On a different hand...

Subject: On a different hand...
Author: the Irish Samurai
Posted on: 2013-04-04 10:19:00 UTC

According to Wikipedia: 'The spelling of the German-language word is certainly "Überwald." The usage in some of the books is uneven, but the later narratives use "Uberwald" exclusively.'

In the few Discworld books I have to hand at the moment, it always seems to be rendered as 'Uberwald', so it looks like they are both legitimate spellings, although Uberwald seems to be the current official one.

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The Official Fanfiction University of Discworld by Huinesoron on 2013-03-24 15:46:00 UTC Reply

Yes, really. If anyone remembers the original run (or stumble) of this, frankly I'll be impressed - it was eight years ago and lasted about a week.

But it's back! Available either on Fanfiction.net or on The OFUDisc Files blog, OFUDisc is "A spectacular... [th]ing" (The Multiverse Monitor), "Totally [not] baffling!" (Radio Nutmeg), "Definitely a... story!" (PPC Fic-of-the-Month Club).

While obviously the Fanfic.net link is better, because of review counters, I'm going to take the opportunity to note two extra features on the blog:

-The Original OFUDisc, or at least the three surviving chapters, are the first of several 'extra source materials' which I'll be putting up there.
-The Mini-Luggage Adoption Centre will be handling all mini-Luggages discovered during the course of OFUDisc, but more importantly, we're looking to register all mini-Luggages already adopted (or found in missions and not adopted!). Anyone who registers their mini-Luggage will receive a free certificate of adoption, of course.

Thanks to the Irish Samauri for (continuing to) beta, and... I hope you enjoy it!

hS

Aaaaand chapter 3! by Huinesoron on 2013-04-02 17:58:00 UTC Reply

Fanfic.net

The Blog

And of course (though I haven't mentioned this yet), reviews are always welcome...

hS

Someone in that chapter spelled Ãœberwald as Uberwald. by Outhra on 2013-04-02 23:40:00 UTC Reply

Does that make it a mini? Or is it just one of those typos that will be fixed later?

If it is a mini-Luggage, can I adopt it?

Good question. by Huinesoron on 2013-04-03 06:43:00 UTC Reply

My understanding is that it's a valid Ankh-Morporkian alternate spelling (I recall comments about how foreigners try and balance dots on top of letters?). But if people disagree...

hS

I found that quote. by Outhra on 2013-04-03 18:22:00 UTC Reply

It was from Carpe Jugulum. It said that past Lancre, nobody really bothered to "balance two dots on another letter, where they'd only roll off and cause unnecessary punctuation". If that line wasn't such a good example of Pratchett, I'd probably be a little annoyed by the discontinuity. Then again, in the Discworld, there is no discontinuity, only a series of alternate pasts.
I'm mostly a bit put out that I didn't get a mini out of that, really, but I'll just wait until another comes along that I'd like to adopt. Maybe there will be a Rhys Rhysson mini around later. Not likely, because I don't think fanbrats would know about him, but it's possible.

On t'other hand... by Huinesoron on 2013-04-03 20:21:00 UTC Reply

... I think they might have been in Umlautwald at the time, so the excuse doesn't really work. :P I'll see about tracking down the mini for you (and fixing the 'typo').

hS

(PS: Would you believe, I thought about this when I originally wrote it. "No-one will notice if I don't muck about with umlauts," I thought...)

On a different hand... by the Irish Samurai on 2013-04-04 10:19:00 UTC Reply

According to Wikipedia: 'The spelling of the German-language word is certainly "Überwald." The usage in some of the books is uneven, but the later narratives use "Uberwald" exclusively.'

In the few Discworld books I have to hand at the moment, it always seems to be rendered as 'Uberwald', so it looks like they are both legitimate spellings, although Uberwald seems to be the current official one.

On another foot... by Huinesoron on 2013-04-04 12:04:00 UTC Reply

... how many of those instances are from people with a connection to the country in question? I think Lady Margolotta shows up in Unseen Academicals - does she name her home country? Prior to that, Carpe Jugulum and Fifth Elephant should be pretty good sources... maybe even Thud.

And on a completely unrelated appendage: would misspelling a canon work create a mini? Diskworld is a separate issue, but what about, say, Sorcery, or Going Posal? And would they be mini-Luggages or something else?

hS

On one of Igor's hands... by the Irish Samurai on 2013-04-04 15:35:00 UTC Reply

(After all, he probably has plenty of spares)

Yup, The Fifth Elephant is one of the ones I was thinking of. Just had a quick skim through it, and (among various other characters) Angua uses Uberwald - I'm pretty sure she'd know the correct pronunciation.

Vetinari uses Uberwald too, again, I would expect him to know the correct pronunciation.

But the most telling one, for me, is that the narration uses Uberwald. The stuff in dialogue you could maybe rationalise away as people mispronouncing it, but I don't think that works quite as well for the narrator.

And on a vestigial tail (an appendage almost completely unrelated to everything), if I remember rightly, the PPC hivemind decided that minis could only come from missions or OFUs and had to have originated in a badfic somewhere. Things would probably have to get quite meta for the title of a work to end up being referenced in the badfic itself.

However, if that did happen, I'd be tempted to say that it would create a mini (and be the normal mini for that continuum), particularly if there have been a whole bunch of regular minis already. I imagine that each mini destabilises the canon slightly, so that as you get more of them it becomes more likely that you'll get further ones, and that mistakes which might normally be overlooked would start forming minis. While minis are normally formed from mistakes with a character's name, or sometimes places, the title of a book is a name too.

It's probably more likely that books would get mentioned in fanfics for other continua, so a Harry Potter Sue saying how much she enjoyed reading 'the Lod of the Rings' - would something like that create a mini-Balrog or a mini-Aragog?

Those would make minis. by Outhra on 2013-04-04 19:53:00 UTC Reply

Anything connected to a fandom creates the mini for that fandom, and this occurs even when the badfic that creates the mini is fanfiction for a completely different continuum. This has precedent in the mission "Lucid Nonsense", in which a Suefluenced Holly Short mentioned "Sherlock Homes" and spawned a mini-Baskerville in a crossover between two unrelated continua.

For minis created from books within the canon itself, I don't see why they should be treated any differently from the minis based on the misspelling of that work in the context of different continua, though I agree that the circumstances for creating a mini of a title within the same canon would be a lot stranger.

This is getting prolific! by Outhra on 2013-03-29 04:12:00 UTC Reply

Though, I suppose three chapters isn't enough of a sample size to base that sort of assumption on, and I am almost certain that the word "prolific" is not intended to be used that way. Still, three chapters in under a week says "prolific" to me, and no thesaurus website that I could find gave up a more accurate word to use, so prolific it is!
Ridcully was especially brilliant in this one. Seeing how each of the main characters will react to their first fangirls is going to be priceless. Something tells me Imp y Celyn is going to be this University's equivalent to Legolas once the students get a good look at him, which is going to provide a sizable problem for the Death Series staff, but what's an OFU without a good stampeding scene or four?
And chapter 2! by Huinesoron on 2013-03-28 20:12:00 UTC Reply

With a new mini-Luggage added to the List, too!

hS
And chapter 1 is posted. by Huinesoron on 2013-03-26 20:48:00 UTC Reply

Here or here.

hS
Ooooh! by Neshomeh on 2013-03-25 18:19:00 UTC Reply

How fun! {= D The intro is awesome. Perfectly, beautifully Discworldian. ^_^

Hm, I didn't happen to sign up eight years ago, did I? *crosses fingers*

~Neshomeh

Afraid not. by Huinesoron on 2013-03-25 20:56:00 UTC Reply

Or at least, if you did, you didn't do it as Neshomeh.

There are a fair few PPCers on the list, although since I only used half of the applications, a lot of them got dropped. Among the non-attending (or at least not mentioned) students we find such names as Bodldops, UnDeadGoat, Cerberus Dis, Newmoon and Dee... but no Neshomeh.

Actually, of the applicants whose names I recognise, there's only one who's still around, and that's-- ah, but no, spoilers...

hS

Darn. by Neshomeh on 2013-03-25 21:26:00 UTC Reply

I don't know what other name I might have used back then. It's also possible that I hadn't actually started reading Discworld books when you were taking applications. I have no idea when I finally got around to that, but it was as a result of hanging around the Board long enough to realize I was seriously missing out on something. That could have taken a month or a year, who knows?

I know I started with Guards, Guards, though, because they didn't have The Color of Magic at my library. Ah, good memories...

Looking forward to the rest just the same. {= )

~Neshomeh

I didn't realize you had written an OFU . . . by doctorlit on 2013-03-25 16:31:00 UTC Reply

So, the Mini page on the wiki currently lists one of insanegrrl's missions as the source for mini-Luggages, possibly because the OFUDisc was unavailable at the time. Was your OFU the real originator? Because if so, I can change the link to the original OFUDisc chapters instead.

—doctorlit, who is still slowly but surely working on the mini project despite working seven days a week thanks to spring break-induced busy season at the zoo

From very old memory... by Huinesoron on 2013-03-25 16:36:00 UTC Reply

... I think we discussed it on-Board when I first started writing, and I went with mini-Luggages over... something (mini-Swamp Dragons, possibly?) because they were more fun. If that memory is correct, then OldFUDisc is the originator. I believe the initial pair (Ssuan and Lubsang) showed up to glower at Becky in the lost Chapter 2, and there's a mention of them in Chapter 3.

Is there a specific place where the Wiki notes mini adoption centres? I know we have a few around - mini-Hounds and mini-Balrogs, off the top of my head - but I've not had a chance to look.

hS

And also, by doctorlit on 2013-03-25 19:00:00 UTC Reply

would it be all right to use your Rinsewind adoption certificate image on the "Mini/Discworld" page on the wiki? (Or would you prefer to make that page yourself, as the discoverer?)

Go ahead, for now. by Huinesoron on 2013-03-25 20:52:00 UTC Reply

I'll probably drop by when I have a bit of extra time and rewrite it - and once a few of the OFUDisc minis have shown up, I'll make a picture just for the page. But for now, Rinsewind will be fine.

hS

Eh, that's all right. I'll leave it for you. by doctorlit on 2013-03-25 21:38:00 UTC Reply

I have plenty of other mini pages to make, after all. And this way, I don't have to research the Luggage!

I believe . . . by doctorlit on 2013-03-25 18:30:00 UTC Reply

. . . there's an official Mini Adoption Center in HQ that handles any minis from OFU-less continua. (And Miah's agents Miah and Cali handle adoptions for mini-LEOs from NCIS.) I think it's one of those things where the concept of the Center's existence was imagined by multiple people, and several writers started mentioning it, without anyone actually saying, "There should be an Adoption Center in HQ." Not 100% certain that I didn't miss an origin story somewhere, though.

Can anyone refute?

Could I possibly... by Khaosity on 2013-03-25 12:05:00 UTC Reply

...adopt San Vimes? Please? :-)

The Saint is yours. by Huinesoron on 2013-03-25 18:37:00 UTC Reply

hS

Thank you! *does happy dance* (nm) by Khaosity on 2013-03-25 19:08:00 UTC Reply

Discworld OFU by Karen on 2013-03-25 02:52:00 UTC Reply

DISCWORLD OFU.

YES.

I'M GOING TO READ THIS NOW.
Awesome! Very, very awesome! by Khaosity on 2013-03-24 20:49:00 UTC Reply

Can't wait to see more! And my sympathies for the old one being taken down. Bloody Pit, always ruining our fun... *grumbles*
*squee!* by Cassie on 2013-03-24 19:58:00 UTC Reply

I am delighted to see this back. :D I shall watch with great interest. :3
This is exiting! by EileenAlphabet on 2013-03-24 17:52:00 UTC Reply

I'll be looking forward to reading more.
Are the first chapters from way back available somewhere or will we just have to imagine them?

(Also, a big HI! to the newbies. I've kinda dropped off the radar, since I've been busy moving and stuff, but I still lurk on the board.)

They're not directly related, but... by Huinesoron on 2013-03-24 18:10:00 UTC Reply

...those three chapters are linked... er, on that link.

But as I say, they're not causally related, and not required reading - though they do make some of the jokes funnier. :P

hS

Mini-Luggage Report by Outhra on 2013-03-24 17:41:00 UTC Reply

I was never certain on what the OFU policy was for finding minis. Do we just report whichever minis we found in badfics, or would there have to have been a mission to that continuum where they were picked up? Because if it's the former, I have Sam Vines, Ventinari, Vetinar, and Granny Wetherwax to donate to the Discworld's foremost center for fanbrat reconditioning.

Also, the two minis from the one known mini-finding PPC mission to the Disc, Ms. Cakes and Carrrot, are not in the master list. Carrrot is in the possession of one of DawnFire's agents, but Ms. Cakes is still unsupervised.

Regrettably... by Huinesoron on 2013-03-24 18:08:00 UTC Reply

... PPC standard is (I believe) that all minis have to appear in a mission or OFU to be registered. Don't worry, though, there /are/ a fair few in OFUDisc already.

And thank you for tracking down Ms. Cakes and Carrrot! Any idea which of DawnFire's agents has hold of Carrrot? Actually, DawnFire, if you're reading, would you like a certificate made out to you or to the agent in question?

Ms. Cakes will go on the list, of course. Which makes a grand total of... four.

hS

And I had been making a Luggage List, too. by Outhra on 2013-03-25 03:48:00 UTC Reply

So, they'd need to be in missions or an OFU to be put in the registry at all? That's a little disappointing, but at least the two I reported with a mission are being registered. I don't suppose any of the missionless misspellings I found will be showing up in OFUDisc, then, will they? I remember other OFUs mentioning that misspellings reported to them could be put in as minis, but I was never certain of the process, as I said before.

If this counts, I found a topic on the Board that brings out the mini-Luggage Ventinari. It's still not much, but it's more PPC-based than just finding minis around the Internet, and it looks like there still aren't a lot on the Official Adoption Record. It probably wouldn't mean anything, because it's not a real PPC story, but four minis is still a very low number for a Fanfiction University.

It's a Fanfiction University with only one chapter. by Huinesoron on 2013-03-25 09:04:00 UTC Reply

And that chapter is a prologue.

There will be more minis, don't fret. And I'll keep your list in mind if I need any more at a later date, so thank you.

hS

*blinks* I get a certificate? by DawnFire on 2013-03-24 19:31:00 UTC Reply

Hi! I am reading (mini-Luggages are cool!) and...certificate? Fun! (Also, am I actually the first/only person to have a mini-Luggage? It kind of looks that way...)

Agent Edgar Sullivan of the DIC is taking care of Carrrot, and bemusing and confusing (and occasionally amusing) his partner while doing so. I'm sure he'd be quite happy to have an adoption certificate, and would hang it proudly on the wall along with the nonexistent one for his mini-Balrog, Neinor...

(Edgar hasn't actually showed up yet--although technically none of my agents have officially appeared anywhere yet--but he should pop up after several missions. He also seemed the most likely agent to have a mini-Luggage, and who wouldn't want a mini-Luggage anyway?)

Also, just a quick note--I believe Ms. Cakes is actually ms. Cakes, unless I'm misremembering what I read in the mission...

I'm starting to get the feeling that my agents are eventually going to be completely overrun by minis and other pets, and I'm going to have to set up some sort of shared living space for the minis. Should be interesting. Maybe some of them can vacation at the Avengers OFU...

(I kind of want to see what a mini-Luggage of the Luggage would act like. I think it would be wonderfully terrifying, and something I would never want to meet in RL.)

Also, hS...? You remember how you told me it was alright if I wrote meta stuff as long as I could do it well/edit it if it came out badly? Well, it's grown into an entire storyline, and it's coming in quite early on. As in, the first mission. I don't think my missions and interludes are going to be particularly "normal" in terms of general mission/interlude content...

~DF

No, you don't get a certificate. by Huinesoron on 2013-03-24 20:36:00 UTC Reply

You get two certificates. :P

I have to say, it would be awesome to see the minis taking an active role in HQ again. Since the Days Of Yore (TM), they've been quite marginalised...

Pfft - 'normal' is overrated. The important things are that it's a) funny, b) fun to write, c) well-written, and d) doesn't actually tear gigantic holes in PPC 'canon'. And that you're not afraid to edit after posting if people raise valid concerns or comments, that's a useful skill too.

hS

Whee, certificates! by DawnFire on 2013-04-02 05:24:00 UTC Reply

I would totally print them out if I had a printer. Sadly, I'm away from home for the year, and printerless, so instead I'll just save them on my computer and print them out in about four or five months. Thank you!

Let's see, how many minis do my agents collectively have now? Brenda has one, Charlie has two, Edgar now has two, Agen____t has none, Dawn has two and a tribble, and Nariel (Dawn's sister, and technically Miss Nariel as she's a coordinator) also has two...and then there's another...and yet another tribble...so that makes approximately twelve minis and pets, give or take a bunch of tribbles. Wow. And I'm sure they'll be picking up more from missions--mini-tribbles are a necessity. I think the time for marginalization of minis is over; the way this is going, they'll be ruling HQ by the end of things--

Oh no, now I'm picturing them all having a meeting and deciding to actually do that...and, knowing my brain, that'll somehow end up as part of the actual storyline, even if it's just an April Fool's interlude...and then there's this Supernatural comic about a secret evil society of innocent-looking dogs...oh wow.

And this is how my craziest ideas get started: something pops up, I think it would be hilarious, and then I figure out how to make it work. Fortunately, I do know how to keep a leash on the most insane ones; odds are, the Mini Takeover will either fail or be a dream/April Fool's chapter...or the minis might get their own department, you never know.

Wow, that's a lot of important things. Well, I tend to think these ideas are funny, and one or two other people have reacted similarly, so hopefully I'm safe there. Fun to write? Definitely. Well-written? Hopefully, and it'll be run through at least one beta anyway. Doesn't tear holes in the 'canon'? I don't think anything I've come up with so far does, but I'll be sure to run anything really unusual/crazy by the Board for safety. And I'm definitely not afraid to edit after posting (unless it's a completely abandoned story, in which case I'd probably just leave it unless it was something really minor), although I should hope most issues would be caught at the beta stage.

Ok, I wrote this ages ago and should have clicked 'Post Reply' instead of letting it sit. Sorry!

~DF

Mini Takeover by Outhra on 2013-04-02 23:32:00 UTC Reply

With all of the unsupervised minis from the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings continua alone, the minis would probably be able to overrun a few hallways before someone alerts the Tiger Lily. Involving the rest would only make it easier for the minis to spread across HQ.
Plus, if mini-tribbles are capable of parthenogenetic spawning like their full-sized versions do, even if it's every once in a while, the newborn doubles would be able to serve as shock troops for the Tribble Primes.
The forces of misspelling would need some sort of stabilizing force, of course. A leader or an organizer, who would support the cause and yet be able to coordinate it. Otherwise, they'd never be able to stay in line when the DIA comes out wielding the ever-tempting trays of raw meat.

That last paragraph was written ten minutes before this one. I just got back from seeing if there were any good minis of Theodore Roosevelt. No dice. They're all in Newsies fanfiction. I didn't even know there was Newsies fanfiction before today. Reminds me of the time I found a Casper the Friendly Ghost Suefic. Who does that? I found two Winston Churchill minis called Chirchill and Winston Chruchill in a Doctor Who Suefic, though, so maybe there will be a few mini-British Prime Ministers picked up in the future.

Of course, even with a mini-Historical Figure to lead them, I'm not saying that the mini takeover wouldn't still fail. The DIA probably wouldn't even take them seriously. Still, it would be pretty fun to write about the attempt, especially if they take over the Armory and figure out how to operate the rocket launchers.
Wait, aren't minis mute? The only ones I know that have a vocabulary above a handful of words are the mini-Aragogs, and I'm pretty sure not even other minis would trust mini-Aragogs to be good negotiators. How would the mini faction state their demands? I suppose they could always just have one of the Pirates of the Caribbean monkey minis write their demands down. The monkey minis have thumbs, which most mini races lack.

Also, unrelated questions. What actually is Agen_t? Edgar used gender-neutral pronouns when referring to xim in the April Fools mission, so obviously xie isn't human. Is Agen_t xir name, or a title? What species is xie? What continuum is xie from? Am I conjugating these gender-neutral pronouns correctly?

XD by DawnFire on 2013-04-09 22:53:00 UTC Reply

[Please bear in mind that most of this message was written a week or two ago, and therefore pieces of it may be contradicted by conversations which took place in the meantime. With that said...]

Quite true, quite true. Looks like it won't just be the minis adopted by my agents...they could easily recruit.

Well, in terms of a leader...and in terms of non-mute ones...we have mini-Nick Furys.

...do I really need to say more?

And considering that I'm one of two co-writers for the upcoming Avengers OFU *insert advertising here*...

Well, if you point me to those Churchill minis, I'd be happy to take on the mission. I think. Mini-Reapers would be useful...and, well, Churchill.

Casper the Friendly Ghost...Suefic? Kill it. Kill it dead. Like you said, who does that?

The mini takeover. It's happening. >XD

I've got a theory...that whenever a mini-tribble is repeated, it just gives birth to a double. In fact, that theory just popped into my head now, but it seems vaguely logical...thoughts? Alternatively, they give birth to mini-tribbles with nonsense gibberish for names, or with names that are anagrams of the original mini-tribbles' names...

Agen_t is...an agent. Alright, alright, real answer: Agent technically is human--ze's just not a particularly ordinary one. That is, ze has yet to choose a gender.

Agent is a badfic recruit. Zer author wanted three S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to accompany her Sue as bodyguards of some sort. She thought of two names, and forgot about the third: she meant to write 'Agent _' and then fill in the blank later, but the blank ended up in the middle of the word, and she posted the chapter without filling in a name. Agen_t had an extremely minimal part in the badfic, and was never given a gender or any description at all, beyond being included in general descriptions of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Ze was given several surprisingly logical lines (questions quickly shot down by the Sue), and then was forgotten about, and subsequently fell into a plothole. The PPC agents assigned to the fic pulled zer out and recruited zer. As zer bit character personality consisted of logic/common sense and stubbornness, ze refused to choose a name before settling on a gender, and refused to settle on a gender without knowing more about zerself and what genders even meant. Ze spends time in FicPsych now (and was given the general S.H.I.E.L.D. agent memory implants by them), mostly talking through problems to figure out what ze does and doesn't like. Agent has chosen a hair color, but zer height fluctuates and ze wears contacts to cover up the fact that zer eyes are currently an undefined color.

So basically: Agent is human, of an undefined gender, and Agent is zer name because ze refuses to choose a name arbitrarily. Ze originated as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in the 2012 Avengersverse.

Re: gender-neutral pronouns: Are you conjugating correctly? I haven't the foggiest idea. I've just been using ze and zer, although there was originally an x in there instead of a z...I don't actually know what I'm doing. I just settled on ze and zer, although zir might make more sense, to be consistent.

But thanks for noticing Agent :) Ze's gained a surprising amount of backstory, really, considering that I, uh, made zir up because I kept writing 'Agent' instead of 'Agent _' for Edgar's unidentified partner...And did that enough times that I ended up starting a paragraph with, 'Uh. Is the mysterious agent’s name Agen__t, by some chance? Because that keeps coming out…' Ze was nearly an MI6 agent, but I quickly settled on Avengers as zir home continuum rather than James Bond (you can tell what I'd been watching).

So, yeah. Sorry the reply's late, hope the fact that it's long makes up for that :)

~DawnFire
Minor correction. by Huinesoron on 2013-04-03 16:39:00 UTC Reply

With all of the unsupervised minis from the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings continua alone...

Mini-Balrogs are not, of course, unsupervised. If they're not adopted, they should be shipped off to OFUM. I think we actually even have a mini-Balrog adoption centre somewhere - someone (Cassie? Only I think I pin everything on Cassie in my head...) got permission from Miss Cam to run it.

Mini-Aragogs, however - and a whole host of other minis - are (I believe) pretty much hanging in the wind.

Also I think this idea is very silly and could definitely make a story if someone, er, made it a story.

hS

That must be what the OFUs were for all along! by Outhra on 2013-04-03 18:53:00 UTC Reply

It makes perfect sense! With fanbrats to keep them occupied and a constant supply of bacon and fellow minis, they'd never think to overthrow anything! They'd have no leadership, no defenses, no plan... it's beautiful in its simplicity.
Of course, the minis without an OFU or those still left in the adoption centers would be as prone to revolt as any others, and if enough new minis were to be sent in at once time...
Now I'm planning something. It is very silly, but I'm planning something, Permission pending and a few missions in of course. The setup would involve a mission to a definite WhatThe fic, though, so would you mind if I used Mortic or the Rhododendron for it if I end up actually writing this?

By the way, when I say "unsupervised" I mean "without an agent or other figure watching them most of the time". I don't know if there's a real term for that group of minis, and I would have said "owners" if not for the fact that minis most often refuse to be "owned" by anyone.
I suppose that some OFUs have an official staff member specifically for mini-corralling, like Argus Filch for the Official Fanfiction University of Hogwarts, but for the ones that don't, I don't know if getting a bunch of minis in one place and saying "You six go down that hallway and guard the staff section. The rest of you... go cause some trouble." is really keeping them supervised. It sort of seems like the opposite.
That, of course, is a defining point in my plan.
(steeples fingers villainously)

Reply to both of you... by DawnFire on 2013-04-03 19:50:00 UTC Reply

hS: Cassie is indeed in charge of the mini-Balrog adoption center. I should know--she was the one I talked to in order to adopt six mini-Balrogs in the first place!

Outhra: I have a nice long start to a reply to your Mini Takeover post, and it's on my laptop, which is currently battery-dead. I'll get it to you somewhere around Sunday or Monday, when I have the charger again.

With that said...

I do hope you don't mind if I end up writing my take on the mini takeover as well, since it's already partially formed in my head (and because I can get a bunch of mini-Furys--that's mini-Nick Furys--in on it without much trouble). Our plans sound pretty different, though, so I doubt there'll be a problem with close similarities...

I pity whoever's in charge of corralling the mini-Furys, I really do. I feel like everyone would try to make Fury do it himself, and then, when he slips out of doing it, they'd try...Agent Dawn, probably, but that doesn't work too well, since she's only there part-time (and, possibly, it results in the attempted Mini Takeover), so they have to try someone else...a crazy person suggests the students, but that's vetoed fairly quickly...and then, well, I don't know, actually. They're probably just kept very busy so that they won't get into trouble--which, of course, fails, since these are minis of Nick Fury, after all, and they are possessed of varying levels of sneakiness. So I suppose there really needs to be someone in charge of them. Possibly Odin? Hm. I think I'd better ask Karen what she thinks; I don't seem to be able to figure it out on my own.

Anyway. You'll have the originally intended reply in a few days...

~DawnFire

Concerning the organization of minis. by Karen on 2013-04-03 23:17:00 UTC Reply

The first thought I have on mini supervision is that Marie should not be asked. She's scared of Nick Fury, and the minis unnerve her. There would be shovel bashing.

It really seems like it depends on the characters and how the minis act. Do the minis even need supervision? Who thinks they do, and who thinks they don't?

Re: Concerning the organization of minis. by DawnFire on 2013-04-05 12:53:00 UTC Reply

I believe you're quite right about Marie. Although it would be amusing to see the shovel come into play. I get the feeling the minis would end up either leaving her alone or treating her with some sort of respect if she ended up bashing them with a shovel.

That sounds like it could make a wonderful argument, really...in my mind/headcanon, the minis act a lot like Fury, only with aspects of their namesake's character as well. So for instance, pepper would be intelligent and sneaky, and like Tony, tony would be extremely intelligent, snarky, good at leadership, and be very fond of Pepper, etc. As for Midguard and Asguard, I'm not completely sure--maybe they'd take on aspects of their namesakes' inhabitants' personality? Who knows. But yeah. What do you think?

(Now may be a good time to mention that I'm still rather new to the idea of having minis that are minis of human[oid] canon characters, and I'm still figuring out how they even work in the first place. The mini-Furys amuse me, though.)

~DF

That assumption makes sense. by Outhra on 2013-04-06 03:23:00 UTC Reply

From what I've seen of human-minis, they're similar in personality to the human they are based from, but are affected on a secondary level by their naming aberration. Of course, most of the time human-minis are smaller versions of the character that they're misspelled from rather than versions of one character created by misspelling of other characters, so it's not fully set, but you're the writer(well, co-writer) of their OFU! You have exclusive rights to hammer out the details.

Can minis come from reviews of badfics rather than badfics themselves? Because after I heard of the Avengers OFU, I was looking around the Internet to see exactly how much Avengers fanfiction there really was, and encountered "the Oncredible Hulk" in a series of comments. You can have him if you want, and if you decide he exists. I also found the mini "Nuck Fury" in a bad role-play, if you decide he's valid, too.
That brings up another question: what would Nick Fury's personal misspellings act like? If Nuck Fury's a mini-Nick who acts like Nick Fury... would he just be an exaggerated Nick Fury? Like he's doing a constant "look, I'm the boss" impression of the sort that would be used by exasperated S.H.I.E.L.D. employees? Actually, that could turn out to be pretty funny.
Hm. by Karen on 2013-04-05 16:17:00 UTC Reply

Midguard and Asguard could be very bland, perhaps? Since the word "guard" is in their names, I imagine they'd think of themselves as guards of the worlds, rather like Heimdall. Perhaps they could set themselves to guarding plotholes to other worlds?

As for humanoid minis, I get it. I'm not used to minis that can talk...9.9

And hehe. Marie. She likes that shovel. It's name is Richard!

This reminds me of a question I had about the Avengers OFU. by Outhra on 2013-04-04 02:02:00 UTC Reply

Is it a Fanfiction University for the whole Marvel universe, or just the portions of it involving the Avengers team? And if it's the latter, is it only the movieverse, or the movie and the television show, or the movie, television show, and comics? What exactly are the parameters for it?

Regarding your question about minis, I suppose the level of supervision each mini needs would depend on the character it was based on, as well as its mini type. No mini-Discord is ever going to be well-behaved, because it's a mini of a primordial chaos spirit. Other minis of more neutral or balanced species might have a varying amount of adherence to rules, based on their experiences and how their namesake might act.

I say it would probably be safest to supervise any minis, especially potential problem minis, than to leave them unsupervised and risk them hacking something or breaking important items. The last time minis were given negligent supervision, they took over the body of a PPC agent and gave mini-Colossi the ability to speak.

On the bright side, at least we know what misspelling race the rebel group of minis would pick to state their demands now.

In answer: by Karen on 2013-04-04 15:44:00 UTC Reply

So far, it looks like this OFU is just going to be about the movies, with the characters from other versions of the continua making appearances frequently. We also plan to have a bunch of characters from various fandoms appear as guests, such as Gabriel from Supernatural and Captain Jack Harkness. EMH Clint is going to be one of the frequent guests, but we are drawing our staff purely from the Avengers movie and the movies that led up to it.

Also: XD Good pooooooint. Rebel minis are a bad idea.

Ahahaha, that was an awesome interlude-thing. by DawnFire on 2013-04-05 12:47:00 UTC Reply

What Karen said. *insert evil laughter here* Also, Karen's mentioned only the tiniest fraction of the guest stars. How are we working special application questions about that, by the way? Are they going to be on the general application, or handed out before the guest stars come, in one of the classes?

EMH Clint. :D EMH Clint is wonderful. He's also hilarious. He's going to be very fun to write.

But yes. We're working with the most recent Avengers movies--The Avengers, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 1 and 2, Captain America, Thor...I think that's it. Once the new movies come out, we'll incorporate details from them as well. We'll be bringing in characters from EMH and Armored Adventures (and making all sorts of references to the Ultimate Avengers movie) as well, and comparing and contrasting storylines a lot...should be fun. Mind you, we can only actually do that because I've seen them. That's why the comics won't be brought in much--neither of us have read them (unless you have and I missed something, Karen?) I do know some pieces of the comics, though, and I participate in a Facebook group that has members that know a lot about the comics, so who knows? Maybe they'll end up with a bigger part.

(Guest stars. Guest stars. I love the guest stars. Wonderful people.)

Avengers OFU. It's gonna be great. And insane. And hysterical. And awesome.

And long, judging by the first chapter.

:D

~DawnFire

Addendum to Mini-Luggage Report by Outhra on 2013-03-24 17:56:00 UTC Reply

Update: Susan Sto Hellit, San Vimes, Veninari, Ceath, Granhy Weatherwax, Nanny Og, Gapode, and Deritus have also been found. Again, no missions to pick them up, but an OFU with only a few minis would be a very poorly guarded OFU indeed.

Okay. Slight change of plan. by Huinesoron on 2013-03-25 09:13:00 UTC Reply

(Interestingly Sam Vines already appears in chapter... four, I think. Apparently some errors are universal...)

Since it hits a bunch of popular characters who otherwise would be underrepresented, I'll be rolling out the minis you've suggested onto the list over the next few days. However, and I say this to everyone, no more. This list are necessary as seed-stock; henceforth it'll be only mini-Luggages identified as mini-Luggages in their stories.

And yes, I'll probably be retroactively justifying this by including this lot later...

hS

It's back! by Ivan the Not-so-Terrible on 2013-03-24 17:34:00 UTC Reply

Anyway, when is the mini-Luggage adoption page going to be ready?

It is ready. :P by Huinesoron on 2013-03-24 18:08:00 UTC Reply

I'll be rolling out the minis from OFUDisc itself as they appear in the story (otherwise it wouldn't be fair). Other than that, they'll appear as per PPC standard - when they show up in missions.

I do have two (Ssuan and Lubsang) mentioned in a very old file from 2004, so I'll add those to the list. And Outhra has pointed me at Ms. Cakes, who's also available...

hS

Is Lubsang available? (nm) by Ivan the Not-so-Terrible on 2013-03-24 23:39:00 UTC Reply

Not any more. by Huinesoron on 2013-03-25 09:08:00 UTC Reply

There you go.

And for anyone else who wants a mini-Luggage - the master list may be short, but because of that, it is up-to-date.

hS