Subject: In a universe where everything is awful...
Author:
Posted on: 2017-11-23 09:16:00 UTC
... maybe the minis should be not of monsters, but of the only non-awful thing? Which would be...
... uh...
... aw, c'mon, there must be something!
hS
Takes deep breaths... okay.
Right! Permission! My bios are here, and my prompts are here. One of my prompts is taken from my bit for hS's monthly writing challenge, although it's been cleaned up and revised a bit.
As for badfic... well, Nesh and I were planning to mission the company of thorin oakenshield with future giants, but part of the point of this is to discern my ability to find fic that would make a good mission, so I present a fic I may well be missioning in the future: The Children of Girlyman [NSFW: mostly just suspect language]. It's ostensibly a parody and it's definitely crack, which would be fine, but it's essentially prolonged unfunny chapter-bashing with awkward writing to boot. I think it would make a good mission because it's so straight-up bizarre, and because it would probably frustrate my agents immensely.
Thanks to Hieronymus Graubart, Neshomeh, Tomash, and Calliope for providing feedback, helping me fix my horrific mistakes, and generally doing beta-reading type things.
Whew, you kind of need a hat in this weather...cold and rainy. Only really fun because it's the first really cold and rainy day so far...
*sets Hat firmly on head*
Right. Let's do this!
Prompts: So,, unlike last time I did this, I actually read the prompts first. It was a good choice--they were fun to read, and it was actually more interesting to see the bios after.
The writing is pretty great. I didn't catch any typos, and if there was any misused punctuation it didn't jump out at me. You also used a good number of betas even before hS came in--and, from what I can tell without having read the original version, you were able to take his concrit and edit well with it, which is an important skill to have.
You do sometimes use a few too many short sentences in a row, which gives a choppy feel, but it's not everywhere. Keep an eye on that, or maybe start off getting a beta who'll catch it until you're used to spotting and fixing it (or both! Both is good). One way to catch it yourself might be to read your work over aloud to get a sense of where (and how frequently) the sentences just stop.
Some quick positives! You used some descriptions and details in the second prompt that I really enjoyed. One was the description of a side of the room apparently being "a swamp composed entirely of books, which seemed to have obtained their current placement when a hurricane blew through." I also liked the detail of the 80s console in addition to the RC's console, and, well, this next bit kind of speaks for itself:
After his tenth break along the way, he briefly considered working out how to summon some demons to do it for him. After the twelfth, he was halfway through the equations before he remembered why this was a Bad Idea.
Yes. Tom's home canon intrigues me; you've also managed, between the profiles and the prompts, to give enough details about it to...well, to intrigue me. I look forward to seeing more, especially since it seems to mesh reasonably well with the PPC.
Overall, I enjoyed the prompts. They were written well, apart from the occasional abundance of short sentences and a time or two where the language was a little redundant ("seemingly a swamp [...] which seemed to have obtained," funnily enough). Both should be fine if you keep an eye out for them (or your beta catches them).
Agents: Oh man, the agents. I like them. I like their interaction, I like what I've now learned about Tom's home canon, and I think they probably have a good chance of producing interesting missions. You've also managed to make the prompts and the profiles jive pretty well, which is great!
A few things to point out:
-Tom "has a lasting element of fear regarding any sort of demon"? Setting aside the fact that I would love for him to meet a demon agent from another canon (do we have any active ones anymore?) or even just see different interpretations of them in other canons on missions, this doesn't completely come across in the second prompt. It's possible he's afraid offscreen, but when this is his reaction to finding a demon in his monitor after all...
Tom rolled his eyes. “There’s nothing in there. But if makes you feel better, I’ll run a scan on the thing just to make sure.” He ran his phone over the terminal.
His phone beeped.
Tom sighed. “Of course. Just my bloody luck today. Gloves?”
...it comes across as far more "So the monitor's possessed...must be Tuesday" than "Aah, demon, why." Unless they come in different danger levels, you should keep an eye on that.
-Thoth himself. First of all, I absolutely love the fact that, unlike the majority of PPC agents, he's viewing access to the library as very good payment; it's a nice little twist, and the love of books/knowledge does a lot to make him fit into the PPC world. I also like what you've done to limit him (such as his powers not always working properly). I'm also a bit curious about his 'typically eventful' past, though I suppose I could get that from a wiki. His personality overall looks interesting, though the "look[ing] down on 'mortals' just a bit" is...uh, let's just say he'd be able to find some fellow aliens in HQ who share that with him.
Overall this looks good. Neither agent looks overpowered, they both look interesting, and in terms of how they actually interact, well, I'd read more.
Badfic: I know pretty much nothing about Warhammer...no, that's a lie. I know absolutely nothing about Warhammer past the name and whatever I can conjecture from that. (Also, I'm guessing Warhammer 40k is not the same as just plain Warhammer? Help me out here, guys.) The fic seems pretty tasteless, though--but that's all I can really say about it, beyond that at least the spelling looks alright and it is most definitely a crackfic. If anyone who knows the canon has input, go for it.
When it comes to the crossover fic...uh, good gracious golly me. Ouch. Random bandits! Violence! Gandalf rolling with it! Bad capitalization! And I'm going to stop there because my storytelling sense is starting to hurt. No, I don't know what exactly that means. "Odd addition" is right, though. Also, I don't quite know (and refuse to go back to check) if Gandalf knew what a marine was, but if he did, he shouldn't. At any rate, Thorin shouldn't just be accepting it. It's bad. I look forward to the mission. I shall now go scrub my brain, thanks. (Out of curiosity, which of you first found that...uh...uh...thing?)
Suffice it to say, um, that's pretty bad, and I don't want to see that crossover fic again before it's missioned, and can I go home now? --oh wait. I am home. Pity the dog's not around to pet; perhaps I'll have some hot chocolate instead.
However, before that...a Decision! After all that text, it should probably come as no surprise that I'm going to say Permission Granted. Congratulations! Here is your titanium spork; use it well, and have a Bleeproduct gift basket as well. Also, you are now a Knight of Plort. Long may you battle the forces of the Marizu and...uh...divers other foes of our fair Protectorate. Go forth (and write/celebrate/etc)!
~Zingenmir/Baron Eshakhar
Let me offer you a self-updating guidebook of all the deathtraps in the multiverse to go with this shiny new Permission, new knight.
Still, please do not speak of the... Sigmarines. Unless you want to help us to find more Screamping Skulls to bombard Warhammer World... ;p (What Scape and a pseudo-Egyptian pharaoh said).
That was the correct decision; thank you. ^~
*grumbles about missing "seemingly" and "seemed"* I wasn't looking at that prompt as hard, since it had already been beta'd and was pretty much fine already. Sigh.
Re. that crossover: I know, right?! I found that one; that's why I advised Thoth to find another one for the purposes of Permission. But seriously, that thing is just textbook Stu. I'm tickled that there are actual Random Bandits Who Pop Out of Nowhere, too. It's gonna be fun. ^^
~Neshomeh
Weeeeeell, technically we might have one: Hejsdfnk Wwerbj, who speaks only Old High Demonic which his Universal Translator just cannot translate right. But there's, y'know, some irregularity about his canonicity... ^~
Warhammer 40K is probably the 'primary' part of the canon; it's set in the 40th millennium and involves lots of very miserable people killing each other in SPAAAAaaaace. Warhammer [nothing] is a fantasy version; I don't really know much about it. So yes, they're different, but I think most people who say 'Warhammer' have a mental '40K' tacked on the end.
And, Thoth: congratulations! (Snuck in at the end so as not to spoil Zing's surprise. ^^) I do intend to look over the prompts a second time to comment on the changes (insofar as I can remember what it was like before... I said I was tired!); possibly tomorrow, depending on how things go.hS Huinesoron, Baron of Plort, of uncertain domicile
In the beginning, there was Warhammer. Then there was 40k. (Then there was AoS, but we're trying to keep this simple).
Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k are actually pretty different. They share a category on The Pit, but the universes, while sharing many aspects — 40k started as Warhammer IN SPAAACE — have diverged radically in tone and content. Fantasy tends to be a bit lighter in general, from what I've heard (I'm really not a WHF fan...)
Most people, at least here in 'Murica, tack 40k on the end of any reference to Warhammer. This is a good way to annoy Fantasy fans, especially the really old ones. After they complain, you can point out that their setting was annihilated and their game replaced by AoS. You can actually see them tense. This is great fun. Never do it.
Without even clicking on the link, too. That was hilarious.
I was personally thinking of HonorH's Buffyverse Honorificus, whose author is definitely not still active (I mean, I'd love to be proven wrong here, but it seems unlikely). After that, I thought of Supernatural, but outside of the 2013 Blackout I don't believe there are any SPN demons in HQ (which, uh, good. That sounds terrifying).
I brought up the Warhammer/Warhammer 40k bit because the non-crossover badfic is placed in the 'Warhammer' category while the crossover goes for 'Warhammer 40k'. Neither really sound like my thing, but thanks for clarifying.
Looking forward to seeing your comments on the changes; should be interesting.
~Z, who technically has a half-finished Plort interlude in among the various unfinished interludes on her GDrive and should probably finish it sometime soonish
Okay, after hS pointed out a large number of issues that I really should have noticed before submitting this the first time around (that's not even an exaggeration. I honestly am amazed I missed them. D'oh!), I made some fairly heavy edits to that prompt to try and correct them. Generally speaking, I tried to make things clearer and easier to understand, especially to those unfamiliar with the home cannons of my characters (again, d'oh!). I also tried to do more to explain Thoth's motivations in all this, and just generally have everything make more sense.
The actual links to the bios and prompts are unchanged, so you can find those in my original post. Don't worry, the edits are there: I checked.
Thanks to Neshomeh for acting as beta for this latest round of revisions, and for generally being Really Nice about the whole thing. Thanks to hS for posting his aforementioned (and previously seen here!) concrit, which kicked all this off, and resulted in something that I think is a lot more solid than my previous effort.
I've just read through your prompts and bios; I'm on mobile right now, but I'm hoping to type up my thoughts sometime later today, when I'm home and have an actual keyboard. So...stay tuned.
~Z
I'm not even the one asking for Permission—but I have a stake in the outcome, so...?
~Neshomeh
I thought that was more of a Blood Angels thing, not a Thousand Sons one. [/40K joke]
Since I know it's weird that I offered the first comments but didn't come back to actually put a hat on, let me just say that I was considering doing just that when Zingenmir posted and got me off the hook.
hS
I don't have my stake in Thoth, that's ridiculous. There's no room between my Tzeenchian claws.
^_~
~Neshomeh is part of the 40k fandom now. This is a thing that has happened.
I kinda don't want to think about it, because everything in 40k is terrifying and there are no choices that are obviously better than any others to me.
I'm sort of maybe amused by the idea of Nurglings, because all of that ilk are apparently incredibly cheerful, which could be funny? And since they'd be minis, you wouldn't have to worry about horrible diseases. Maybe just some mild nausea or headaches or something if you get too many of them in one place.
But seriously, I have no idea what would make the most sense or be good.
~Neshomeh
... maybe the minis should be not of monsters, but of the only non-awful thing? Which would be...
... uh...
... aw, c'mon, there must be something!
hS
Apparently these alligator-cows are the most ubiquitous meat source in the galaxy. Sure, they're territorial and belligerent, but that would make them excellent OFU guards. {= D
~Neshomeh
I was going to say what sort of Daemon depends on what you misspelled, but... well, all misspellings are due to laziness and/or[1] apathy, to some extent. So mini-nurgling might just fit. It is still to be decided.
1: which one? I can't be bothered to work it out, and I don't care.
That's actually part of why I posted--didn't feel like letting my notes go to waste. Well, I say notes; it's actually screenshots. But now it's becoming a write-up. So.
Also, ow, my brain still hurts from looking at the crossover badfic. Why.
~Z is going back to writing
Also, when I say writing, I mean the write-up.
And I'm now going to quit (with correcting myself) while I'm not too far behind.
I'm on it. Sorry, especially to Thoth!
~Z
Mostly due to tiredness; I haven't got the focus to give a proper opinion.
That said, I have read the prompts (and the bios, but the prompts take priority), and have a few comments:
-I actually got the first few paragraphs tangled up in my head, assuming the figure already in the RC was the Astartes (wait, is that the singular?). Might be worth glancing over to see if you could clear it up for when people don't already know that Thoth is a Space Marine.
-I feel like the sudden appearance of a Chaos Space Marine at your door would provoke a bit more of a reaction than a stare, a demand for his identity, and pulling a gun. Like... running and screaming? If he recognises a Thousand Son, he knows that they're all either powerful psykers or lethal automota (did I get that right?), and also that they're evil; that's not something you just point a gun at.
-Thoth's 'haha lol I can read your mind' sounds... not at all like a Space Marine, and especially not one that's served in the armies of literal demons for ten millennia. In fact, your whole description of him seems to come out as 'a Chaos Space Marine in name alone'. He's not evil, he just has to look to other people to realign his moral compass. He's trying to be good, which... doesn't sound like a CSM? Assuming that he has some reason to work for the PPC, why isn't he just unapologetically yoinking information out of people's heads when he needs it?
I'm sure you have an answer to this. But your stories - and your bios - don't even hint at it. Other than the single mindreading, Thoth could be a Roman Legionary with no changes apart from his appearance.
-It's always good to consider your audience. The only way someone can know from his introduction in the first prompt that Thoth is a Thousand Son is if they recognise his armour or the word 'Athanaean'. The only way they can even know he's a Space Marine is if they recognise the word 'Astartes', which most people won't. You mention the Changer of Ways, but don't say anything that's obviously evil.
Put another way: the term 'Chaos Space Marine' is a useful one for a reason. Skating around it is okay if you put something else there to convey the same impression, but non-Warhammer fans aren't going to pick up on any of what you want them to from that scene.
~
Like I say, abstaining. But I don't think Thoth sounds the least bit like a Chaos Space Marine, and I'd think twice before granting Permission based on him even if I was awake enough.
hS
PS: But maybe I'm wrong! Go ahead and show me how, I love being wrong. ^_^
Hi hS! Thanks for the feedback. The majority of it is sensible - some revisions are definitely in order to make the fic more comprehensible.
As for why Thoth's acting the way he is... That is explicable, IMO. But I haven't made it very clear, so that's also worth fixing.