Subject: It's just that...
Author:
Posted on: 2010-12-09 11:38:00 UTC
...I think I'm really unoriginal. Like, my idea for how the PPC gets rid of unwanted Agents? Very similar to how they do it on Codename: Kids Next Door. You may want to retcon that.
Ia'm beginning to think I'm not really cut out to be here. I'm obviously not as talented as I'd like to be; my "escaped canon" storyline was panned, at least one member of the old guard is uncomfortable with me, I've been unoriginal (or perhaps even plagiaristic!) in my usage of lines both here and elsewhere (ie, sometimes I'd use a line that I first heard in a movie or comic absent-mindedly or "just because it's cool," then forget about it and only later realize that I should go back and credit it), there have been concerned with whether or not the PPC would let in a Nurglish Daemon at all, the list goes on.
I think I jumped into this too early. I'm against badfic in all its forms, but I'm not an experienced fic writer or sporker. I need time to polish.
I'm loath to let a good storyline just drop, I'll write so my next mission, which will wrap up the starjeffry and "escaped canon" storylines, and then embark on an extended leave of absence. Will I be back? Who knows. Maybe once I'm a better writer. Anyone's free to use my characters, provided you don't kill them.
So, as Elizabeth Corday once said: "It's been lovely."
I'm a bit late, I guess, but oh well. Just wanna say that I'm with the folks who think you're overreacting, since I don't recall anyone picking on you recently, so I have no idea where this came from. Anyway, considering that I gave you Permission in the first place and have worked with you since, I obviously thought it was worth the time. Agent Chliever has a slightly sick brand of humor that may not appeal to everyone, but I enjoy(ed) him, and I note that other people feel the same way. As for Rilwen's point, I would've thought that was covered by whatever it was cutting him off from the Warp, and therefore a nonissue.
The only thing I ever had a problem with was the Eponine thing, mainly because it made certain departments look bad, not necessarily because it couldn't be done. It could easily have been fixed.
As for "stealing" ideas... the truth is, everyone does it. Nothing is completely original--it's all based on our experiences, so familiar things can't help but slip in. You're familiar with TV Tropes--you know how concepts get used and reused, subverted, inverted, etc. The trick is just to combine these things in new ways with enough of our own personalities to make them appear new. It's all about slight of hand. Originality is all a matter of style, which I happen to think you have. It's a little dark and a little twisted, but not moreso than it is goofy and fun, and I thought it worked.
So, that's my $0.02. Maybe as much as $0.05. Anyway, since you've already made up your mind, you can just take it as a vote of confidence for whatever you do next. And I'm still available to beta, should you wish it and have the patience to put up with me. {= )
~Neshomeh
I had actually never comprehended that situation. Would the inhibitor still work if he were dead?
Basically, what she's saying is not that it WOULD happen, but that the Flowers wouldn't chance it and would never have hired Chliever. Though your post has moved me more towards the middle, or at least completing Starjeffry first.
I'm pretty sure that if one kept the inhibitor working long enough for the body to be either properly disposed of, or revived by Medical (They can bring back dead canon characters, and fix just about anything, so why not Agents?), then it would be fine.
It is an interesting question though. Especially since there's no way for it to be tested in 40k canon, seeing as there's no way to cut a Daemon off from the Warp as far as I know.
Cutting a daemon off from the Warp is like cutting a person off from their head. It wasn't even a credible idea in the first place.
Still renders the hand useless, but it's not quite as lethal to the rest of the body, or in the case, the Warp. Of course, the hand can still be made to function under its own power should the right mumbo-jumbo be applied.
Not saying a Deamon as an agent was a good idea, especially not a Great Unclean One, but if anyone could find a way to cut a Deamon off from the Warp and leave it functional it would be the PPC. Probably DoSAT and Medical working together. Not sure why they'd bother, since the thing would be a damn nuisance even by itself, but it could probably be done.
It's one of those things that just inexplicably "happens."
Being an Agent doesn't magically prevent resurrection.
Resurrection does not magically make one into a Sue or Stu.
Agents can be revived. It just isn't done via official channels. We have more than one Time Lord in HQ, Dafydd got wrenched back from being dead by his girlfriend... The circumstances have to be right, but gross generalisations are nobody's friend.
I quote the PPC Wiki's page on death on this one: "Medical, DoSAT, etc. simply won't resurrect an agent dumb enough to get killed. There are various theories about why this is so, but when you get right down to it, it's a feature of agents not being Sues. If agents could be resurrected every time they got killed, they would be too powerful, and it would ruin the PPC's credibility."
So, basically, it's not done to keep agents from having to be visited by the DIO.
OFU students can be resurrected, though, as half the time they're put in bodies other than their usual one (elf, hobbit, etc) and can be given new ones, and the afterlives of the canon universes don't want to accept them.
So, yeah, I don't think Chliever could be revived in order to prevent him from reassimilating. However, since, as Data pointed out, the inhibitor is not canon to Warhammer anyway, who's to say it couldn't work permanently, dead or alive?
~Neshomeh, hypothetical.
http://ppc.wikia.com/wiki/Categorytalk:Candidatesfor_deletion
Please do delete them. I don't even need to finish the last Starjeffry mission.
I'd like to make one for my non-PPC things.
People RP multiple characters with their own journals on Livejournal all the time, even in the same community. And plenty of people have a fic/art journal separate from their personal journal.
This is going to be incredibly jerkish and callous for me to say, but Cheliver... It feels to me that you have some kind of self esteem problem here. If nobody is actively hating on your work, then nobody probably hates it. It feels like this is your own self-esteem making you think that you aren't good enough to be around us.
I'm new here myself. But if there's any impression, there is NOBODY around who isn't worthy to at least hang out here. Even writers of Mary Sues, if they have an open mind and aren't afraid to swallow their pride and improve.
You have two options here, in my mind. You can wail in despair, feel worthless, knock over your block tower and go home. Or you can look at your block tower, see the structural problems in it, and then perform renovations... which I am sure anybody here would be happy to support you in doing if you feel it has to be done.
You won't get anything done by deleting everything and then waiting for the day you feel as if you're 'good enough' to be here. As if we're some kind of holier-than-thou snobbery society. You were approved, so base quality must be at least reasonable.
Dude. We can help if you want help. We're here to be chums. Leaving because you feel bad about yourself isn't going to solve your problems if your perception is 'I'm not talented enough.' You won't suddenly become more talented. But if you stay and improve, you might eventually see yourself as better than you do now.
(OK, GIANT JERK MOMENT over.)
He's not 'wailing' and 'knocking his block tower over', he's just saying he might take some time off to polish up his writing because he thinks he jumped in too fast. That's fine with me. I don't see the problem here. It's not defeat; it's taking a break.
Counts as knocking the block tower oever, methinks.
"Saying you are going to delete your works.. Counts as knocking the block tower oever, methinks."
I believe the reason for deletion is the belief that a never-worked-on pair left hanging would disrupt canon, leave plot holes open, or something of the sort.
I think Aster sums things up pretty well here. If you still enjoy writing PPC-based works, then maybe you just need to take a few steps back and think about how you can switch some things around. You can get a fresh start with some new Agents, maybe– clean up your problems and stick around.
Of course, if you're genuinely tired of the whole deal, far be it from me to pull you back in and handcuff you to the metaphorical wall. But you learn from your mistakes, in fandom and writing, and you get a lot better afterwards.
Think of it this way– even if you do decide to leave for good, the things you've learned here will (hopefully) help you out with your future writing projects. :)
Reckon you could delete your Great Unclean One on the way out? Or at least, you know, downgrade it into a lesser kind of daemon that isn't a fragment of a bloody Chaos God? And therefore doesn't have the risk of "oh, he died? Oh NO, Nurgle now has that fragment back and knows about HQ!"?
...I never thought about that possible consequence.
You think I should delete everything?
And it's what bothered me so much.
Chliever dies, Nurgle learns everything, HQ is invaded and taken over, the canon worlds are invaded next, and the entire multiverse writhes in the grip of disease and Chaos.
Congrats. Not all of us can make Agents capable of bringing about multiversal apocalypse. :p
I think you should rework everything. Maybe make Chliever and his brothers just cultists of Nurgle whose disease-spreading has been curtailed, but not before it made them crazy enough to intermittently believe they are Great Unclean Ones.
A cultist is a bit dodgy, but can be monitored to make sure they don't spread their cult. And does not automatically give all knowledge to a Chaos God if killed.
I just thought a Daemon would be funnier.
Tell you what, I'll write my last mission, then strike my current crop of missions from PPC continuity. They can be an alternate story. If I do come back, I'll start over with a new Agent (though I'll probably keep Winston; a wizard isn't offensive, right?)
So, yeah. Chliever's missions are now out of continuity.
"Lulz, it has icky guts and stuff!"
Daemon isn't funny. Sort of like a lot of 'comedy' movies these days.
I don't see anyone else taking issue like this, so your complaints are starting to sound awfully like a personal problem, Rilwen. You're allowed to have strong feelings, but please stop ridiculing other Boarders for not agreeing with your particular opinion.
~Neshomeh
I've talked to other people in the past who've been uncomfortable with the idea of that particular Agent. I don't know 40K very well, but the things I've found about it along with the stuff that's been presented in this thread say to me that it's not a good idea to have an Agent like that in the PPC, and that's leaving out the fact that, as Chliever's said (and I agree), the Flowers wouldn't want to take that risk.
I think you're getting a little too quick to jump on Rilwen for the tone she's making her points in; she's not trying to be malicious, and I don't see her "ridiculing" anyone, just stating her opinion. She's blunt and honest about it, but if she was trying to be outright nasty you would know.
Besides, Chliever's not getting upset about it. If he was, then maybe you'd be justified in telling Rilwen to knock it off, but she's said her piece and Chliever's accepted her point reasonably, so leave it at that, hm?
I had more than some personal reservations given his choice for his named after agent. Something like this that is walking plague and pestilence isn't exactly something I want anywhere near my own agents, or even wandering around canons.
Description of Greater Daemons, of which Nurgle would be considered: "They normally appear as massive monsters of incredible power, sometimes able to fight an entire enemy army on their own."
Something like that, walking around HQ?
Really?
Also, like Rilwen, I'm not much for gross comedy.
I'm sorry if you feel this is ridicule. But I am not the only one who has privately expressed concerns or distaste. I'm just trying to be honest here about this. I've spent a lot of time trying to pretend it didn't bother me.
I feel the "Hurr durr" post in particular is ridicule. You're implying that anyone who likes that brand of comedy has poor judgement. I don't encourage pretending not to be bothered, so that's why I had to say something.
The truth is, I am defending my own judgement as well as Hamburger-formerly-known-as-Chliever, since I'm the one who gave Permission for Agent Chliever and did actually find him funny. At the time I was satisfied that he was sufficiently nerfed for use as an agent, and while I won't pretend my memory is perfect, I feel like a strong outcry against the idea at that time would not have gone unanswered. Concerns were raised, yes, but I thought they were addressed adequately. I don't remember hearing strong complaints after that until the "missing canon" fiasco, which I didn't like, either, and at that point I started working with him personally to avoid any future blowups like that. So, if you really feel like this shouldn't have happened in the first place, or should have stopped a long time ago, you all ought to be criticizing me about the mistake I made in allowing it, not venting at the guy when he's already decided to abandon the idea. I could make a mistake again--his is done and he's learned from it.
To take a lighter and more generally-addressed tone, I don't know if people are aware that I am approachable for concerns, complaints, etc. Not necessarily as a PG, but as somebody who's been around a long time and would prefer to hear concerns and deal with them off the Board before they fester and become drama here. Concerns you don't talk about solve nothing. Please speak up to someone, if not me, if there's something going on here you don't like. My contact information is available on the Wiki.
~Neshomeh
No, Potterverse wizards aren't a problem for the PPC, unless they're insane clones of Voldemort or something like that. There's a good few scattered around (Potterverse Agents, not Voldy-clones), and as long as they're not flinging magic all over the place to fix every little problem.
I add my well-wishes too your future endeavours.
And no, before anybody jumps on me for this, I'm not the one driving him out. I've seethed privately about this and not said a word to him about the absurdity. And now that the topic's come up, I'm saying it.
Evil-based!Agents? Fine. But they should have the capacity for being individual beings who can make their own decisions. If someone wanted to play a Good Omens demon, I'd be fine with it as long as they did it well. But some things just don't play nicely with a multiversal organisation, and a creature that's technically a partial presence of a 40K Chaos God is one of those things.
And I do hope you come back. I enjoyed your missions, including the ones other people criticized. And as to that Nurglish Daemon thing, I say that if a were-penguin Borg Time Lord is acceptable, a hulking mound of disease should be as well.
But anyway, I do encourage you to stick around, if nothing else, to try to improve your writing abilities, seeing as you've lost faith in them. What better place to get better than a writing message board?
...are not fragments of a Chaos God. Chliever was playing something that if it was ever killed, would return to being part of the mind of a hyper-powerful evil God from a grimdark continuum, that would subsequently know exactly how to invade HQ.
...I can see how that would be a problem.
There are lots of ways that an agent could have that connection permanently severed--there are, for example, a lot of sci-fi universes where "brain uploading" is possible; just upload Chliever's personality into a convenient android brain and put the body on ice somewhere--cryogenic storage, which isn't technically death. (Actually, if it were me, I would use a Sims 2 Servo. It has all the same abilities as a regular Sim, minus most of the exaggerated needs to eat and use the toilet, and is quite tough. They can be built in-universe with a robot-making station, and when they are initialized, they take on the personality, skills, and abilities of the person who initialized them. This is pretty much perfect for a "mind transfer".)
Sure, the chaos god thing could be a problem; but--you have the technology of the multiverse available. Finding a work-around is not impossible at all.
Allow me to add my voice to the chorus of those saying you need not leave. Even if you just stick around and read.
I have never written a mission, nor do I have any intent to do so at this time. I enjoy reading snark, am not so good at writing it. (That and I'd spend way to much time looking up obscure bits of canon to make sure I've got it right!)
Also, that only way to get better at something is by doing it. You're aware of the need to improve, which puts you ahead of a lot of people.
Additionally my very nature makes some people uncomfortable. It's something unavoidable at times, so don't let it worry you too much.
I've had a sudden attack of morality. I realized that killing Sues because they're Sues, even though they're going to rend apart all existence, makes me uncomfortable. Maybe someday when I'm feeling sufficiently sociopathic, I'll come back.
Say, would you all like to hear what my overarching plot would've been (and might still be if I come back) or would you want to remain unspoiled in case of my return. It sounded like it was going to conflict with kgarrett's overarching plot, anyway.
If you really feel like you're not cut out for the PPC right now, I honestly won't stop you, but I feel like it's a bit of a waste. Honestly, from reading your missions I don't really agree with you on that front, but it's your own personal assessment that counts, I guess.
However, I will say this; Writers are thieves, each and every single one of them. Writers see an idea they like, latch onto it, twist it and turn it around a bit to fit what they like, and run away with their stolen ideas as fast as they can make themselves go. Sure, outright plagiarism is most definitely a bad thing, but it doesn't take much to fix that if you catch it, and those little twists to things usually used to fix said plagerism make big differences. For instance, that decommissioning scene of yours from your introduction? You took an idea, changed it a bit, and made it yours, and it was all well and good.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is that A) you're improving, which is only a good thing, B) you aren't really doing anything the rest of us already aren't, and C) if you're willing to fix what little damage you did in the past, then all will be forgiven. So really, I at least feel that you don't really need to go unless you truly feel that you aren't cut out for this place, and if you say you do then I'll disagree. Anyways, I'm looking forward to your next mission!
Don't feel you have to leave! Even if you don't write missions, I mean, I don't and I still stay here. You say you need time to polish, well you can so that staying here as much as you could by leaving.
Still, if you feel you have to go, farewell.
I really liked your missions and characters... but if this is what you feel you have to do... then go ahead.
Who knows? Maybe we'll see you here again some day...
For what it's worth, your missions have been some of my favorites, and I find Agent Chliever to be really funny! I'm looking forward to the starjeffrey wrap-up.
I hope you'll still hang around, even if you take a break from writing for a while. See you again soon, I hope!
I can't really think of anything more.
Please, if you really want to leave, do so, but don't go because you feel you're unwelcome or not good enough. There are always rough patches in communities. If you need time to polish, by all means, take it, but why does that mean you have to leave? Half the point of this community is to help each other become better writers - we can hardly do that if you shy away.
...That said, sorry if I come across as lashing out. I don't mean to. But you sound a bit like my little brother when he's being unreasonable, and I suppose I'm probably reacting to that as much as to your actual words. If you really do want to leave, or are simply bored here, then by all means do so, but please make sure that is the reason, and the only reason. I'd hate to think we drive people away.
...I think I'm really unoriginal. Like, my idea for how the PPC gets rid of unwanted Agents? Very similar to how they do it on Codename: Kids Next Door. You may want to retcon that.
...probably someone else's idea that I used absent-mindedly, or thinking I wasn't doing anything wrong...
To be honest, I don't think I've read any of your work, so I see absolutely nothing in your 'conduct' to complain about. But, if you want... well, then, I guess I'll bid you goodbye, and may you have a pleasant time wherever you go :)
I joined the Board only earlier this year, and I've been drifting around for some time now. I don't think that we've actually introduced ourselves to each other; but I do read your posts, and I regret that we haven't truly 'met'.
I do hope you'll return.
再見！Until we meet again!
Xanthia B.