Sentient floating arms might be kind of awesome.

Back with a question: by Lleu on 2011-01-11 03:50:00 UTC Reply

Hello! I was last here during the summer. I've since started university (woo!) and been quite busy, but before I trailed off I did get Permission and start writing a mission sporking this story. Now I'm in the mood to finish the mission, but I've been struck by the fact that the fic is quite long, and much though I like Roger and Surhat, there's only so much of them sitting around and talking that I (or, I think, my potential audience) can handle. So I have a question. Actually, on consideration, two.

1. Do I have to let the entire fic play out before they can spork it? I'm pretty sure the answer is "no", provided they can get the Mary-Sue alone (should be easy at at least one point), but I wasn't positive.
2. On an unrelated point, do we think the sand-creature created by this sentence would be sentient or not: "Suddenly, before she knew what was happened, was lifted up of the sand by strong, yet gentle arms."? If sentient, I'd like to have them bring Suddenly back to HQ — who knows how useful a sand-girl could be. The same question goes for the floating arms, too, I guess.

Thanks and regards,
Lleu Llaw Gyffes

A repeat: by Aeidhryn on 2011-01-12 01:10:00 UTC Reply

Get back to studying finals, you slacker. Oh, and grats on starting university.

Have fun doing your own laundry.

Dunno what kind of crazy schedule you're on... by Lleu on 2011-01-12 03:15:00 UTC Reply

...but our exams were all done before winter break. This is second semester (and I'm both super-excited for it and freaking out a little bit that I'm an eighth of the way through).

Lleu Llaw Gyffes

Re: Dunno what kind of crazy schedule you're on... by Aeidhryn on 2011-01-12 03:53:00 UTC Reply

I've got exams in a week, but hey, that's probably because of our Winterim which is basically a month of intensive study on one subject... that was a run-on... ow my head hurts...

Sentient floating arms might be kind of awesome. by Khroma on 2011-01-11 06:47:00 UTC Reply

I think the sentence suggests floating disembodied arms more than sentient sand.
(What am I doing here? Get back to studying finals, you slacker.)

Oh, and grats on starting university. :]
With answers by IndeMaat on 2011-01-11 05:25:00 UTC Reply
1. No. I think it's practice for MSTs to spork every line of a fic. In missions you can use narative to summarise and skip over things. So it depends on whether you are writing a mission or an MST. I don't count MSTs as missions.
  
  2. Not everything that is given a name is necessarily sentient. In this sentence it depends on who the 'she' refers to. Does it refer to Suddenly or to someone mentioned in a previous sentence?

Thanks by Lleu on 2011-01-11 17:27:00 UTC Reply

It's intended to be a mission. I think they're going to skip around a bit more, because I don't think Roger can bear it and because I think it will be more interesting to see what happens when Grace says "Gummery" and they make reference to the "Book of Gamarye".

In this sentence, "she" very definitely must refer to "Suddenly" — "Suddenly, before she realized what was happened, was lifted out of the sand by strong, yet gentle arms" = "Suddenly was lifted out of the sand by strong, yet gentle arms before she realized what was [happening]". The problem with the arms is that conceivably they could be attached to Merriman; I just think it's funnier if they're not, because most of the pronouns in this section are pretty vague.

Thanks,
Lleu Llaw Gyffes