I've been enjoying their work on Partially Kissed Hero (if not the madness between the riffs). I'll look forward to this!

I have now wasted a few hours playing with HeroForge thanks to their sporker bio images, though. {X D

~Neshomeh

(Quarantined Continuum.) Not sure if that applies exactly, since it's not a creator banning fanfiction of a work; rather the work is itself being isolated from canon. But it's not fully deleted, either. So, uh, Isolated Continuum?

Since it's Tolkienverse, I'm imagining the story consigned to the Void with Morgoth. At least he'd have something for "entertainment" in there. {; P

Anyway, could still result in a scramble ending with the destination cut off.

~Neshomeh

I confess, I don't consider myself a man of science, so forgive me if my musings lack your standards of intellectual rigor.

As a Harper, I am delighted by the Eldar conception of Arda as born of song. Whatever the facts from world to world, it's an appealing metaphor. I think that I may be able to expand upon it.

Consider: a Song implies a Singer. That is not to say there must be an equivalent of Eru and the Valar in every universe (I am even less a man of faith than of science), but only that there is something from which the canon as we know it sprang forth. The Singer gives voice to the true Song. Upon hearing the Song—or perhaps merely reading the sheet music (that is the book or other form of the tale)—other musicians may join in. Perhaps they harmonize with the canon, and that is goodfic; perhaps they clash, and that is badfic; perhaps they perform the Song with a new arrangement, and that is an adaptation; perhaps the Song gains additional movements, and those are sequels and prequels.

In all this, the original Song is undiminished, and one may refer to the sheet music at any time to be certain of this. Sheet music, of course, is only a representation of the Song, not the Song itself. But dissonant harmonies distract from it, and enough competition may obscure it entirely. Since it is not possible to hold auditions, the job of the Protectors must be to discern the competent and well-meaning musicians from the incompetent and malicious after the fact, and remove those voices that most detract from the true Song.

The beauty of this metaphor is that it doesn't require the Song itself to be "good" or "bad"; it requires only that those who would join with it are in harmony. One might even make a case for what seems disharmonious to a casual listener—I'm thinking here of jazz, which I admit is not often to my taste—yet still has its own rules, its own order beneath the apparent chaos. Even a strange harmony may enhance something of the original Song, if one takes the time to examine it. Just as the dissonance of Melkor was redeemed by Eru in the Music of Arda.

Of course, all metaphors are imperfect, and I don't doubt this one would unravel if extended far enough. Perhaps that's all right. Living here, I've come to accept that there are aspects of reality beyond my ability to comprehend. What is beyond me, I leave to those with faculties more equal to the task.

—Derik

The fault is mine for my unclarity, so I pray your indulgence as I correct it.

It is true that the theory I propound speaks of cycles, of the stories of canon repeating endlessly; but so too must yours. If it were not so, how might agents restore the canon, but not find themselves in the same locality as others who have performed similar restorations? As is so often the case, the name of Rivendell must be spoken: do all who perform their Duty in that house of peace encounter Agents Byrd and Thorntree after the restoration? Such would breed madness and confusion, and so there must needs be a cycle to the world. Indeed, such has been proven, if you will only peruse the records of the Bridge incident.

Oft do those who mis-take this theory say that the canon characters are thus devoid of will and agency, yet it is not so; for it is not they who travel the wheel of the story, but only we who read. This is the mystery: that they might travel once the path which we see them tread a score of times or more. As one who was once my salvation would say, it is wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey; but such is Time, with its unending flow and its looping paths.

If once you understand this, all else becomes clear. The characters walk the road of their life but once, from start to finale; but the way they walk it, in the loops we curate as a garden, touches upon their soul at the close. You err to think of "good" and "bad" as reflective of the state of the world: it is the effect on the characters which much be judged, on their spirits and their fates.

Thus do the agents of this PPC observe the characters well, with CAD and CAD alike, gauging the peril in which a story places them. What you care to call 'canonicity' is naught less than the destiny which was set for them at their birth; and it is our solemn privilege to cherish those cycles which will enrich them, and weed out those which would hinder their growth.

There is but one canon; any cycle which would afflict the souls of the characters must be pruned, whether it be "published" or no.

I remain your dutiful friend & correspondant,

S. M. Celeste, Abbess, Convent of San Galileo