quickly (at least not anything good) except in the most extraordinary of circumstances. Even my much shorter, simpler first missions took me a year each to finish on average—the second one only appears to have been completed faster because I switched 1 and 2 midway through, so 2 was already half-done when I finished 1.

The fastest I ever got a PPC story done was "The Dark Side" (17,659 words), most of which was a cowrite between me and Phobos, so we could physically pass the thing back and forth and have real-time discussion and feedback about what was going on. Still took us two months, and that's when we were both working at Blockbuster and had too much free time due to crappy hours and no social life. I doubt we could pull it off now.

And say what you like about being slow, but you're still far and away the most prolific PPC writer out of anybody, not to mention a multiple NaNo winner, and you manage to do a lot of things despite having a real job and a family. So, just saying, it's all well and good for you to crank out a bunch of monster-of-the-week stories in an attempt to show us how it's done—and they'll be good and we'll enjoy reading them, and some people really could stand to scale things back some, so I'm not saying it's at all a bad idea—but we can't all be you, even if we wanted to. I want to make sure everyone knows that's okay.

~Neshomeh

Re: mission by doctorlit on 2014-10-02 08:19:00 UTC Reply

Very fun! You definitely delivered the feeling of the Original Series, with the mission being to-the-point, but still long enough to allow the agents time to let their personalities show through their actions and reactions. I . . . don't really have anything negative to say! doctorlit will shut up sooner for once!

Just to share my two cents on the topic of mission length: I get what you're wanting to show, that not every mission needs to be long and complex, but to be honest, I prefer reading longer missions. I literally read both the introduction and "Winterwood" in the time it took to clean my teeth before going to bed. (Which takes about an hour, because I inherited terrible teeth genes, just to be clear.) And there's nothing wrong with that, but it's also not as immersive for me. When I read a story, I want to feel like I'm there, in that world, and spend a long time getting to know it. But I guess that's just my brain's legacy as a longtime novel reader, it's just my preference. (And I'm enough of a glutton for reading to take whatever I can get.)

—doctorlit lied about shutting up sooner!

(Man, the first Frozen mission took way longer to appear than I expected.

♪Do you want to spork a badfiiiiiic?
And find the problems with the plooooooot♪)

Frozen song parody? by Iximaz on 2014-10-02 15:38:00 UTC Reply

♪Do you want to spork a badfiiiiiiic?
Come on, the console's BEEPed!
We never get vacations, true
Don't feel so blue
It's time we did our joooooooob!

I know it drives us crazy-
All these Mary Sues-
I wish they would all just diiiiiiiiiie!

Do you want to spork a badfic?
It doesn't have to be a Bleepfic!♪

♪Do you want to spork a badfiiiiiic?
And find the problems with the plooooooot
I think some spellchecking is overdue,
I've started banging my poor head against the waaaaaaall!♪

♪It gets really upsetting,
All these minis here
Are making me want to cryyyyyyyy!♪
*insert mini sounds*

Ooh! by Ailavyn Siniyash on 2014-10-02 07:42:00 UTC Reply

That was fantastic! I love what you're doing here, and I love the concept, and all the interactions! It's really lovely. I especially liked the fact that it was short, honestly--I really need to go to sleep.

-Aila

(Wow, I really went into lurk-mode for a couple of weeks there, didn't I?)
Hrm. by Desdendelle on 2014-10-01 19:35:00 UTC Reply

Didn't the Pit prohibit posting missions, MSTings and the like to the site or something?

They've banned MSTs. by Huinesoron on 2014-10-02 08:14:00 UTC Reply

They specifically define that as 'inserting comments between the lines of a copied story'. I think PPC missions are vastly different to that.

Of course, FF.n admins are notoriously fickle, so they may take it down simply for someone saying they don't like it. But hey, Jay and Acacia coped with that, I'm sure I can too. ;)

hS

Brony Badfic request by James Shields on 2014-10-01 19:22:00 UTC Reply

Fic: The Smarty Complex
Description: This one is actually only bad because of technical issues. But there are so many of those. Bad SPaG, walls of text, run-ons, overly long description and bad pacing.

Plot Holes: Not much actually. Maybe how the animation spell
works in this story though.

Problem Passages:
1) "Twilight awoke in a soft cot, soft sheets enveloping her. She [bad error, Twilight is a she!] sighed, relaxing as she sank into the bed. It was lovely, she was worn out, after all, creating a new life form in its entirety. However, her mind was clouded with worry as she facehoofed for being so careless. She needed to take Smarty Pants to a doctor’s appointment. But, she’ll only be there for a few days before I turn her back. Twilight cringed again, arguing with herself. There’s something about her though, something that drew her to me, some kind of bond. She knew there was a part of her that wanted to keep Smarty Pants. Something about her coat, something about her eyes, even her odd hair. Everything about her seemed, She didn’t know what it seemed like, whatever this feeling was, she couldn’t put her hoof on it Twilight soon however was overcome by the logic in her mind. She isn’t meant to be alive, she isn’t meant to be a foal. She’s a toy, that’s what she always would be. But, then again, it’ll probably take me a week or so to build my energy again, and it might be worth it just to see. She resolved it [‘Resolved it’? maybe she decided she would take Smarty to the Doctor, or something similar. Resolved isn’t usually the term for thoughts.], she was going to take Smarty for a doctor’s appointment. She bolted up from the cot, shaking herself awake. She was determined to help the foal for as long as she had to while she built up her arcana [Arcana? Well, it is your decision. However there are a few more common terms. ‘Strength’ ‘Energy’ ‘Focus’ or even ‘Mana’, but still your choice on this one.] once again."

Huge wall of text plus what are apparently editor's notes were left in.

2) "No, she was an inanimate object. But what if, all the times we had spoken to Smarty all those years ago, some part of her was wishing she could speak back, letting all of her emotions out? She was a doll, she had no emotions. She’s like francium suddenly becoming bromine, one thing becoming something completely different. Yet, how would it feel to have a taste of the most beautiful food ever tasted, and have it snatched away from you by some torturer. Was she killing Smarty Pants, or restoring her. She was ending the life of a foal. No, she knew there was something about the new, living Smarty Pants that had moved somewhere in her heart, well, in her brain, there are no emotions in the heart, it only pumps blood. Never mind. Twilight gazed at Smarty, who was cooing at her, smiling as she embraced her Mother. Twilight sighed, she knew she couldn’t turn Smarty into a doll, how could she do that to an adorable little foal. She smiled again, and faced Smarty Pants."

Smaller,internal dialogue wall of text. Pacing problems regarding Twilight deciding things too quickly, making it already pretty clear what decision she is going to make in the ending.

Offenses Against Canon: [Broad categories of charges]

Additional Comments: I am mostly sending you this because of the whole concrit at the end of the mission angle you are going with this series. This story actually has a potentially good premise, but that is currently obscured under the technical errors, specially the troublematic pacing that is basically killing any suspense over Twilight's decision regarding turning Smarty Pants back or not.

Now that's a canon I don't know. Sorry! by Huinesoron on 2014-10-03 16:00:00 UTC Reply

I'm also not sure how easy a SPaG badfic would be to mission... might be interesting to try, but it'd probably be quite short (not that I'm complaining about that!). Of course, Araeph and the DTE can make them lengthy, but I'm not Araeph - I have different pet peeves.

Either way, I can't take this story; I don't know the canon.

hS

Well, it couldn't hurt to ask right? by James Shields on 2014-10-03 18:31:00 UTC Reply

If you don't know the Canon, then I guess there's not much you
can do about it. It's a pity. I think this story is a diamond in the rough. The premise is great, but the execution is marred by just so many errors.

I can't really do anything about it myself. I would love to, but I don't have permission yet and I don't think I am at the point where I could offer to beta something like this. Though
at this point the fic might be dead anyway, since the author hasn't posted anything since last year

I was browsing FF.net and I saw PPC Driftwood... by Tigeress on 2014-10-01 17:42:00 UTC Reply

Aaanyway... Here you are!

Fic: No Safe Place
http://www.quotev.com/story/2838998/No-Safe-Place-Legolas-Love-Story/
Description: this is actually pretty bad. I found Arogorn, Ring Wraths, and this OC looks like a definite Mary Sue. Summary excerpted from the story:
Erillin is the younger sister of Arwen, Princess of Rivendale. Lord Elrond has hidden her true identity from her and keeps her hidden within the Elven Realm of Rivendale. She can do things no other elf can do... [+tenth walker Legomance]
Problem Passages
Example 1: I started shooting my arrows with perfect aim, swinging my sword with amazing precision, and slicing my twin daggers with marvelous power. [Amazing precision... Perfect aim... What a 'Sue!]
Example 2: The man stood and walk over to Frodo. I guess It was my turn. "You have my daggers and my shoulder to cry on if you need it." [The author has a strange habit of capitalizing random Things.]
OC: Erillin
Type: Elf-Sue, Elrond's daughter
Offences Against Canon: Tenth Walker, grammar issues, lots of characters OOC, tense shifting (It seems), etc..
Addition Comments: if you don't take this on, believe me, I will. :)
Interesting premise, by son_of_heaven176 on 2014-10-01 15:22:00 UTC Reply

trying to revive the frequency of the Original Series. And I really liked the concrit bit at the end of the mission; it helps to show that we aren't a bunch of spoilsports out to ruin others' fun. More missions should have that, IMHO, though I admit that some people are better able at spotting errors than at correcting them.

tl;dr: Good concept. Loved the concrit at the end; more missions should have it, but I know it's not for everyone.
Absolutely spectacular! by Iximaz on 2014-10-01 12:45:00 UTC Reply

I think... I think the reason why you were able to write it so quickly is because you didn't include too many direct quotes from the badfic. The Original Series was very similar in that regard. Maybe that's the key to faster missions...?

Anyway, new mission for Kaitlyn and Selene!

Title: And So The Journey Begins

Description: A modern girl uses wall-of-text urple prose to describe how heartbroken she is over her ex-fiancée before finding a portal that takes her to Middle Earth.

Problem Passage 1: "Her stubborn heart had prevailed over her will of succumb to sleep. The world kept turning and it was only her little world that had ceased. That bliss that was no longer what she came home to. She couldn't deny that it was pathetic, wallowing in her own misery whilst across the globe there was surely someone rejoicing at the mere essence of life. She once believed in fairytales and happily ever afters but now, reality had taken hold and slapped her over the face like a scorned being." ALL THE URPLE PROSE. And this continues through the whole fic, from what I've seen...

Problem Passage 2: "Lord Elrond nodded reservedly, "I had not realised that orcs have spread to the north as well or have you come from Gondor?" He inquired, looking distastefully at her attire." I have... no words...

Main OC: Guinevere Archer (because Legolas is an archer, of course)

OC Type: Modern fan of Tolkien's who falls into Middle Earth and falls in love with Prince Legolas.

Charges: Overly-flowery descriptions of just about everything, apparently there are orcs taking human slaves at an establishment near Rivendell, Lord Elrond is a condescending jerk to the Sue but warms up to her wit...

Additional notes: the author says Guinevere isn't meant to be a Mary Sue. They never are.

That... is not short. by Huinesoron on 2014-10-01 12:58:00 UTC Reply

That's a triple-NANO story. It's longer than The Return of the King. It's painful to read, but it's so impossibly long...

hS

I screwed up, didn't I? >_> by Iximaz on 2014-10-01 13:05:00 UTC Reply

Once again, my overeagerness gets the better of me. *sigh* Sorry.

It's okay. by Huinesoron on 2014-10-01 13:14:00 UTC Reply

I looked over it anyway, but frankly the beginning is so long for so few changes - I'm not sure she speaks during the Council, like, at all - that unless she does some serious meddling with the...

Oh gods.

Oh ye most holy Valar of the West Beyond West.

She saves Boromir. And then... okay, I take it back, I'm definitely killing this. See, she's in the middle of a rewrite. So she saves Boromir in Chapter 9 - and then in Chapter 10, she's teleported to Aragorn's side and he's gone again - back to Gondor, by Chapter 13's words.

I'm taking it. It'll be a little unorthodox, but I'm taking it.

hS

Does that mean I should go ahead and spork the one I posted? (nm by Tigeress on 2014-10-02 06:27:00 UTC Reply

Up to you. by Huinesoron on 2014-10-03 15:57:00 UTC Reply

It looked rather longer than the 6K words I asked for, though, so even if you save it for my next requests, I might well say no on closer examination. So you can certainly take it if you like!

hS

Alright! :D I'm taking it. (nm) by Tigeress on 2014-10-03 16:29:00 UTC Reply

Dangit, forgot the link. by Iximaz on 2014-10-01 12:51:00 UTC Reply

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/10078251/1/