Subject: Why do we need Serious Business again?
Author:
Posted on: 2013-07-01 15:06:00 UTC
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the "Must Have" list boil down to a pair of Agents, a CAD, an Activator, and a Sue meddling with canon?
So. In the event that the PPC went to the quiet little resort town of Silent Hill, Maine...
- What has OOC resistance? Do the monsters have OOC immunity? The reason I reckon that the monsters do is that they're creations of the town, which is a sentient, deific force in its own right.
- Would the infamous sirens make a good substitute for bells in an exorcism?
- How much would the Flowers disapprove of passing off Sues to Pyramid Head?
- If the town REALLY hates the Sue, would it do the sirens for us?
- Should anything or anyone other than the town itself be aware of the PPC? Like, say, Alessa Gillespie or Walter Sullivan.
- Would particularly crazy/evil agents draw the attention of the town? Or would it just give then a pass because a) nothing it can do is worse than the agents just being on duty, and b) they're basically getting rid of the town's warts (Read: Sues)?
This isn't solely addressed to you, Voyd, but rather to everyone: What is the deal with making characters OOC resistant/immune lately?
I'm confused, and slightly worried, because this isn't a thing that has ever been common or required at all, but now it seems like people are assuming this is something that Must Exist in every continuum—and worse, that it's Serious PPC Business instead of an odd little quirk of fanfic that's occasionally good for laughs. In just the last couple of months or so, I've seen questions like this regarding Bionicle, Star Trek, Doctor Who, and now this. To me, that constitutes a trend. So... where is this coming from all of a sudden, and why? O.o
~Neshomeh
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the "Must Have" list boil down to a pair of Agents, a CAD, an Activator, and a Sue meddling with canon?
A Sue is not required, just horrible canon-mangling writing. Also, some agents don't even lean on the CADs that much. {= )
~Neshomeh
The way it looks to me:
Nesh: Serious question people!
hS: Conspiracy theory!
Rest of the Board: YAY CONSPIRACY THEORY!
So I will answer the serious question, because I too have seen that trend.
As the person who brought it up for Star Trek, I can explain why: We want our favorite characters to be special. Not Suvian-special, but their own kind of special. We want them to be able to retain what we love about them even in an environment that tends to suck that away. And if the character is particularly strong in canon, we like to think that they'd stay that way, even if they don't.
And the current writings on OOC Resistance/Immunity are...well, they leave it open. You maintain that this comes from being ignored in badfic, and I agree, but this is from the page on OOC Resistance: "Unusual wisdom or magical power, especially experience with mind-control or illusions, may allow a character to see through the Sue's deception. Deities and demideities, when they are not outright OOC immune, are usually OOC resistant by default." I was going off the "experience with mind control" thing for Picard. Many characters have magical powers and many continua have god-like beings.
So, we have a tendency to protect our favorite characters and are given a broad definition that allows many characters in. Can you blame people for asking questions?
Bluntly, the definition you told me doesn't go with the rest of the wiki. I agree with your definition because because I know characters that are strong in canon are warped in badfic. For example, Vulcans would be OOC-Resistant by the "unusual powers" bit, but I know for a fact that Suethors have a pathological inability to write Vulcans in character. (I think it has to do with the logic thing.) But Elrond is listed as OOC-Resistant, and how many times have we seen him agree to Tenth Walkers? He doesn't seem resistant to me, and I think that he only is because he's awesome and people want him to be, and the definition is open to that interpretation.
Thank you for addressing the question. {= )
So, basically what I'm hearing is that the wiki is wrong and should be fixed so as not to further mislead people who haven't actually read the source material.
I definitely get the tendency to want to protect and promote our favorite characters, and I agree some of that was going on with Elrond, known favorite of Agent Jay. However, IIRC, Elrond being OOC resistant in the Original Series didn't imply that the Sues couldn't have their way with him, but simply that he was aware of it to some degree and remained in control just enough to faintly show his confusion/displeasure as he mouthed his idiotic lines. OOC resistance does not equal an ability to avoid or throw off Sueish control if it's directed at the character in question—that may be the key thing that should be cleared up.
I don't blame anyone for asking questions. Asking questions is good! That's how we learn! What strikes me about this is several people asking much the same questions in a relatively small timespan, which looks like a trend and makes me wonder what prompted it. That wiki article has been there for longer than the past couple of months, so what I'm really curious about is: why is this a big thing all of a sudden?
~Neshomeh
(With a bit of a cross-fandom slip...)
The Doctor: With a little bit of jiggery pokery...
Rose Tyler: Is that a technical term, jiggery pokery?
The Doctor: Yeah, I came first in jiggery pokery. What about you?
Rose Tyler: No, I failed hullabaloo.
-'The End of the World', Ninth Doctor TV story
"Hullabaloo?" asked Rose, frowning at the PPC Agent. "No, I failed hullabaloo..."
-'DMS: Slippery Slope', by Lacksidacksical
"Don't be ridiculous," Agent Morrigan snorted. "Rose can't help us - she didn't even pass hullabaloo!"
-'DIC: Round The Bend', by Oaken Thorinshield
Rose Tyler is a companion of the ninth incarnation of the Doctor. ==Education== Rose is unapologetic about her low level of education, declaring at different times that she has not passed her A-levels, and that she failed her course in hullabaloo.
-'Rose Tyler' wiki entry by Lacksidacksical
"You would have failed hullabaloo too!" Rose spluttered at Agent Carpace. "Do you know how much work that course took?"
-'DBS: Topsy-Survy', by Summertide
So is hullabaloo a prerequisite for jiggery pokery on Earth? And do you think it's the same on Gallifrey? ~Oaken Thorinshield
>I think a more interesting question is, how did the rest of the canons do in their hullabaloo exams? I bet Martha passed. ~464646
>>Probably not Donna, though. I love her and all, but she was a bit thick... ~Summertide
-Exchange on the PPC Board
Agent Morrigan scowled at the paper in front of her. "This test is stupid," she muttered, knowing the invigilator was out of earshot. "I don't know how anyone manages to pass hullabaloo with this sort of exam..." Of course, she had to be fair to herself: she was taking it at a far higher level than Rose Tyler had tried.
-'Interlude: Going Loopy', by Oaken Thorinshield
Hullabaloo is an educational discipline in the Doctor Who canon, often seen as a lesser form of jiggery pokery. The exams are noted to be extremely difficult at higher levels, and even at lower levels are known to be something of a challenge...
-'Hullabaloo' wiki entry by Summertide
Wait... what's this 'hullabaloo' thing? I thought that was a joke in the original? ~OlderThanThou
>Well, the wiki says it's an important part of Whoniverse Earth culture... ~Lacksidacksical
hS
As I gave OOC Immunity to the goddess form of Madoka Kaname from Puella Magi Madoka Magica in the article about her of the April issue of the Multiverse Monitor.
But I had a good reason to - she's a goddess present everywhere and everywhen in the whole multiverse according to canon.
Not only she's powerful enough to resist suefluence, her going OOC would be grounds for a multiverse-wide Emergency EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
And I'm pretty sure we don't want that.
I'm sure nobody wants to deal with an omnipresent entity being character replaced. That variety of OOC Immunity is like the OOC Immunity that Eru Ilúvatar was given, the "character replacements of this one would be pretty bad but OOCness would arguably be even worse" kind.
I agree with the people down below, though; we need three or possibly even four terms for this instead of just two. To me, Gimli's kind of OOC defense doesn't really seem to be Resistance at all, in the way that Elrond has through use of his magic ring of I Guess It Can Basically Do Whatever Now. It's more like OOC Avoidance, since nobody really bothers to get him OOC in the first place.
... Mortic and Elanor managed to deal with OOC Yahweh without resorting to saying 'well it wasn't him after all!'. That's a case which would most benefit from saying that.
If Aslan is written as having mental conversations with the Princess of Sparkleshine, then sure, that's OOC - he doesn't exactly do that regularly - but it doesn't need to make him a character replacement. Sorting out the story has always fixed OOC problems, and if it doesn't, there's always neuralysers. 'I'm sure nobody wants to deal with' is always countered by 'well, actually I have a joke for that...'
hS
PS: Vilya is the Ring of Air. The primary known function of it is hiding Imladris from enemy sight - not by making it invisible, since it clearly isn't, but somehow, since the valley is in the middle of nowhere and has never been found. It isn't too great a leap to suggest it can also hide the mind of the bearer from evil - thus protecting Lord Elrond's mind without actually stopping authors controlling his actions. ~hS
Well, it does if I'm mixing my metaphors, which I am.
It's one thing to deal with OOC in-universe deities. You could use special out-of-continuum god-killing measures to get at them, or otherwise render them powerless so that they could be eliminated. When it's actually a version of the World One Judeo-Christian God with a big G, getting rid of him is essentially saying "Yeah, we killed God." and that, well, it's not exactly a good thing to be assassinating World One religious figures, even in the form of character replacements.
It's why barely anyone goes into fanfiction based on religious doctrines. It exists, since people will write badfic about anything, but it wouldn't exactly look good if one's characters were on record as having shoved a duplicate of Jesus into a volcano.
1/ As you may have noticed, Mort and Elanor didn't kill 'Yahweh God'. They killed his frankly bizarre Mary-Sue companion, which prompted a rather dramatic return to in-character-ness.
2/ The reason 'barely anyone' - in fact, no-one - does missions in religion-based fandoms is because we've banned it, because it's incredibly hard to do right, and liable to be wildly offensive. This mission predates that discussion, and was in fact the specific trigger for the discussion (although no-one, to my recollection, had a specific problem with this mission). So your explanation for why no-one kills those badfics is... inaccurate, shall we say. It's not about shoving deities into volcanos - it's about all the little ways such a mission could cause offense and slip into disrespect.
hS
1) I was saying that having a World One religious figure be replaced would mean that she or she might need to be killed, which would cause problems for several different reasons. I suppose they could always be recruited, if they were only severely OOC and not Sued when they were replaced, but it would be really weird talking to someone at the lunch table who says "Yeah, I'm Buddha. I try to stay away from roads as much as possible." Your mission had an OOC World One religious figure, but he wasn't replaced, which sidestepped a few points of precedent, but did so while simultaneously avoiding a lot of potential mess, so I'm hardly saying it was bad that you decided not to have a Yahweh vs. Wentway Slamdown. Yours was a better choice, considering the alternatives.
2) Ah, so yours was the only religion-based mission, and is now the only one ever to exist due to a rule change. I did not know that. I thought that there might have been more, but I hadn't read them if there were. That's that cleared up.
The "we don't want to disrespect others or their religions" angle was what I was trying to go for, but I may have phrased it poorly. I was using an extreme example, the volcano-dropping, out of a whole myriad of problems that might offend people to try and reiterate why going up against religious figures would not be a good idea. Sorry for the miscommunication there.
How much precedent for deities showing up in missions do you think there was in 2006? :P
hS
(Tangents are fun!)
'Yahweh God', as presented in the badfic, was actually fairly low-powered. I don't recall him doing anything, but let's allow for my memory being faulty and assume he was indestructable with Generic Magic Powers.
Mortic, on the flip-side, is a member of the Order. He is immortal and actually ludicrously old (he says somewhere that he and the Order were involved in sorting out the furore after the biblical Exodus), and possesses all sorts of special abilities. Most of these seem to spring from 'Order incantations', referenced as 'spells' (with the quotes), for things like improved sight and clinging to the ceiling (but not navigating HQ). He also has increased physical and mental durability. All we know about the origin of these powers is that they're not Judeo-Christian - he explicitly doesn't know much about Christianity.
So how would a fight between them go? We know that Mortic is slightly stronger than a surprised 'Yahweh God', but I suspect that means that if YG got his feet under him, he could win a physical fight pretty quickly. Given that he also has wings, he could certainly catch Mortic on open ground, even with Order faster-running incantations.
A maze-like environment where Mortic could hide from YG might be the best site for a long-running battle. I'm positive the Order has ways to hide from even 'omnicogniscient' beings (though I don't know if this YG even is), and if there's anything that could kill or trap him, Mort - as a PPC agent, not even needing Order training - could eventually find it. His Order abilities would basically serve as an escape method for when his quarry came too close.
But in an enclosed environment like the tent in the mission... Mort's abilities are very much self-focussed. He can improve his own eyesight, his speed, probably his strength and reaction times - but he has no way to affect anyone else. He can't make YG vulnerable to attack. PPC tech might provide an answer, in that he could a) open a portal to somewhere inhospitable, or b) [and I don't know if this would even work] potentially use a D.O.R.K.S. to disguise/transform YG into something harmless. I've never seen that done, but given the transformative nature of disguises (Jay gained magic powers in disguise as a Maia), it seems like it should.
But in a straight fight? YG wins, no question.
hS
He's immortal, capable of temporarily cloaking himself from the knowledge of an omniscient being, and evidently some form of magic-user. He's definitely not from World One.
His section on the wiki just says that his home continuum is "Earth", which is not at all helpful. Is it the Project Messiah Earth that the Laisons came from?
All he's bothered to tell me is that the Order is very old and very secretive. I think he thinks he's from World One - but no telling if he's right.
hS
Like I said to hS, the two types of OOC-Resistance should be differentiated somehow, because it is confusing and led me to suspect Elrond was based on pure lusting. (Which it is, but it does actually manifest as more than another thing to make Elrond look cool.) More characters have his type of OOC-Resistance, I think. By that I mean Picard and many more Star Trek characters.
I know I happened to be making the wiki pages for the different Star Treks at the time, but that wasn't what other people were doing. I don't know, maybe we just have a lot of naive newbies? I don't know if we normally have this many, but I've seen a lot.
I'm casting my vote for keeping the OOC Resistance term for cases like Elrond, in which characters cannot stop the author from controlling them, but their minds are to some degree unaffected, and creating a new term, which I'm calling OOC Avoidance, for cases like Gimli where the author simply ignores the character and thus submits them to a lower or nonexistent level of Suefluence, as I first suggested here.
Yes, that post is part of the same thread as this one, but if this particular thread keeps growing at the rate it is now, everyone's going to need to keep track of the posts that they proposed ideas in.
I agree that we need to give the different forms different names, if only to keep them straight among ourselves.
:: checking the wiki :: Right now, we've got three different flavors of OOC Resistance listed as examples. Gimli and Gaspode are normally ignored by Suethors (unless they want to bash Gimli's character) so they never get targeted by Suefluence, Elrond has a magical artifact on his finger that shields him from full Suefluence but lets a Suethor puppet him, and the Valar are demideities who can probably fight off Suefluence on their own.
To be honest, I'm not convinced characters ignored by the Suethor should have OOC Resistance. I've never been shot, but that doesn't mean I'm bulletproof; a character who never gets targeted by a Sue shouldn't be assumed to be resistant to her powers. If we change this, though, Gimli and Gaspode should be grandfathered in.
What about OOC Defense for characters like Elrond, who retain control of at least part of their mind but can't prevent themselves from being manipulated by a Sue?
I'd rather not have rules that require "grandfathering in" bits from previous material without having said material explained or supported in some way by the new material. It just brings across the vibe of "why are these ones so special" when looked at from an in-universe perspective.
That's why I was suggesting a name change from OOC Resistant in the case of the Gimli/Gaspode-style characters that are just not dealt with often. In fact, when affected by the Suefluence, Gimli has been shown, at least in the missions I've read, to be almost as affected, if not just as affected, as characters like Boromir are. It just happens less often.
My idea for calling it OOC Avoidance and Cyba Zero's for OOC Overlooked speak more to what's really happening: the Sue just doesn't care about those particular characters most of the time.
I prefer my term idea to Cyba's, largely because I think it would be difficult to conjugate Overlooked. You can say "has immunity", "has resistance", or to use your term idea, "has defense", but you can't really say "has overlooked", unless you're saying it's the character themselves overlooking something.
I suppose you could say "has been overlooked", but that sounds more like it's a product of the situation than a recurring characteristic of a specific character.
By the same logic as your bit about not being bulletproof when you were never shot, wouldn't a character who was frequently affected by something not have an effective defense against it? I think the OOC Resistance term actually works in the case of Elrond-style characters: they do what the Words say, but they don't like it, and those with psionic abilities could look into their heads and see that they are mentally protesting it all the way, to the extent that in a lull in the story, they might be able to clench their fist in anger or kick something, or possibly perform a small action to get back at the Sue out of spite if they are capable of recognizing said character as the cause of their problems.
Since I should really contribute, having started all this in the first place...
1. Let's not get too carried away. After all, the main thing I keep repeating is that this thing is not a big deal. So let's not make renaming it a big deal. If it seems like a good idea, fine, but if it's going to be more trouble than it's worth, I think it's safe to just clarify the article and move on.
2. With regards to clarifying the article, I think a close reading of the relevant bits of TOS would be an extremely good thing to do first, since that's the origin and ultimate basis for the concept(s) we're supposed to be describing. Also, references on the pages, so future PPCers don't have to do the work of tracking down the relevant bits all over again.
3. We shouldn't neglect influential non-mission materials such as the original description of Anti-Lustin™, which is based on modified dwarf blood proteins. (OTOH, what with the increase in Dwarf-Sues since The Hobbit, perhaps that coveted Dwarven resistance to Sue-induced lust is no longer reliable and enterprising biochemists should be considering alternatives before the agents taking the drug start to lose it—perhaps unpredictably, at times when it would be the most hilarious....) "Suedom" also leans heavily on the idea that Gimli and Éowyn can fight off Suefluence and thus are able to aid Kate and Kira on their quest.
4. Never forget that out-of-universe, this is all for the lulz and not everything has to make perfect logical sense and fit into neat little boxes. The wiki is mainly there to describe the madness and help to navigate it, not to make it fit some kind of Universal Theory of the PPC. It's perfectly fine for Dwarves to be resistant to Suefluence because it was a running joke once. It's also perfectly fine for present writers to ignore that entirely if it's funnier to show Thorin Oakenshield going googly-eyed at Thorina Ramsbuttsdotter. The PPC has no logic. The PPC needs no logic.
If I seem to be contradicting myself, it's only because I love logical sense and neat little boxes exactly as much as I love the PPC's in-jokes and random silliness, and I don't have a problem with paradoxes. {= )
~Neshomeh
OOC Defense or OOC Resistance for characters like Elrond sounds good.
Given your arguments, another term for Gimli-type characters might be in order, although OOC Avoidance doesn't quite sound right to me. Maybe PPC HQ keeps a database of OOC Overlooked characters - those who are rarely OOC due to being mostly overlooked by Suethors?
To respond to your comments, and without any citations because it's bedtime:
The two 'classic' OOC Resistant characters are Gimli and Elrond. Both of them got it way back in the Original Series, and for different reasons. Gimli's is what Nesh said: he's ignored in most badfics (because he's, liek, short an hairy an gross - or so J&A theorised), so he doesn't get knocked OOC very much.
Elrond is a different kettle of fish, and honestly, I think he only got it because Jay was an Elrond luster. But J&A attributed it to, yes, his inherent wisdom, and I think to him holding one of the Three Rings.
There is a key difference, though: Gimli was often portrayed as actively hostile towards Sues - glaring at them, for instance. Elrond, on the other hand, was more of a 'you can tell he doesn't want to say that!'; he wasn't fooled by the Sues, but he was firmly controlled.
To be quite honest, I don't think the two phenomena should even be under the same term. I don't know what it ought to be, though - and since I've never used either term (or even the concept), I don't have a terribly strong investment in it.
hS
Conspiracy theories are fun!
And actually, that ties in with my response, because while I suspected Jay's lusting was the reason I thought it was just me imagining some conspiracy. Because there's a plot to make LOTR the dominant fandom in the PPC, right? And part of that plot is to make all the LOTR characters the most awesomely powerful, right? (Or the PPC started in LOTR, and therefore it was the dominant fandom for a while, and what makes me paranoid is residual traces of that.)
I agree that there should be a distinction, because I got confused (though now I understand). I'm guessing a lot of characters have Elrond-type resistance but fewer have Gimli-type.
I suspect you were just being facetious there, but that's exactly the sort of thinking I'm trying to get people away from, and why people trying to make OOC resistance into a Big Thing worries me. It's not a big deal, it's not awesomely powerful, and it should not be treated as a status symbol to make anyone's favorite characters more special—especially when the question involves making them friends with agents aware of the PPC. That way lies the Urple Side.
However, when the circumstances are appropriate, it should be used to point out that driving normally wise characters to say moronic things is bad, and it should be used to call out the fanbase for sidelining characters that aren't "hawt." Those reasons involve insight and potentially humor, and are good.
Quite possibly you didn't need that lecture, but I needed to stress the point again.
On another note, correct me if I'm overreacting, but I'm getting the sense that you find the fact that we're strongly rooted in LotR to be a bad thing. I mean... yeah, the PPC is originally based in the LotR fandom, for a long time most of our members were big Tolkien nuts, and many of our core concepts and traditions come from that time and that group of people. It's not a conspiracy, just our history. Do you see that as a problem?
~Neshomeh
Being facetious, that is. But being above mind control is kind of a power, and something that makes a character cool.
No, I don't find the LOTR roots to be a bad thing. It's just that I'm not a huge Tolkien fan, so when the Board goes back towards those roots it makes me feel left out. And I'm probably not the only one. Also, the way Tolkien's work sometimes seems to be held up as a flawless masterpiece worries me. I know that most of the time it's just an expression of "these are good books how dare a Suethor trample all over them", but I get wary of any thinking that doesn't sound balanced. Not just in the PPC but all of fandom, and I'd like to think we're better than that here.
I do respect that other people like it more, and I like that it is kind of a universal fandom. Bottom line, if we start acting like a LOTR community it makes me feel left out, but most of the time we're multi-fandom with roots in LOTR, and that's cool.
I hope that clears things up.
I believe (and please correct me if I am wrong, guys) that some of the LotR fans feel that they are being left behind as the group becomes less LotR centric, and more diverse. They feel less relevant. So, I think it is in everyone's best interest to find that balance you were talking about.
I would also like to point out that, if you are afraid that your fandoms are under represented, then your should try to do something to bring them to the public eye. Do a mission. Organize a fandom exchange. Write some fanfiction. Generate some interest in what you love and get other people to love it to. That goes for everyone, but especially for people with obscure fandoms.
(Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, anyone? Anyone? No? Okay.)
-Phobos, lover of obscure fandoms
The first group, often oldbies, are LotR fans, generally into fantasy literature, tend to get things like Mercedes Lackey and Discworld and Diana Wynne Jones and Anne McCaffrey. I know I've felt left behind by the moving away from those fandoms before, and, though this is probably partly my own thin-skinned-ness, I've occasionally felt slighted by the way people react to LotR fannishness and high fantasy enthusiasm by seemingly putting it down as snobbery.
The second group I'd call middlebies, though that's an oversimplification and not entirely correct for other reasons. I'd say Miah's post here captures that pretty well. People, in short, who are neither old fantasy literature enthusiasts, nor in touch with the gamer and anime fans who seem to be our third group.
...er, the third group isn't exactly newbies, but I don't have a better name. I'd characterize this group as being more into newer fandoms, fandoms that are integral to their experiences as... er, fans, as LotR and Discworld and Redwall were to others of us. The ones that stand out to me in immediate memory are Halo, Bionicle, Hetalia... er, and others. I may think of more at some point, but you guys probably know what I mean.
There is a looooot of overlap here - I'm not thinking these are exclusive groups! That's just the simplest way of generalizing the "generations" in the community that I can think of.
That feeling was most prominent in the era - a few years back now - where every mission, badfic, or discussion seemed to be either:
a) Araeph doing Pirates of the Caribbean
b) Laburnum doing Redwall
c) Or about a dozen people doing various anime shows.
I seem to recall actually being told that people weren't interested in LotR... and Kaitlyn says that period is when-and-why she stopped posting.
However, I have no problem with diversity. And to your 'try to do something' I would add an important point: it's not enough to do something once. If you write one The Kraken-Knights of Wintertide mission, people will go 'meh, I've never heard of KKW'. If you write a series - and write them in such a way that people get a feel for the canon by reading your missions - you end up with readers and possible converts. Most of my Harry Potter knowledge comes from missions, for example.
hS
PS: Sadly, no, The Kraken-Knights of Wintertide is not a real thing. Maybe for NaNo 2015... ~hS
PPS: I haven't read Thomas Covenant for a very good reason - I was gifted a single-volume work by the same author (specifically Mordant's Need) and really, really didn't like Donaldson's writing style. Some of the comments on Wikipedia suggest the same would hold true in his more famous work. ~hS
...my Knightmare-visiting interlude seemed to go down quite well, despite being fairly obscure. One of the things I love about the PPC is that one's agents can go pretty much anywhere.
The idea of the PPC certainly was a work of genius. :)
... you're not noticing this because you're OOC resistant, and thus the Mary-Sue currently on the Board (whose name I am of course forbidden from revealing) can't control you into ignoring it?
hS, not starting a conspiracy theory at all
D =}
D =}
D =}
So many levels of horror!
~Neshomeh
D =}
Why is Neshomeh herself OOC Resistant to the infiltrator who wants more characters to be OOC Resistant? She's a well-known Board member, so she'd be much more likely to raise opposition to the craze.
Or perhaps... she herself is a sleeper agent for the creature! Yes, of course. It's covering its tracks! By allowing a being of its own creation to oppose it, it leaves itself a proverbial back door to allow that resistance to crumple whenever it wishes!
This means the creature is either capable of long-distance psychic manipulation or it's using Neshomeh's screenname itself as a front.
But in the latter case... what's happened to the real Neshomeh?
(Conspiracy theories are fun.)
Anywho....
What if the real Neshomeh was taken to one of the independent Mary Sue factories?
Also, little question that's completely unrelated- has anyone else ever wanted to literally copy and paste a badfic into their word program and edit it? Not even write a mission on it or publish it, just rewrite it because it's driving you nuts?
One of the stories I'm currently missioning, I also plan to rework into a proper look at the idea behind it. By writing my own story, rather than using theirs.
hS
I'll be reading a really goodfic, and then I'll notice a minor typo or mistake with a comma and I'll want to fix it. Blargh!
Well, I'm now an editor/beta for something that started out like an SI-badfic.
Doesn't that point to me as the offending creature? Also, why would I bring that up if it was me? Your argument is invalid. Get off my lawn.
-Phobos
Defensively changing the subject, are you? Attempting to redirect attention from the original question with your comment about a lawn that I am nowhere near? Perhaps you are the creature after all, using reverse psychology to try and convince me that you weren't by saying that you are and phrasing it as though it was a joke.
But wait, no, that's far too obvious. You'd know I'd know that. Perhaps this goes even deeper, and the creature has been replacing you as well, along with an untold number of other Boarders. Perhaps this is simply the first crack in its facade for months, and it is trying to patch it up.
But you'd know that I'd know that you know, because any good planner anticipates their plan not going as planned, so perhaps someone finding out was part of the plan. But it wasn't me that found out! It was Huinesoron that found out, and he only revealed it by cryptically stating that he wasn't allowed to reveal names or details. So perhaps it was planned that in order for the plan to proceed, someone would need to find out the plan.
But of course, if someone found out that the plan had been for someone to find out the plan, as I have, then what would your plan be then? Or perhaps the plan involved seeing how people reacted to your plan, and then the plan would be selected from one of several possible plans based on the reaction.
Yet, now that I know that you have multiple plans, but I don't know which plan you have chosen, this could mean that either the plan will be intended to keep others off your trail, or to reveal a portion of said plan but without the information necessary to stop said plan, which would divide the resistant faction between the people who feel that the plan was complete and would thus react on incomplete information and the group that knows that the plan is incomplete but has no further information to act on.
Unless you know that I know that your plan involves multiple plans, and it was actually going in a completely different direction this entire time and the bits of said plan revealed so far are only another diversion intended to make the plan look easier to deal with, which is always a possibility.
(I feel like Vizzini from the Princess Bride right now, with all of my dizzying leaps of questionable logic.)
However, the game's up, Outhra. There are no more bullets left in that gun.
There was one shot at Mr. Boddy in the Study; two for the chandelier; two at the Lounge door and one for the singing telegram. One plus two plus two plus one.
-Phobos
that this must be read in the voice of Evil Robot Santa to achieve even close to maximum effect.
Are you insinuating that the voice of Evil Robot Santa has a memetic, or even hypnotic, influential ability?
Yes! This could be just the link I'm looking for! Evil Robot Santa counts as both a popular animated character produced originally by FOX, and as a holiday figure! Now this raises another question: what about Kwaanza-Bot?
Also, I use energy weapons, I don't know what you're going on about. No one plus two plus one plus one versus one plus two plus two plus one when you're dealing with a plasma launcher. Also, no risk of the chandelier falling on Colonel Mustard, or anywhere near him. He doesn't even need to be in the building.
Wait! You are trying to distract me! But is the reference to the movie Clue telling me that I have a clue, telling me to get a clue, or simply an attempt to change the subject from the potential plans that may or may not have been found out? Or is it another red herring, even redder than the previous herrings? Possibly even a burgundy herring!
... it is a morning to have a clue on? Or that there won't be a clue until you leave?
hS, stirring the crossover custard
(Of course my juxtaposition of custard with your rambling about herrings is entirely meaningless)
Is that anything like the scenery-custard that Agent!Fish got on that Haruhi Suzumiya/Twilight crossover?
Also - I have no clue.
It's all coming together.
It all goes back to the evil of ancient Egypt!
No, probably not. I'll make a note about that custard, though. Perhaps custard is the elusive 32nd flavor. Is custard a flavor?
I will find out.
(pins another piece of paper to conspiracy-theory bulletin board)
This is starting to look like a proper bulletin board now. Now I need some string.
Unfortunately, I do not currently have the cipher for your code, so I'll have to make it clear using only the power of my brain.
Custard. This is the link from previous posts. It may be custard as it is, or perhaps custard as a symbol of this conspiracy in particular. Perhaps "custard" is the indicator that not everything in the remainder of the phrase is not what it appears.
A baker. Creates edible food from inedible components. Symbolic of a creator. Perhaps one who instigates. The designer or instigator of events alluded to by the rest of the phrase, perhaps.
However, Baker's Square indicates a location, a place where multiple bakers, or in this case instigators, gather. People are planning something. Not only planning, but as a baker will create from his or her oven with materials they have, and exchange recipes amongst other bakers, this implies that multiple people who are forming that plan together are pooling their resources in an attempt to make their plan a reality.
That only leaves the pie. A pastry of many meanings. It can be comedy, as in a pie in the face, or of sinister purpose, as in the blades or tools smuggled in through use of pies. Though its association with the bakers implies that it is the final product of their labor, its specific purpose is unknown. However, in context, its purpose becomes sinister.
A pie is, in its most basic concepts a pastry made to serve multiple people. You could also make the same case for cake, but while cake can be shaped into numerous forms, the nature and consistency of pie means that it is, more often than not, restricted to basic geometric shapes such as circles and squares. Thus, multiple people are gathering to cause something to fall apart...
Gasp! A conspiracy! Not only that, but a conspiracy used to hide another conspiracy! Hidden somewhere in the conspiracy we are dealing with now hides another, using the propagation of this conspiracy theory as a way to advance its own plans! But thanks to this cryptically ambiguous post, I now know about that conspiracy to keep this conspiracy theory upheld as the sole conspiracy theory! Thus, I can now begin my investigation anew!
HA! Take that, evils of ancient Egypt!
Wow, my bulletin board is absolutely covered in string and scraps of paper now. I'm even still wearing my blue lab coat from a few threads down, so I have something that can billow dramatically while I pace the floor. I feel like a genuine conspiracy theorist.
Actually, it means that there happens to be a custard pie flavor at a restaurant called Baker's Square.....
WHAT? My exaggerated conspiracy theory idea that was based on nothing whatsoever was incorrect? Imagine that!
I was just having fun with the response. My ramblings about a hypothetical flavor of ice cream being connected to the ill-defined conspiracy theory intersected with your response about custard and pies.
Also, I still have no idea what or where Baker's Square is. I thought it was an actual town square someplace, and you're saying it's a restaurant, and you're probably right, since you mentioned it in the fist place, but the frame of reference for that short sentence was just sort of out of nowhere. So, I decided to make more random assumptions based even more out of nowhere.
Confusing? Yes. I'm not going to say it wasn't. Mad ramblings about cracking coded messages are usually confusing, and I made mine ridiculous on purpose. After all, what fun is there in making sense?
...But is it the Boarder or the Doctor Who reference?
Seems to me everyone's suspicious of each other. If we have a chance of catching the Mary Sue on the board and exorcizing boarders, we have to work together. Maybe if we do that the people who are really possessed will become known.
No one is safe! Hide your children and small animals!
Obviously, since I'm the only one we're certain is in-character right now, I'll begin the exorcism. *starts outlining chalk circle around the Boarders*
~Neshomeh
I've always wanted to be a chalk outline! *Sprawls on the floor*
-Phobos
Neshomeh's the one who's most likely to have been compromised! If someone who is a Sue-created duplicate, whether or not said person knows it, exorcizes a large group of people, there could be untold consequences! We could all be turned into sleeper agents in the process, with the effect that altered Neshomeh swarming through the entire Board! Then the creature could pick and choose its representatives, and still have alternates in case it needs a backup plan!
Guys... maybe this was the real Neshomeh after all! Maybe there's another person who transformed her.
Who's the Boarder most likely to be able to exorcize somebody without it seeming unusual? Or perhaps anyone with latent psionic abilities who could have performed the same effect from a distance? I need a good conspiracy-theory-style bulletin board list of suspects.
Neshomeh, don't think you're not still on the list. You may have transformed yourself for nefarious purposes, or perhaps you are the only agent of the creature after all, and I'm trying to cover too fine a ground.
But I don't think that it's me. I had an odd dream the other night about someone trying to control my thoughts, and I fought it off. Maybe the Sue is trying to control us....
Honestly, I don't have any relevant psionic abilities. I'm just good with body language and sensitive to fighting.
Only in this case, you got the answer to #1 better than I could have (which is why I didn't say anything). I think you were also more succinct than I tend to be about 'if the Flowers would disapprove'. Your last point is something I keep trying to stress, too.
(However: pah, neuralysers? Who needs 'em? Back in the old days, canons just forgot about the agents when the story snapped back into place!)
(However2: More seriously, this is one of those places where the Rule Of Funny comes into its own. Not every story needs to end with 'and then we neuralysed the canons and opened the portal and went home'. On the other hand, there's no reason they shouldn't, either. Actually, this isn't even about what's funny - it's about what works best in the context of the story...)
hS