Subject: Well, I’d probably need an oldbie’s help writing...
Author:
Posted on: 2022-06-04 22:07:45 UTC
...both the badfic and the mission. But yeah, setting it then makes the most sense. But I’d wait to do any of this.
—Ls
After a few weeks, I am finally done with it! My Permission request! It can be found here. Hooray!
I eagerly await the Permission Givers’ response.
—Ls
I pretty much agree with Lily, actually, and I had read the sample before I saw her post, so no sniping occurred. I just waited because I wanted to make sure to give my response the focus it needs. {= ) So, without further ado, Permission Granted. Here are my thoughts.
On your activity, I feel that I get who you are, and that you've demonstrated that you get who we are enough that I trust you won't require hand-holding over the Larninkurv Mountains. And also will understand what I just said. {; )
On the choice of badfic, I'm fine with it. I feel that blatant trollfic need not be treated with the same care as badfic that was genuinely trying to be good. Since the author presumably knew they were writing something terrible with the intent of riling people up, it's not exactly bashing them to say so. I'm also on board with the concept of trolls as fanfic entities akin to Sue- and slash-wraiths, distinct and separate from their authors. I agree with Lily that the method of dealing with them should be different from dealing with the other entities, though, and I think the original Troll Division fic sets up an interesting idea with the notion of exposing trolls to the light of day in order to vanquish them.
Tangentially, if there's any doubt that a fic is a trollfic, it should be treated like a normal fic. As the existence of the Troll Division itself implies, we should distinguish trollfics from failed parodies for this purpose, too. But, more on this when you actually get around to developing it.
On the writing sample, seconding Lily: I really like the interaction between Mina and Carlisle. The piece is basically them exchanging bios, which could be dead boring since I already read their bios, but the in-text acknowledgement via Mina that Carlisle interviewing his new partner like this is weird, plus Mina turning it back on him, makes it funny. I straight-up laughed at the bit about the tour, both Carlisle's idea of giving one and Mina calling it boring even though it was, indeed, her idea. Well done!
I would have liked to see an example of Mina being a bad-luck charm to Carlisle, though. She doesn't even make the console go off, which is pretty darned good luck. Subversion of expectations isn't a bad technique, but I'm not sure it worked here.
I'm also a trifle dubious about Mina's backstory, since it involves crossing a Creativity Shield and I'm not sure that doesn't potentially have some dire implications. I wonder if it wouldn't work just as well for her to be a formerly Suvian incarnation of Lady Luck from some other, non-quarantined continuum? There's plenty of precedent for incarnations of deific beings in HQ, and the idea of a cheerful, fifteen-year-old Lady [Bad] Luck seems pretty fun without PPC badfic needing to be involved. I could be swayed about this, though. I tend to leave the ins and outs of multiversal physics to people like hS and Lily anyway, because that stuff hurts my brain. ^_^;
I also caught a few technical errors your betas missed. To be fair, some of these are VERY small details, so don't sweat it too much, but:
> a hated Harry Potter badfic
As a title of a long work, Harry Potter should be set off with italics, as you did with Miraculous Ladybug. (Not all book series names are their official title, but this one is.)
> He was part of DMS
> He has a mysterious enmity with DTE
Since you would write "He was part of the Department of Mary Sues," you should also write "the DMS" and "the DTE" with the definite article. This is especially true when the abbreviation is an initialism and each letter is pronounced (e.g. "the Dee-Em-Ess"), since they are standing in direct place of the words. However, some departments have nicknames (e.g. FicPsych) and others have acronyms that are pronounced as words (e.g. DOGA, "Doh-gah") and thus function as nicknames, so they don't need an article.
> “Name?” he said, staring at a sheet if paper.
"If" should be "of."
> “Now, can we—“
Since you're using smart quotes, you need to be careful that they're facing the correct direction. The second one is backwards, and there are a few more like it following em dashes. (Also be sure that all your apostrophes are apostrophes, not open single-quotes, even at the beginning of a word. For example, ’cause, not ‘cause. There isn't anything like that in this piece, but word processors aren't smart enough to catch this, so it will happen eventually.)
> Carlisle sighed. “Yes. This is your half.”
>
> He gestured to the side of the room that held nothing but Generic Furniture. “And mine.”
>
> Carlisle pointed to the other side, which had a few back-and-white pictures of him hanging on its walls. Most of the room was a dull grey.
Not an error, per se, since actual rules about paragraphing are a bit thin on the ground, but I would say Carlisle's dialogue indicating Mina's half and his gesture to Mina's half constitute one thought and ought to be on the same line, whereas it's less logical to pair his gesture at Mina's half with his dialogue indicating his half. You could either make this two paragraphs, one about Mina's half and one about Carlisle's, or make it one paragraph, since the whole passage comprises Carlisle's actions.
... And that's it! Let me know what you think about possibly adjusting Mina's origin, and if you want to edit or expand this piece a bit with Mina-as-bad-luck-charm in mind, I'll read it. Other than that, though, you're good to go. Congrats!
~Neshomeh
ETA: Line breaks.
Added a couple sentences at the end to address the bad luck charm bit. (Side note: I really like that term.)
I fixed the errors you pointed out. Harry Potter is italicized, Departments are the’ed, typo with “if” is fixed, the em-dash quote errors (which are automatic on my device) are fixed, and the paragraphing is improved.
—Ls
Yay! I have Permission! Thank you Neshomeh!
Okay, as for the Troll Division, I do have some ideas that should be unique, and involves sunlight. But I’ll save that for later.
Thanks for the kind comments on Carlisle and Mina’s interaction. I’ll definitely demonstrate how Carlisle ends up with the bad luck in the first mission, as I think that would be a good place to show it.
Yeah, Kittyauthor also had some doubts regarding Mina’s backstory while beta’ing. I do get why involving PPC badfic could be an issue, but Mina isn’t just Luck, she’s Irony and Contrivance. At least, in my conception of her she is. Additionally, I cannot think of a single continuum that I know of that has a Lady Luck. But if someone can think of a good alternative that avoids any issues PPC badfic could cause, please do tell me. So...I guess I’d like to hear someone else’s opinion, and just say “ex-Sue with luck powers” for now.
And yeah, I’ll fix those formatting errors when I have time. Nitpicking is very welcome. { :) Thanks!
—Ls, ecstatic.
(Update: pluralization error.)
You could start looking for other ideas here; see if there are useful examples in continua you know.
Since I've been talking about Terry Pratchett lately, I'll point out the Lady in Discworld particularly, but any continuum with personifications of the Greek or Roman gods could have their equivalent of Tyche or Fortuna, and/or the uncanonical offspring/sibling/whatever of the same that covers the aspects you want.
Nitpick: "continua" is plural, "continuum" is singular. {= )
~Neshomeh
Hypothetically a Contrivance/IO Sue-baby could escape from the Sueniverse, but since Sueniverse is implied to be created by the Flowers when the Creativity Shield banished PPC Suvians from affecting the Prime Multiverse, Mina’s existence in that sense would raise a lot of ethical questions (quoth hS, it would appear that the PPC is dumping its problems on other multiverses). It could be an interesting thing to explore in Mina’s arc, but it would require a very sensitive touch since it exposes a very big ethical flaw in the Flowers’/PPC’s actions.
Of course, Mina could just not talk about her backstory — or, even, not know her backstory because her parents hid it from her. It’s good for authors to know more about a character than what is on screen!
That being said, it’s a very Serious Business backstory, and the PPC should be fun with medium-sized stakes at best, so I would also prefer Mina to have been a badfic rescue baby. PJO mission would be perfect!
While I didn’t see anything I recognized on that page (sadly, I’ve not read any Discworld books [yet]), I do know some about the Percy Jackson series...so I could swing that. Still, any others’ feedback would be appreciated. Especially Huinesoron’s.
THE FACTS:
OPTIONS ONE: All these Creativity Shields function identically.
The big downside here is that it means we are claiming fanfic of banned canons still exists as a space you can enter. The whole point of banning fanfic is that it shouldn't "exist" in this sense
OPTION TWO: A PPC 'Creativity Shield' is an attempt to replicate a proper author-derived one.
This is the option you were working with. There's nothing wrong with it: it means the only instances of canon characters in PPC badfic are puppets created solely for the badfic.
Spark Theory, and the existence of the Sueniverse, relies on:
OPTION THREE: All three Creativity Shields are different.
This is morally icky, because it means the Flowers are shoving all their problems into another Multiverse for the canons there to deal with. It may be that they don't know this is happening - that they think they made an Option 1 or 2 Shield, not the multiverse-bending kind. Or, as with all Multiverse Theories, it may be wrong (which would mean the Sueniverse is actually a pocket universe in the Prime Multiverse).
Either 1 or 2 would allow a character like you want to "break through" without causing moral issues. It's hard to see why she would be allowed to live, though? She's the daughter of the Ironic Overpower - - that should not be allowed to just wander in and sign up.
But...
There is a Creativity Shield around Fanfic Land/World/Verse. But however that works, it presumably does nothing about PPC badfic on other sites. In the old days, they were dealt with by the DIO, but now have to be treated as incursions by the DES. If she wasn't caught, she could literally just manifest in HQ for her story.
So what if her story was really short? Like, it established her identity but never gave her anything to do. Then she would be kind of left adrift in HQ, with a Suvian backstory but not having done anything. Being a small child, she would be picked up quickly and taken to Nursery, where they would have treated her as any other ex-Suvian child. She, the Nursery staff, and her adoptive parents, wouldn't even necessarily know who she was and how she got there.
This also leaves open the option of another character from her story showing up down the line, or even her author writing a new one which drags her into it. I dunno, it's an option.
Or, like Lily and Nesh said, push her off onto a different version of Lady Luck. But the key point is that Spark Theory, and the Sueniverse itself, are only a theory.
hS
The perfect solution: Mina arrived in the PPC before the Creativity Shield was put up.
That way, I can make her a badfic rescue without any Creativity Shield issues! I’ll just age her up a bit.
—Ls, who thinks he’s got a good idea.
... would be to make her part of the very first Badfic Games, meaning she was created on 16th April 2004. The in-universe story there is that Fanfiction.net very briefly had a PPC section*, and the Suvians who invaded were from there. That includes Jaycacia herself, who was of course killed by Jay and Acacia.
*To be clear: they didn't really.
hS
...both the badfic and the mission. But yeah, setting it then makes the most sense. But I’d wait to do any of this.
But wait. When did the term Ironic Overpower originate? I can’t figure out when. I think Lady Contrivance already existed, thanks to potcsues. Right?
(Wait. Would that kinda make Mina Jaycacia’s sister-Sue?)
—Ls
Mina was born on April 16, 2004. In 2006, her parents hid in a plothole to protect her from the Black Cats. Unfortunately, when they left the plothole, it was 2009, after the Gender Bender crisis.
This way, Mina’s still 15, and I don’t have to worry about whether she participated in any of the Emergencies in that period. 😉 (Also, I figured out emojis.)
My Troll Division agents are named “Tyop” and “Self-Insert”. Still working on personalities, though.
And I have a plan for the troll-wraith removal process:
*Subdue the Sue or possessed canon that the troll-wraith is controlling.
*Calmly give constructive criticism on how the fic could be better. This will frustrate the troll-wraith so much that it breaks out of its Sue/possessed canon shell.
*Expose the troll-wraith to sunlight. This will make the troll go from looking like a monster made out of storm clouds, to a nice, fluffy cloud of benevolence.
—Ls
What might be fun (for you) would be to write her fic of origin for the next Badfic Games. It's only a few months away!
For the Troll Division stuff, one question: why the charge list? Not all departments need one, and you're pretty much duplicating the effort with the concrit section. Anything actually worth putting on a charge list could be worked into the concrit anyway.
hS
September is only three months away! I’m really looking forward to the Games.
Now that I think over it again, the charge list is unnecessary. I think the idea behind drawing out the troll-wraith should be that you’re not letting it anger you, which is a troll’s entire goal. Not being able to do so should make it mad instead, allowing you to draw it out. But the charge list isn’t really doing that, the concrit is. Hence, the charge list is unnecessary.
Well, I still have a bit to go before I write the PPC’s first actual foray into troll-fighting. (Seriously, I’m rather shocked that the Troll Division has only ONE interlude-y thing.) I’m just brainstorming, as of present.
—Ls
she'd... have been around during TOS times and beyond. Granted, a quasi-deity of Suvian origin probably wouldn't show their age, and there could also be some bad luck spells that get her skipping out on things through timey-wimey plotholes.
It's interesting! But I'd love to hear other people's thoughts, too.
Here's the relevant line, since I did ask on here about Creativity Shields before I wrote the StWWX mission, and we all sorta thought at the time that the way it worked was via authorial fiat/determination to quarantine something from something else.
“This is the first time we have tried these in the field,” [Dr Graves] said, “so there may need to be last-minute tweaks. But essentially, each of these stakes contains a node that will connect to form the perimeter of the creativity shield. Once the perimeter is complete, we will connect it to cables leading back to DoDAEG. That should jumpstart the shield, using the same authorial fiat reserves that power the shield around HQ. The time it takes to reach the self-powering mode that we see in the shield around HQ will depend on how large this Word World is, but it should take no longer than an hour.”
I'm, of course, open to tweaks, since the Creativity Shield doesn't actually get implemented because the fic gets deleted. That being said, of the three scenarios you have, option two seems to be the path I took. This was partly because Doctorlit already had mini Creativity Shields in play in the Nursery to prevent kid scribblings from affecting HQ, and, yes, my idea of the Sandboxes at Digory Kirke and Paul Atreides being used to show students the effects of fic on a Word World. In my head, the mini Creativity Shields in play should probably be powered by the big one around HQ that stops FfL stuff from getting in, while the big one around HQ taps into DoDAEG + the authorial fiat [of us Boarders, essentially, to not have PPC badfic affect HQ].
Well, two:
Do we know that badfic posted to FfV actually manifests at all? Or, under Option Two, might the Creativity Shield stop that from happening just like author shields do? I sorta like the idea that the effect of a Creativity Shield is to make words on a page/screen remain merely that.
Assuming it does (since we generally have been), and assuming you could break through it to get into a PPC badfic... are we sure you could get out again? Or does the Creativity Shield prevent anything from a PPC badfic from entering HQ? This is actually the main thing I wondered about Mina's origin. ^_^; 'Cause, like, if Prime Multiverse characters can cross the barrier both ways at will, that's a strange sort of barrier.
That said, I feel like there might be instances of agents interacting with FfV badfics (as opposed to commenting on them like J&A), but I can't remember anything specific right now. Can you?
I suppose it's also possible that the Creativity Shield isn't perfect, and things can very rarely slip through if the stars misalign...?
(And it's also possible that thinking about it this hard at all is what's making it Serious Business. ^_^; )
~Neshomeh
(Edit: wrong option number.)
I think I was working through options whereby a PPC badfic character could be in HQ, which of course requires them to manifest somewhere. It's entirely possible that the PPC is so good at making these things that they can just quash all PPC fic - but then, why don't they do the same to every badfic and save all the canons forever? (Lily may have partly answered that one.)
For #2, it depends on the operation. If it's a bubble universe, then you could probably program the Shield from this side to allow a specific person to cross. If it's a separate Multiverse, then it's just a standard Multiversal travel; those happen often enough that it's not implausible.
hS
...where the Aviator and the Librarian killed a fic that shipped them with each other. I can’t seem to find the link, though.
—Ls
Her appearance was just an afterthought in the fic—she is never described, and the fic is about Lady Contrivance and the IO. She isn’t the main Suvian. But if it makes sense for her to come from a non-Fanfic Land/World/Verse fic, then that’s what I’ll go with. As for dumping her in HQ, not quite sure how that’d work, but it would make sense. And it would be pretty funny to write an interlude/backstory where a bunch of agents are chasing a baby, trying to put a Sue Tracker on it. Maybe I’ll go the Percy Jackson route. We’ll see. But until I iron out all the kinks, I’ll just say that Mina knows she’s adopted, and not much else.
Thanks for the advice, hS.
—Ls
... because it's a PPC badfic. They place their characters in HQ unless specifically prevented. That's what happened back in 2004, and is why the Creativity Shield was created in the first place.
hS
That makes sense. And if it’s not a Fanfic World badfic, then it’s justified.
I think this could make a good backstory. Again, thanks, hS.
—Ls
couldn't someone decide to add Lady Contrivance and the IO having a baby in a different, non-PPC badfic altogether? You know, their own Super Speshul OCs Do Nut Steel!!111!!! It could even be a PJO trollfic in that sense, and then you can have your Troll Division agents fish her out that way.
...but that person would have to be a PPCer to have knowledge of Contrivance and the IO, as those are PPC-only concepts.
However, I think I’ve found an even better solution, in a reply to one of the other posts.
—Ls
I like the dynamic Mina and Carlisle have! I was definitely picturing Carlisle as younger in the WWS RP, though, because he was acting so unhinged, so his real age did throw me for a loop there. I would be hesitant to call any agents psychotic, though -- background radiation insanity is kind of a given in this setting, but psychosis has some more serious implications. I think as you continue to write Mina and Carlisle, you might realise there's other reasons why they are what they are -- I originally conceptualised Agent Eledhwen as ataxophobic (aka having a phobia of mess), but after a couple years of writing her I realised her real issue is the culture clash between her Elvish cleanliness sensibilities and Christianne's tendency to be a slob. TL;DC, agents that seem insane at first may not be completely insane after time spent with them.
Activity-wise, you're probably like about 85% responsible for making the Board active again, which I also appreciate. A couple toe-treads here and there, but nothing too serious. I would suggest you hold your horses on making agents in all of the departments you're interested in until you have a better handle on Mina and Carlisle, but I see that the Troll Division is your special focus, and personally wouldn't mind seeing your take on it eventually. I will note, though, that trollfic is deliberately created, thus authorial intent matters in its level of awfulness, and it'd be very tricky to spork something bad on purpose while avoiding bashing the author.
And in terms of badfic sample, I don't know exactly how kosher it is to spork something that only seems to exist on a wiki page for something else. As I don't have a hat, I'll defer to Nesh's judgement there.
So, no hat, but if I did have one, I'd lean towards granting the keys with the caveat of looking over your first mission to see how you handle something trollishly bad.
ETA: I realised this might come across a bit like sniping Nesh’s decision, to which I can only say that that is not my intention and please don’t take this as any sort of endorsement — just wanted to offer some feedback!
Alright, thanks for looking over my request and giving feedback!
As for the “psychotic” comment, it was a joke related to Carlisle’s blaming everything that goes wrong on me, his author. I do see how that was difficult to get, as I haven’t actually written him doing that. I apologize for misrepresenting that.
I do have some ideas on separating an author-troll from an in-fic troll—I’d prefer to call one a troll-wraith, to go with our Sue-wraith terminology. But before that, I’m concentrating on Mina and Carlisle.
And as for the badfic, I’ve posted on it before, and Claimed a badfic by the same author that also exists in wiki form. The reason I want to spork these is that they are related to My Immortal, and that is my favorite Legendary. And wasn’t My Immortal deleted too?
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to give feedback! —Ls
But if other people don't have a problem with it, then neither do I! I tend towards the hesitant when it comes to finding a sporking target, mostly because I used to be very gung-ho about it.
Troll-wraiths sound interesting, though I would be more interested in seeing a take on defeating a trollfic that isn't veering so close to, say, DBS or DMS techniques. For example, the Department of Bad Angst has agents acting like party clowns to cheer up the sad-sack canons. It's a fine line to tread given the authorial intent behind trollfics, but if you find something unique and funny, I'm sure we'll all want to see where you go with it.
I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do with Mina and Carlisle!
If I don't make it back to this tonight, I'll try again tomorrow.
~Neshomeh