Subject: I actually started by using capitalization minis.
Author:
Posted on: 2015-11-01 22:24:00 UTC
(Though the first mini I encountered, Mcgonagoll, was a 'traditional' mini.)
I don't remember what exactly caused me to switch over; possibly a combination of a similar discussion to this one, and a fic I'd been planning on sporking that couldn't seem to capitalize anything, and too many minis are no fun. :P
A while ago, I remember reading this Deltora Quest sporking: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15af7DMejPsGlnfm6jYh1EdJVEcVsyT7FOsYySjirjAA/edit?hl=enUS
One of the things that irked me, however, was the presence of a mini, specifically shadow lord. Seeing as the Shadow Lord is a specific character, this should have spawned a mini, but it was never mentioned. As such, I am adopting this creature myself, and I'll describe what it is in the introduction for my Agents.
Which brings me to my next topic: I need betas for my fic. Link is here: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z4FI6zQ4EbPb51Oohxne4trTBbjCnl5pQ87LFL44/edit?usp=sharing">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z4FI6zQ4EbPb51Oohxne4trTBbjCnl_5pQ87LFL44/edit?usp=sharing
I guess it's better then never chiming in, eh?
Sorry for the late reply, I don't keep up with the Board all the time. I was surprised to see me mentioned at all :P
Re-reading my old mission, aside from the usual cringing, and looking over some old notes was an interesting experience. I did use one capitalization Mini, a Jurassic Park one, but aside from that one early on, I decided not to use them for the most part. During a mission, at least when I wrote them, I find ones with silly names like Brandyduck, Gordor, Grimli, etc, etc to be much more interesting to have pop up.
It's also far funnier to see a name like Legoless pop up multiple times in a mission, since the odds of it happening are a lot lower then legolas.
So, I guess that's my stance on minis. Hopefully I didn't ramble on my reasoning too much.
In any case, I don't think I will go back and change it to add it, since I would have scooped it the first time anyhow. Having one-of-a-kind things was something I was all about back then, as silly as it seems now. Though I did go over the doc, and fix a few typos, and generally sweep it up a bit. Rather embarrassed with myself it needed them.
Though, once you get permission, feel free to do a mission there! The section in the Pit is /ripe/ with stinkers, including one with a country above the clouds! : )
I also agree with what a mini would be. Originally I was going to do some more missions there, but eventually decided not to, for whatever reason.
Caddy-Shack, who always enjoys finding a fellow fan of something
I'll drop the mini, but I'll be sure to check out this "Pit," whatever that is-one of the things I love about Deltora is that there are so many fun and imaginative ways to kill things! Personally, I just find the idea of minis to be funny, and the idea of each one being even slightly different is probably going to be a big part of my writing.
Sorry about that, The Pit of Voles is a slang term for Fanfiction . net.
Of course, there are other sites with fics. Archive of our own, Quitiv, and so on. Though I find FF.N has the best chances of finding badfic.
And yes! Deltora is a hilariously dangerous place. Then again, the author is from Australia, so I guess she writes about what she knows. Though don't feed too many Sues to any particular creature. Poor Cthulhu was getting fat from them, way back.
I didn't know there was going to be another series, though I guess it's something to look forward to. I haven't read the Three Doors series yet, mainly because I live in the woods far from book outlets, but a backstory to the Shadow Lord, and more of the world of the books is my main reason for wanting to read them.
The one (current) fanfic I have out is a Deltora Quest one, actually. Kind of left untouched since I did the first chapter, but I'll eventually get to it. The idea behind it was if the books were a DnD campaign. DM of the Rings inspired, of course. I figured it fits, since there are only a small number of (non-puzzle) fights to level with, and loot is sparse.
Have you seen the anime?
I've just read the books.
Also, the fact that the author's Australian makes a lot of sense-as Tv Tropes put it, Deltora's basically the fantasy equivalent of it. (Although I would personally nominate either the Vorox homeworld from Fading Suns, planet Fenrir from WH40K, Catachan from WH40K, or Zerus from Starcraft for that role.)
As for overfeeding, that's another beautiful thing about Deltora: there's a very low chance for any overfeeding to occur because there's a) a lot of different creatures that could happen upon a Sue, b) thousands of specimens of each species, meaning that there's a very low chance of the same individual getting a meal multiple times, and c) if any DO get fat and start associating sapient creatures with food, they won't last very long against the local bags of crazy that are the natives of Deltora.
Meta-wise, it's also so that it doesn't become routine to just dump corpses in one place, though I suppose it' not an issue in a fandom with less missions. Mount Doom might have glitter coming from it, but I doubt the Maze of the Beast will be glittering brightly anytime soon.
... Though that would certainly make the whole experience more unpleasant.
It's been so long I've forgotten how fun it is to think up which methods are fun for the end of a Sue.
I just now got around to clicking this, and the first thing I see is a would-be PPC mission. Don't you think it might be necessary to, you know, get Permission first?
But my point still stands.
There's been debate in the past over whether capitalization minis even count; I know I'll usually skip them, because they're just boring.
But more than that: if a PPC author has chosen not to use a certain feature - such as minis - shouldn't you respect that decision, rather than making it for them? Would you also say 'seeing as OC #3 wasn't that bad, they should have been recruited, but it was never mentioned. As such, I am adopting them for myself'? Or 'seeing as Agent #2 is a former Mary Sue, they should suffer from occasional regressions to their Suvian personality, but this was never mentioned. As such, I am declaring that they are now permanently in FicPsych for repressing it for so long'?
I don't think that mucking with other PPC writers' stories like that is... well, polite.
hS
PS: As per usual, just my opinion, do with it what you will, etc.
Isn't the ability to get constructive criticism for your work a big part of this community? If an error is seen, don't other members have the right to mention it? And if we don't won't that kinda make us hypocrites?
Regardless, I'll drop the idea of the mini-it would have been an Ak-baba, by the way: a monster bird used by the Deltora Series' main villain, the Shadow Lord, to bring the local dragons almost to extinction. I thought it would be fitting, considering what it's a mini of.
I do it all the time, pointing out SPaG and continuity errors, and occasional a confusing narration or lack of canon knowledge, in recently published stories, so that the author(s) can correct their mistakes or explain their choices when I wasn’t aware that there is a choice.
It’s a bit different with older missions, where the author isn’t around anymore. You may argue that others still can learn from your concrit, even if the author never sees your comment, and that we should acknowledge that the PPC isn’t infallible. (I actually did this with my very first comment on this board.) But then you should be sure that there really is a mistake.
Thinking that every lack of required capitalization should spawn a mini that should be caught may be excusable, since you apparently weren’t around when this was discussed on the board, and the wiki doesn’t say that there is an unresolved dispute. Implying that you intend to rewrite history and retroactively catch shadow lord feels like you are sporking a PPC mission, and, considering that we only spork the most awful fics, this is a Bad Idea that should be restricted to the Badfic Games. So I’m glad you dropped the idea.
HG
Concrit would involve getting in touch with Caddy-shack and suggesting politely that you feel he could improve his work by including the mini. It would also involve acknowledging that this is just your opinion and not an objective matter of error.
What you're doing is attempting to go over his head and retcon his subjective, legitimate style choice without his knowledge. I agree that that's pretty rude. Trying to play it off as concrit is very bad form indeed. {= /
~Neshomeh
Capitalization aside, the rules according to the wiki are clear: Minis are named, decided, chosen, whatever, by the first person to write a mission in that continuum, or the creator of a continuum's OFU. Seeing as how no known OFU exists for Deltora Quest (To my, and apparently anyone else's knowledge) then the only person who can create the first Deltora Quest mini is the first person to write a mission featuring them. Since this fellow sporker never wrote about the mini, nobody, and I mean NOBODY, can decide what the mini will be until we see one in a sporking. The wiki's page on minis is also clear that it is misspellings that make minis, while saying nothing about capitalization. The former is spelling, obviously, while the latter is grammar.
I don't mean to 'bother by the book' so to speak, but I just felt that a post featuring the rules on the wiki might be helpful if this will be debated.
I always felt like there is something off with capitalization minis, but I couldn’t put my finger onto it.
It’s also noteworthy that The Official Fanfiction University of Middle-earth, the canon source for the concept of minis, doesn’t have any capitalization minis, but it does have other representations of bad writing, like Long Table Elrond (spawned by a lack of punctuation) or Ferry God Mother (spawned by a misspelling, but not of a name).
HG
I know that the first-recorded Minecraft minis were smite, fire aspect, Creeper, and fire-aspect. Seeing as the first three are capitalization errors, I thought that the same would apply to the one in the Deltora Quest badfic.
I'm just posting what I found in regards to what the rules regarding minis were. I honestly don't care whether it's misspellings or miscapitalization that produces a mini. I really just wanted to stop a potential pointless discussion that could be resolved by simply having a set of rules posted. As I said before, I have no real stake in this, and therefore, no opinion. If you want to try to change the rules, be my guest. As long as I don't have to deal with a new mini every time something fails to be capitalized, I don't care. Having the option would be pretty nice, though.
Some authors (like me) choose to use capitalization minis, while others (like Iximaz) don't.
But hm. That is an interesting idea, about spelling vs grammar.
Also, now I'm wondering what TOS did, and what the early spin-offs did...and what the breakdown is for all the spin-offs...guys, can this be a question on the next census? Whether or not you use capitalization minis? It'd be interesting to see the results.
Also! Has anyone ever started out doing one and then switched? I'm getting really curious about this. There are so many interesting questions to ask!
~DF, who should really continue with homework now
A quick search for "mini” results only in
Isuludur – Mission 9
Hadlir and Aira (actually a mini-Sue) – Mission 13
Traduil, Elrind and Boromire (adopted from OFUM) – Mission 18
Oh, and I remember Aragon in Mission 3, but he was some kind of noble gas, because Jay and Acacia didn’t know about OFUM yet.
Apparently Jay and Acacia weren’t eager to catch minis, or they missioned mostly stories where they didn’t find any.
Also, I don’t remember any capitalization minis in OFUM. They are probably too minuscule to serve as security staff.
HG
(Though the first mini I encountered, Mcgonagoll, was a 'traditional' mini.)
I don't remember what exactly caused me to switch over; possibly a combination of a similar discussion to this one, and a fic I'd been planning on sporking that couldn't seem to capitalize anything, and too many minis are no fun. :P
Mind you, now I kind of want to do a mission where the agents end up basically drowning in minis, a la Kirk in "The Trouble with Tribbles". It could be hilarious.
D'you remember which fic that was? The one that didn't capitalize anything much? I'm curious to know which mission that is, now.
~DF
...it tends to work as 'author's choice'. I personally do use capitalization minis, but I co-write with people who don't (mostly for convenience, I think). And what we tend to do here with published missions, unless there's something very problematic in them (generally not to do with minis, in my experience) and they were just published pretty recently, is to leave them be (unless the author is around and wants, of their own volition, to change it).
If the author of the first Deltora Quest mission (which, heyy! I used to read that! I don't remember much about it, but it was fun!) made the decision not to use capitalization minis--that was their choice, and we can't change it after the fact. Or, at least, it certainly seems like an extremely rude thing to do, especially without talking to the author (who, it seems, is Caddy-shack, which is awesome, I have a mission to read or reread now!) about it and getting their view on it. If you want your agents to have Deltora minis--why not get Permission and write a second mission set there, which establishes what the minis are? It's a good deal more polite, not to mention more usual for the PPC (as far as I know, old(er)bies can feel free to confirm or deny), and, really, is more polite than suggesting even in-universe that Agents Cadmar, Maria, and Mark just happened to miss a mini. Especially since you're not, to my knowledge, working with Caddy-shack on this (or even discussing it). How would you feel if someone did that to your agents, over a decision you made? If someone's agents were introduced together with, say, a mini blinking out of existence because their author didn't agree with you that capitalization minis should be used?
Or, to make this a bit more to the point: pretend you've written the first mission for a canon. You chose not to create the new mini type because you don't use capitalization minis, or chose not to for this mission. Later, someone decides--without talking to you first--that they don't like this decision you made; instead of writing their own mission to that canon and creating the mini-type, they have the capitalization mini appear in HQ, with the acknowledgement that that canon suddenly has a mini-type, and say outright through their agents that your agents must have missed the mini or something. Would you seriously be okay with this? Would you seriously not find this rude, or potentially lazy (in the sense that this person could have gone looking for a fic to mission that uses the same mini, if they were attached to using that particular one, or could have had their agents be the first to officially meet said minis, which could be pretty exciting to write and to read)?
That's my take on it: it seems rude, quite unusual, and even rather lazy to create a mini-type--and a mini--this way. Capitalization minis are not used by everyone; retroactively editing around someone else's mission in this way seems rude, especially since it feels kind of insulting to the agents who did the mission; and the more polite--and, to my knowledge, more usual--thing to do would be to simply write a mission and create the mini-type yourself that way. And I'll stop there; I think I've said everything I want to, and have even summed it up again at the end. Night, all.
~DF
Some people like to count capitalization errors, and others don't. It's not a hard and fast rule, but respecting the original author's decision is.
As for my personal mini protocol: I won't name a new mini type for a fic that only features capitalization errors in the proper names. If, however, at least one "traditional" mini appears in that mission, then I go ahead and count the capitalization errors as well, to maximize adoption potential. So, in my first mission, I passed over making a mini out of "fire chief", which is spelled "fire-chief" in Fahrenheit 451 (or vice versa; can't look it up on my phone) to avoid making a single mini for a very minor canon that sees almost no attention. The same could be said for Epic Mickey, but my third mission featured actual typos of proper names, so I had no choice but to create a mini—and included the capitalization typos as well, to beef up the list of potential adoptions.
—doctorlit hopes this didn't get confusing. He is known micromanage things.