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Hey Huinesoron,
Inline:
> Now, onto the request itself. I'm going to go through this in
> order and comment on what I see:
Thank you for having a look at my piece and approaching it with an open mind. I would really like to know what you felt about the story itself, especially with respect to John and Ayumi's chemistry and the way they interacted, since I haven't written this pair of characters before. Much of this was very off-the-cuff, so I'm eager to hear feedback on it.
> -Your need to put PGP signatures on everything feels kind of l
> ike a lack of trust in the PPC. Okay, you use Tor - that's not
> actually banned. But assuming that we'll look at a troll claim
> ing to be you and go 'onoes we must have misjudged TripleDES a
> ll this time BANBANBAN' is... strange? Because we're not actua
> lly sitting here looking for any excuse to ban you.
The reason I put PGP signatures on everything is not because I distrust the PPC, it is because I do not trust other users on Tor.
What my worry is, may be something like a user such as Bramadin, who had previously attempted to claim my identity and pose as me, or perhaps some Internet troll coming in and misbehaving while trying to pose as me. It would be fairly difficult to ban an abusive user that also uses Tor without banning me in the process as well.
I understand the risks of using Tor to access public sites, and have come to expect that occasionally, Tor may be blacklisted on sites I visit because of abuse or spam. If that does happen, I'll understand and won't take it personally, and will return when all has settled down (although I might try to contact you by E-mail to see if everything is alright first, or I might wait for an "all-clear" from someone in the PPC before I try to come back).
The PGP signatures are a little bit of insurance. They're a technological guarantee that while someone may be able to steal my screen name, they won't be able to steal my online identity with you guys, so long as you guys have the real key that belongs to the real me. [See Footnote 1]
If you guys have my real, genuine key, you'd be able to tell immediately something is amiss if the signature verifies to another key, or if the signature fails to verify and gives a "BAD SIGNATURE from TripleDES!" error. This has the effect of being able to reduce the question of security down to two factors: the security of my computer, and the security of yours.
It's a bit overkill, but, as you guys may have noticed, senseless overkill is a bit of a pattern with me.
> -Given that people may be using either a phone or a browser, i
> t's usually better to provide something that can be read on ei
> ther. Google Docs work perfectly for this, since they adjust t
> o the screen width. Your Permission Request is very difficult
> to read on the PC. It's also hard to copy and paste quotes fro
> m, since things like linebreaks don't show up at all on the co
> py.
Sure. Thoth had a suggestion below, so I'll add another response to theirs, and I'll address this there.
> -The reason for the character bios being requested at 200 word
> s is that you shouldn't need to put much in them. The purpose
> of the bios is to check that you haven't slipped something Suv
> ian into the backstory or powers that doesn't show up in the w
> riting sample. That's it. It's not so we get their entire life
> story.
No problem, I'll try to keep things brief from this point on if asked.
> -'Because I don’t feel right bullying other people over their
> Mary Sues...' This is an immediate warning bell for me. Do you
> think the PPC is about bullying people? In your explanation to
> Iximaz, you use language such as 'taking huge amounts of flak
> and ridicule from someone anonymous', which suggests you kind
> of do.
>
> That isn't what we do. The PPC community is very clear about t
> he distinction between authors and their characters. Comment o
> n the characters doing stupid things, but never say a word abo
> ut the authors. And that's not in a 'nudge nudge, that Sue is
> so badly written she probably lived in her mother's basement i
> n a previous life, NOT TALKING ABOUT THE WRITER hehe' sense -
> it's that we recognise that writing is an art form, and one th
> at takes practice. We were all bad writers once, and many of u
> s have PPC'd our own stories for it. That doesn't say anything
> about us as people, and if anyone thinks that poking fun at ba
> dfics is a stand-in for mocking the authors, I advise them to
> think again - several times.
I understand your concern with the idea of bullying other people over their Mary Sues. I've actually followed the PPC for a little bit longer than I have let on up until now. I remember reading an article that Neshomeh had written sometime ago in response to accusations of cyberbullying. If my memory serves it was a response to a certain "Bosette" that had argued that writing Mary Sues was empowering to women. I recall it being from maybe around mid 2010 originally although I know that it may have been brought up a lot, since it's appeared several times sense.
With this in mind: I want to stress that I intend to homebrew my own badfic simply because I want to be able to err on the side of caution. This way, there can be **no possible way** I could ever be construed as having been engaging in cyberbullying, since there would be no perceptible target, except a fictional author, that doesn't exist.
It's overkill, but again, overkill is just in my nature.
> (Also, I realise you're into the crypto thing, but honestly? I
> t's ridiculously easy to find my name on the internet, but I'd
> still be 'anonymous to the majority of bad fic authors'. So is
> every reviewer on Fanfiction.net. Most people don't try and fi
> nd out who's 'really' talking to them.)
I tend to be a little bit cautious, that's all.
> -Your first agent is a canon character (indeed, the main prota
> gonist), albeit in a fiction canon. There go the alarm bells a
> gain. Have you read Jasper Fforde's Jurisfiction books? Becaus
> e it seems like your notion of how the world of fiction works
> is closer to that than to the PPC's model. You talk about John
> Smith has since sought work as a fictional character in other
> venues, but in the PPC multiverse, canon characters don't get
> to wander off when their series ends. They exist in closed uni
> verses - 'realised' to a greater or lesser extent, but always
> there. They don't move between them, and they don't 'notice' w
> hen new installments come out - that's just their timeline, fo
> r all it's still being written.
>
> -Your second agent is also a canon character, and has exactly
> the same issues: she exists in a world where she can wander be
> tween fiction at will, and is 'out of work' since her show's c
> ancellation.
I have actually not read Jurisfiction! I will have to.
I wanted to take the metafiction approach since I believed that taking a much more bold-facedly meta approach would allow for characters to also be show more in the way of self-awareness. It would make breaking the fourth wall a little bit easier, and I thought that having been from failed continuities themselves could also give them some idea of what happens when the creative process slides downhill. I've noticed that several other writers use redeemed or atoning Sues as agents and thought to take it to something of a next step. If this is incompatible with the current continuity though, I understand and will take this into account.
> -You also talk about 'a character shield which is powered by t
> wo AAA batteries... protects a character from all harm... only
> for the hero designated by the writers'. Again, this assumes a
> completely different worldview than that used by the PPC: one
> in which writers wander into their fiction, and are known by t
> heir creations (and can issue technology to an entire genre, s
> omehow). I'll admit it's an amusing idea, and would work pefec
> tly in Jurisfiction, but not in the PPC.
One of my major sources of inspiration for this was *The Last Action Hero.* The idea of an Action Hero and his Archnemesis winding up in the real world, where the rules aren't decided by the pen of the author and the Hero isn't going to triumph all the time just because of authorial fiat really appealed to me. I thought the same could be applied to a Mary Sue. After all, I feel that John Smith himself would, in his home continuity, be walking a very fine line himself. There are after all, many similarities between an Action Movie Hero, and a Mary Sue.
> -You wrote over 500 words on their car. Here is what you actua
> lly needed to write: 'Instead of a normal Response Centre, Joh
> n and Ayumi use an old car, to make them more like a buddy cop
> movie'. That's what I mean by overkill. :)
Sure.
> -If your agents are in the Department of Floaters, their depar
> tment head is the Floating Hyacinth, who isn't prone to yellin
> g. 'the trope of an angry, yelling police chief' may well be c
> ommon, but it would be a big change to the PPC canon.
>
> -The Department of Floaters isn't just about what canon they w
> ork in - it's about what type of missions they tackle. From th
> e All-Purpose Department wiki page:
>
> The All-Purpose Department contains agents who are willing to
> work in only one fandom but accept all types of missions. Com
> pare to the Department of Floaters, whose agents may work in
> any fandom and take any type of mission, and the DMS and DBS'
> s Freelance Divisions, whose agents may work in any fandom but
> only do assassinations or exorcisms, respectively.
>
> So if you're only intending to tackle Mary-Sues, pop them in
> DMS-Freelance instead.
Will do!
> -Surprisingly, I have no problem with the idea of a portalling
> car. I'm not sure what the 'real' effect of the travel montage
> is, though - what do John and Ayumi actually experience? Do th
> ey sit in the car and watch it play out on the screen? Do they
> get teleported from scene to scene?
The effects of travel montages and what the characters experience actually were a bit of a joke even before I thought of this series. For instance, if the travel montage is meant to represent a long period of time where the characters are boarding a flight, then why do they pick up the conversation that they were having before the trip back up immediatey from where they left off the moment they get off the plane or the montage ends? My guess is that when that happens, travel montages are very nearly instant to the characters, or take *exactly* the same time they take us, the audience, to watch them occur!
> -'Typical for police dramas, both Ayumi and John carry badges.
> ' Uh... what canon are you writing for, again? Because it does
> n't sound like you want to write for the PPC at all.
>
> -I'm looking through the 'writing sample', and... you're not w
> riting the PPC. You don't mention anything from the PPC. Other
> than 'killing badfic', your story has nothing to do with the P
> PC.
>
> So... good news! To write a buddy cop show about John and Ayum
> i, badfic police extraordinaire, their quirky old car, and the
> ir shouty Chief who wants Their Badges And Guns You're Off The
> Case, you don't need Permission! :D You can write it, post it
> somewhere (I recommend fanfiction.net, though some prefer Arch
> ive of Our Own), and let people read it! I'm sure there are pe
> ople here in the PPC who'd love to beta it for you - folks who
> se interests include the intersection of anime and action - an
> d we'd be happy for you to plug it on the Board when it's up s
> o we can take a look.
If you guys are going to be OK with me publishing here, I'd really like to, PPC spinoff or not. If need be, I'll preface my stuff with a disclaimer stating that Watanabe & Smith is not a part of PPC Continuity, so that way there can be no confusion at all. After all, if I've got a disclaimer stating that the stunt driving that I haven't written yet isn't realistic there's always room for more disclaimers or notes.
> But it's not a PPC story, so it doesn't need PPC Permission. C
> ase... closed.
Alright, I'll bear that in mind.
Thank you very much. I'll get to work immediately.
~3DES.
Footnote 1: A determined troll could create a counterfeit key, upload it to the keyserver, sign messages with it, present the counterfeit key to you guys as the real one, and if nobody bothers to check the signatures, then they might be able to pass off as me to someone who doesn't check the signatures. An even more determined attacker might upload thousands of counterfeit keys to the keyserver all with the identity "TripleDES" on them as a crude form of a denial-of-service attack. A very, VERY determined attacker could hijack the DNS (not usually something I would trust your average pissed off fanficcer to be capable of doing, but it's not hard since DNS wasn't ever meant to be secure) when you attempt to look back and see if the signing key has changed and verify it against the original fingerprint I posted with messages of their own, which would be able to trick anyone who hadn't obtained my genuine, original public key. An adversary with state-level resources could spend a lot of computing power and time to generate a key that produces a fingerprint collision since PGP uses SHA-1 for the key fingerprints, but my threat model doesn't at this moment account for that kind of an attack. Until a sufficiently powerful computer that can efficiently solve the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem or my computer's cryptographically secure random number generator suffers a nonce collision since I use ECDSA which consumes randomness to make each signature, I do not believe crypto, Tor, or protocols to be the weak link in my own security.
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