Subject: Your database-fu is stronger than mine.
Author:
Posted on: 2015-12-09 16:17:00 UTC
So yes, since you're volunteering, I'd be grateful. And hey, then you'll get to have fun making graphs about it, right? {= )
~Neshomeh
I posted last week that I was interested in taking this one on; however, for the reasons mentioned, I was going to hold off on putting down an immediate claim.
So... speak now or forever hold your peace?
One week and one day have since passed.
Consider it claimed.
Forgive me if I've hit on the reasons you said you were unsure about claiming it in the first place. See, ship internet gets sent via a chain of federal mermaid satellites and they can be quite notoriously unreliable, too much time combing their hair and singing rather than handling their satellites properly, after all, so it's made checking the board a bit of a chore.
I have to admit I have some hesitance at you claiming yet another Legendary? It's becoming rather something of a theme with your spin-off, the quanity of infamous fics you've taken on.
This isn't to say that I think you'll do a bad job of it; it's more that my reaction was more around the lines of 'Again?'. There are only so many fics we consider "Legendary" around, and while people who are currently on the board (who have seen this post) may not have expressed interest, there may yet be in the future.
-A July, who really needs to berate these mermaids
I don't see why Legendaries need to be treated any differently than "regular" badfic (aside from, perhaps, warning newbies not to read them without knowing what they're about, but then again I'd also say that one needs to warn people about reading AUGHfics in general) — someone claims them, and if they don't do anything or renew the claim after a year and a half, someone else can claim them.
I believe July's concern is similar to... oh, if a company made a limited-edition run of 100 collectibles, and Iximaz promptly bought 75 of them. 'I don't see why the limited editions need to be treated any differently than "regular" collectibles - someone orders them, and if they don't pay in time, someone else can order them.'
hS
It seems to me that there is a consensus here that missioning Legendaries solely because they're Legendaries is Bad — if I get your parable (I think this is the right word?) correctly, it's like buying those limited-edition collectibles solely because they're limited-edition and because they're super-special mega-awesome figurines of Emperor Palpatine that actually shoot lightning or something.
(An economic-legal aside: AFAIK, unless stipulated otherwise ordering 75 limited-edition figurines out of a 100-figuring run is legit, at least here in Israel.)
I don't think anyone's said that in this thread, but yeah: a Star Trek fan should let people who actually want a lightning-shooting Palpy buy him, rather than buying them up simply because they're rare.
But then, I have similar issues with buying toys to keep them in their boxes, so there you go.
The point I think July was making was closer to this: if there are two chocolate cupcakes on the cake stall, and I buy both of them, it doesn't matter how legal it is - you still can't have a chocolate cupcake, because I've just eaten them both.
hS
I get that hoarding a limited resource is Bad for obvious reasons. That's not what I have a problem with. It's the treatment of Legendary badfics as a limited resource (solely because they're infamous, mind; there is no dearth of bleepfics that simply don't make it to Legendary status because they're not infamous enough) that feels problematic to me. Like PC and others said elsewhere, you're not supposed to mission a Legendary solely because it's a Legendary; if you're not supposed to do that, then you're not supposed to look at whether a fic is Legendary or not when you think about claiming it (aside from in the 'can I write a funny mission on this really bad fic' sense, but you'd do that for bleepfics or WhatThe fics or stuff that goes to DAVD anyway... or any fic, really).
... between 'solely' and 'at all'. Dafydd's final mission was Clbr_n because it was legendary (and thus a suitable capstone to his story), and because I had a way to do it, and because it would hit the right buttons to get the responses from him I needed, and because it gave me a suitable place to blow up. Iximaz didn't just look at Rose Potter and go 'hey, she looks pretty dangerous, I'll use her as the one to Time Lordify Rina' - she went (something along the lines of) 'the legendary Rose Potter is the right time to make this massive character change'.
Your point appears to be 'you shouldn't buy a car just because it's red, so don't look at the colour at all'. Which would be a very strange way to choose a car. ^~
hS
We have added to the list of Legengedaries, very- and I stress that intensifier- very slowy since I joined. In 2007. Since then, the ones I can remember being added to the list, and being present for to agree, yeah, those are legendary? Cupcakes and LBT: LxC. That's it. Out of that tiny list there. So yes, there is* a reason to treat them as a limited resource, and that is because they are.
To qualify, Des, in your initial response that we shouldn't treat "Legendary" badfic any different, I think the fact that we already qualify them as Legendary means we treat them as different right off the bat.
Just because everyone here right now isn't interested in claiming this particular Legendary doesn't automatically mean Iximaz should have an all-clear to have on her kill-list a good portion of the list we have.
A very small fraction of the Boarders around now were here back when I first joined; would it still be okay and fair to newer boarders who weren't around back then if, say, to borrow names from the past, Anjilly had taken up a bunch of the Legendaries? Or Rilwen? Or Laburnum? Or Araeph?
And as for your aside to hS regarding the what-if about limited edition collectibles: just because something is 'legal' doesn't make it right or fair, which is something I believe we as a community also try to aim for.
My objection isn't 'making missions out of Legendaries for the sake of it'. That is already an understood matter at large, and we have done a pretty good job of hammering it into people that we don't go after fics that are Awful Just Because They Are So Awful We Need to Show Everyone How Much Awful We Can Tolerate Compared To You. It is 'we only have so many Legendaries, and we still have people join every month, and some of them even stick around for years. It isn't fair to those new people and people who haven't even shown up yet that Iximaz has claimed so many Legendaries and done missions for them, leaving others without that opportunity.'
-July
Speaking to this particular claim, loads of people have had the chance to mission "My Immortal" over the years, and no one's done it. If Iximaz comes along and actually wants to, and is pretty sure she can pull it off (which I think we all know by now that she can), why shouldn't she? How long has this particular collectible lightning-shooting red car been sitting on the lot, gathering dust?
Same argument goes for the other Legendaries Ix has taken. Most of them, if not all of them, have been sitting around unmissioned for years, waiting for someone with the right combination of interest, time, and perseverance to come along and claim them. It seems like Ix is just the rare individual they've been waiting for. I don't think assuming that another like her is going to come along anytime soon makes sense.
That said, I do take the point that putting so many Legendaries in one spin-off seems... eh, I don't know, exactly. Vaguely wrong somehow. Maybe because it seems to clash with how things appear to work in-universe? But we're not talking about in-universe, we're talking about a spin-off. But then, supposing we're looking for some sort of normal missions-to-Legendaries ratio, the Aviator has, I think, something like 40 completed missions and interludes to her name. Four of those are Legendaries. That's, what, a whopping ten percent of the spin-off?
To compare, Dafydd's spin-off totals 18 stories, two of which are Legendaries. (Three, if you count "Woodsprite of the North," but we won't here.) His ratio is actually a little higher than Ave's one in ten. The only difference between them is that his ended and hers is still going, so there's no longer a possibility that he'll do more.
... I dunno, guys. The truth is, I don't really have a huge stake in this either way. Personally, I'm only interested in one Legendary, and I don't much care what happens to the rest. Plus, I consider myself to have tackled one already in "Blood Raining Night"; it's just that it isn't acknowledged as such because it's freaking impossible to get this community to agree on a policy for deciding when to acknowledge new ones, so it doesn't count. Supposing you wanted to hunt Legendary-quality badfic without sparking a debate like this one, all you'd have to do is keep an eye out in other places on the Internet and nab the ones the PPC hasn't tagged yet. So, I guess I don't really see the point of getting fussed about it.
~Neshomeh
Dafydd and Selene may have treated it like a Big Thing, but unless you remember otherwise, I think it was just a random badfic.
(Dafydd: "Just because people haven't heard of it doesn't make it easy to deal with!")
You (er, Nesh, not Dafydd) make a good point - though one could point out that a) my missions:legendaries ratio is a lot smaller, and b) there's a lot of agents who aren't Dafydd out there - and one that hadn't crossed my mind. (But then, I already said I didn't mind...)
As for 'new legendaries' - I still think something has to be actually legendary to count. As in, people should have heard of it without even knowing what it's about.
Which a) [or should that be c)?] means that "Blood Raining Night" should count from my perspective (I don't even know what fandom it is, but I recognise the name), and b) suggests that we may have a lot of legendaries that are that way because their missions showed them to be terrifying enough. Which is an interesting thought...
hS
If this is going to be a problem, I can just, you know, drop the claim. It wouldn't be the end of the world if someone else picked it up.
I don't care either way. ^_~
By the way... given that you gave My Inner Life a moderately subdued sendoff, how would you feel about a hypothetical situation where Jenna returned (in full-on LQ rant mode) and had to be re-killed in more dramatic fashion? I don't have any actual plans to do this, mark you - it's just that as one of those who's known LQ's rants for over a decade, it's something I might consider in the future, if you thought it was okay.
hS
I'm not even 100% sure July is, either. Actually, I think her point that her reaction to hearing you're doing another one is "meh, again?" is stronger than the "leave some for other people" bit. Were I you, I'd be more concerned that it's not going to have as much of an impact as you might like—on your characters as well as your audience, come to think of it. If tackling Legendaries becomes old hat to the characters, then you've got a real problem. ... Maybe give this one to Gabrielle and the Doktor? Sure, Enoby is a Sue, but she's a troll first and foremost, and the fic is certainly WTF-worthy. This is a thought I just had.
Anyway, if you hadn't noticed, us oldbies just like to argue with each other. It doesn't necessarily mean anything dire. {; P
~Neshomeh
Their first mission was to Draco's Christmas Cuppa!
I think I said what I think and don't have anything constructive to contribute, except for two things:
a) I think that what differentiates Legendaries from Bleepfics is precisely the infamy. There are a lot of horrible writing out there — off the top of my head, there's TSAB DOWNFALL: Halo War, Everybody In Annie's Forest, Rose cuts the doctors penis off and puts it in a sock (yes, that's a thing, Ix and Scape missioned it), Harry Potter and the Four Founders — but none of it is considered Legendary because people didn't hear about them.
Which brings me to b) can we try again to reach a consensus on how to "add" new Legendaries?
I'd love to get a consensus on that.
To respond to something hS said, and one reason I think consensus is so difficult: What you've heard of largely depends how active you are in a given fandom and/or the places on the Internet where fanfic gets talked about. Back in the day, most PPCers were active in LotR fan communities, so they knew what everyone was buzzing about because they were there, doing it. Nowadays, not only do we not all share a unifying fandom, not all of us are active in our fandoms beyond the PPC, either.
I speak here of myself. These days, I pretty much only hear about the fics that set their fandoms abuzz when someone mentions them here or I happen to stumble across them on Channel Awesome or Buzzfeed or something. (I am thus often behind the times.) I suspect this goes for many of us.
I mention this because, in the past, people have wanted the yardstick for Legendaries to be that they're legendary among PPCers. This clearly doesn't work; fics only get legendary among PPCers these days if their mission makes them so.
Taking a left-turn here (because I'm tired and holding a train of thought is hard), responding to another thing hS said: Legendary Missions. How 'bout this being a thing, eh? Phobos likes the idea, too.
~Neshomeh
For a couple of reasons:
1/ We'd be giving awards to ourselves. That... doesn't sound like a good idea. Even the best people will eventually fall into partisan voting and/or sulking that they haven't been nominated.
2/ If the criteria in any way involves 'people have heard of it', then you're going to end up with a list massively top-heavy with, y'know, active Boarders who talk about their missions. I am not willing to say that Huinesoron/Neshomeh/Iximaz/Skarmory is a better writer than everybody who wrote only one or two missions and then left.
hS
There are a variety of missions that stand out in my mind for one reason or another, though... "Woodsprite" I've mentioned; there's the one where Pads goes into labor because the fic says Sirius Black gives birth, that was amazing... Selena Rose the Piratate? Honesah Hoononee Keemo getting killed twice? The A/V Division so creatively taking down that Balrog Sue?
... This reminds me that I had an idea for a PPC Story Awards thing, and I never got around to running it. If I ever do, though, there ought to be a Historical Mission category or two, too...
~Neshomeh
You said earlier that we don't all share the same fandoms any more - that cuts in on this idea, too. I've only read a couple of Trojie and Pads' missions, partly because I'm not interested in high-rating reading, but also because HP isn't my fandom. I recognise the Piratate from that word alone, and Honesah solely from her Mirror counterpart... it's all gotten too big for everyone to have common 'great missions' in their minds.
The Story Awards might well work - though, yikes, you've got eleven categories there, do we even make that many stories a year? And to what extent is that going to end up massively top-heavy with half a dozen people's writing?
I think it would be worth doing... but it would also be worth making an actual list of what people have written in the last year. (And deciding whether you include 'PPC multiverse' material, such as OFUs and Ispace). If you want to do it, January is probably the best time - as you said back then, it's simple.
(And speaking of annual things - are we getting a Christmas Filk thread this year? [Hopeful eyes])
hS
I think that if the problem is that we don't have a nearly-complete consensus for Legendary-ness, the solution is to decide that what's a wide enough consensus for something to be Legendary and go with that. We don't even have to decide the standard immediately; we can nominate stuff, see what's known and what's not, and go from there.
I consider "Blood Raining Night" to be Legendary because of what turns up when you Google it. A bunch of the hits on the first page are the story itself on FF.net, dA, YouTube, the author's website, and its Wikia (oh my god it has its own wiki now WTF), but then you also get its TV Tropes and Know Your Meme articles. The fact that is has those is telling; proceed to the second page of Google hits and you see why: lots of sites reviewing, reading, and otherwise talking about the fic, for better or worse. My mission doesn't even show up until page 7, when the hits stop all being strictly related to the fic.
So, when something is getting talked about that much, in so many different places, that's got to be Legendary, right?
~Neshomeh
I would accept that as being Legendary. I note that you got those results without quote marks, which is probably the gold standard.
I think there has to be something in there about being known outside its own fandom(s), though. Otherwise, for example, anything My Little Pony related is likely to get an easy ride in, purely because of how large their fandom is (was?). "Blood Raining Night" seems to qualify; so does "My Inner Life" (with the same kind of Google results). Woodsprite of the North, for comparison, is overshadowed by soap. ^_^
hS
You might want to throw in some common-sense rules, too, specifically:
-The Google hits must not all be because of the PPC mission.
-It must be famous in its own right, not just as a sequel/prequel/other story by the same author.
-Everyone in the PPC who has an opinion must agree that it's bad!
hS
It'll sound really self-serving if I do it, with BRN as the yardstick for how to identify a Legendary these days. {= P But mainly, I don't have much time to run a discussion.
~Neshomeh
And I don't know how to resolve the lack of overlap... except, potentially, by incentivizing sharing. People will do a lot just to see what all the fuss is about—or at least, I will. The trick is kicking up enough fuss. ... Which sorta brings us back to square one. Sigh. {= /
Re. PPC Story Awards, yeah, it is a lot of categories. Chances are, one story would probably sweep a few of them each year. The best ones to cut would probably be the "assassination/exorcism/takedown" ones, except that I feel the latter two are pretty important to keep, to make sure non-assassination missions get their time in the sun. Any other ideas on pruning?
Top-heaviness is probably dependent on how many people are writing vs. prolific-ness of each writer; the prolific ones are more likely to get nominated a bunch. Making a list of everything published in the year might help less prolific folks to not get overlooked. Making the list would be a chore, but yes, worth doing.
Maybe "Best AU" could be "Best AU/PPC Multiverse Story"?
[And yes, there will be a Holiday Filk thread at some point, probably next week. {= ) ]
~Neshomeh
... it would be best to see how many stories we're talking about before you decide how many categories need to be trimmed. Which just needs some helpful person to go through the last year of Board pages and pull out... everything... that...
... oh, shards. It's going to be me, isn't it?
Ergh. Well, anyway: if there's only 20 fics written, then 10 categories would probably be overdoing it. If there's 100, we could have 30 and still have non-ranking stories.
hS
So yes, since you're volunteering, I'd be grateful. And hey, then you'll get to have fun making graphs about it, right? {= )
~Neshomeh
I'm working vaguely through it now. For the record, to count as a story, I am arbitrarily saying that something must be:
-Linked to, not directly posted on the Board (though things which are later re-posted as links count).
-Narrative, rather than purely informational (eg, my OFU tests do not count).
-Posted by someone with Permission (so not part of a Permission request, however successful).
hS
The colour is one of the least important factors when you come to choose a car. You want to look at stuff like fuel efficiency, handling, comfort and so on. So, yeah, when buying a car, you shouldn't look at the colour; it's an afterthought (car's perfectly good in all other respects, but only comes in ugly beige? Buy it).
Why don't you assume I said 'you shouldn't read a book just because it's sci-fi, so don't look at the genre at all, just whether reviewers think it's good'?
hS
And so, the Baroness Iximaz prepares to go off on yet another quest that none of the Knights of Plort would dare to undertake. Scarcely one year has passed since she battled against the Cult of Six Roses, said battle having badly damaged the Baroness and broken the bow Rina. Now armed with her remade bow, alternatively named Rina, Aviator, and a name unpronounceable to most not from the lands of Doktaru, Iximaz ventures forth against a vile Marizu of many names, one of which being Raven Way.
The skies over Castle De'endee fill with Air'ihpotre post owls from all over Plort, the letters containing well-wishes for the departing Baroness, offers from practitioners of Beytah to ride beside her on her quest, or inquiries as to her sanity; surely one must be mad to face a Marizu like Raven Way when she had barely recovered from her fight against the Cult of Six Roses!
The following is the letter of the wanderer Filius Caeli:
Esteemed Baroness,
I have recently heard that milady is planning to venture against the Marizu Raven Way. Were I more knowledgeable in the ways of Jakaiar, I would offer my services, but alas! I fear I cannot render my aid in such a fashion. I only hope that Kanun and Spelin protect you, and that your devotion to Jaikaiar does you well in this quest. Know that, as always, I will be there to welcome you on your return.
The best of luck to you, Lady Iximaz.
Signed,
Filius Caeli, Wanderer of Weab, Seeker of Lore
((When I saw that you were planning on taking on My Immortal, this idea came to mind, so here it is. Good luck with sporking yet another Legendary Badfic. Did you buy enough M&Ms for this one? Maybe you should invest in some tea as well.
SOH176))
((Obviously I have no objections, or else I would've said something earlier. Just making that clear in case Baron Me confused things. He's a grump. ~hS))
I actually agree with the esteemed lord Protector — what if word reaches the Marizu?
((BTA is also a grump. He's also concerned about InfoSec.))
I beg pardon for not speaking with Baron Ampelius before, but if Baroness Iximaz is to require any metal working, the Seneschal is here to provide.
"The warmakin' and crusadin' of milady fair is known in song an' tale from 'ere to the Tynee-Vandams. Sayin' as she do march fer the Marizu heartland at the 'ead of an army, with all the exaggeratin' stories as follow such things like fleas on a tatterdemalion, will be dismissed as stories. Wait a year be my counsel, good sir Baron. Wait a year, for milady's phoney war to end. Then strike. Take a few. Take the best. Strike in the night and melt away like morning dew. Make an assassin's work of the fight a battle cannot win."
Well, I'm not setting out to spork this one right away. It'll likely be a year at the least before I tackle it; I want to give my agents some breathing room, not to mention if any mission's ever had to be perfect before, it's this one. So I'm going to be doing a lot of prepping (lol preps geddit) for the mission. Thinking of jokes, coming up with snark, that sort of thing.
...also, this reminds me that I need to figure out how Little Miss Mary fits into Plort lore...
If my Agents or just my beta-reading can be of your service, count me in.
I wouldn't do anything decent with it. Let me paraphrase something:
"Run. Run, you mad woman... and destroy it!"
Legendaries are not good for your health. And for that of your Agents.
I commend your courage, though.
I'm just incredibly stubborn, that's all. ^^;
I'd do it if I only had permission. Go on and take it on.
I'll let you know my opinion ASAP.