Writing styles really do change.

Subject: Writing styles really do change.
Author: Huinesoron
Posted on: 2014-05-28 16:32:00 UTC

I actually rewrote parts of the first couple of DOGA stories once already, and aim to rewrite them again when the Great Readthrough gets there. I feel generally dubious about all my PPC writing prior to, oh, mid-2005 - that's the majority of 'Tales from DOGA', and the pre-hiatus Reorg (plus a few sundries). The stuff after that, I'm mostly content with - at least, right now I think I am! No doubt when I get to rereading it I'll cringe and edit the whole lot of it.

Anyway: it's hard to balance threat levels in a mission, particularly a cowrite. My missions tended towards the opposite extreme - the number of times in the DOGA files people almost got killed is unbelievable.

Anyanyway: like Terri says, it was a generally enjoyable mission. I'm not sure you'd ever have gotten much more than that out of someone who doesn't know what a Nanowriha is, or what's so lyrical about it. ;)

hS

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A question about minis by Iximaz on 2014-05-27 21:24:00 UTC Reply

I've seen at least one instance of agents who take on a LotR fic and run across Boromire and comment that Jay will want to know where he got off to, or something similar. So, does that mean all identical misspellings manifest as a single mini?

Randa and I are working on a fic right now where Slytherin is spelled 'Slitheryn' at least twice and Lily is spelled 'Lilly' on multiple occasions, and need to know if each one spawns a separate mini or not.

Is it only one mini per misspelling in a given fic, or one mini for any misspelling in the entire continuum?

Another Question about minis by Seychelles on 2014-05-29 04:09:00 UTC Reply

Do they make acceptable gifts for newbies and birthdays? Cause if not I have some 'splaining to do.

Um. Depends. by Huinesoron on 2014-05-29 14:00:00 UTC Reply

Some minis - mini-Balrogs and mini-Luggages, for instance - are being centrally coordinated. Any adoptions of those should be run through the person running the adoption centre (to stop them from being duplicated/to get a snazzy certificate). But most are just generally thrown around.

Oh, then there's mini-Boarders. I hope you can see how creepy it would be to start collecting and handing out minis based on other Boarders. ;)

hS

Training Ewok by zdimensia on 2014-05-28 02:12:00 UTC Reply

I cannot find a mission I read recently. It was about a training center and a quartet of junior agents. One was an Ewok named Wallace.

There were two minis: SHIELD and SHEILD. They held on to one of the minis to drag them to the next instance where he would appear (because their RA broke.)

One more question by EmmaLeUnicorn on 2014-05-31 05:22:00 UTC Reply

What if that continuum has no specific mini? Because I have a Homestuck fic that is just. TERRIFYING. Still, there would be AT LEAST 8 minis. But no OFU.
So how do I go about this?

Emma

Whatever you end up doing about that... by Snowy the Sane Fangirl on 2014-06-02 21:36:00 UTC Reply

Will you let me know? I'm gathering notes for a Homestuck OFU and of course we want to preserve continuity. Or maybe I'll just keep an eye out for the mission?

If you don't mind a suggestion, I was thinking mini-Horrorterrors. But I'm by no means demanding that you go with that. Do whatever sounds cool to you!

Looking forward to reading the mission!

PERFECT by EmmaLeUnicorn on 2014-06-03 01:34:00 UTC Reply

Mini Horror-terrors, or may-haps grubs? Or better still, a bucket with the charters symbol on it?

Mini-buckets? by Snowy the Sane Fangirl on 2014-06-03 02:11:00 UTC Reply

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. :D

Or perhaps mini-Cherubs? Mini-Drones? Mini-His-Honorable-Tyrannies?

I like the buckets, though.

It may be up to you. by Hieronymus Graubart on 2014-05-31 16:36:00 UTC Reply

If you have Permission and are the first person who writes a mission in Homestuck, then your agents will "discover" what this continuums Mini is when they encounter the first one. Of course this is a big responsibility, because you should keep it consistent with all the other continua’s Minis. Consider what other Minis have in common and discuss your ideas on the board. Recent discussions of "new" Minis may be found here and here.

Ahh, zdimensia said essentially the same in fewer words.

HG

But you found the link. :) (nm) by zdimensia on 2014-06-01 00:43:00 UTC Reply
Thanks! (nm) by EmmaLeUnicorn on 2014-05-31 17:50:00 UTC Reply

creating minis by zdimensia on 2014-05-31 12:23:00 UTC Reply

Mmy ability to paste is not existing this morning, so look up minis on the wiki for instructions. There is also a thread about minis further up that has a good pokemon discussion link.

Re: A question about minis by Miah on 2014-05-27 21:30:00 UTC Reply

One mini per misspelling. If the mini is owned they should make an effort to take it back home. It's agents are probably worried about it.

Usually if the name is consistently misspelled, then the mini stands in the place of the character. I don't have specific link on hand right now, but I am pretty sure I've seen that in one of Nesh's missions? I know I've seen it before.

Not mine, but it's definitely happened. by Neshomeh on 2014-05-27 22:48:00 UTC Reply

Sometimes a consistent misspelling becomes an entirely different thing in addition to spawning a mini, though. For instance, in "Brown DragonRider of Pern," F'nor and Fandarel are misspelled so much that they're replaced with doppelgangers—in "F'lor's" case, made out of nice flower-patterned linoleum.

As with many things, the route to go mainly depends on what's funniest for the situation. {= )

~Neshomeh

Yeah. by Sergio Turbo on 2014-05-28 10:22:00 UTC Reply

For example, in my third mission there was a consistent misspelling of the name of an air base - I made it spawn a clone of the canonical airbase a few kilometers off the real one alongside the mini because, well, the fic wasn't enough of a messup yet to make aircraft take off from a mini.

However that works.

But either way, it's still one mini per misspelling? by Iximaz on 2014-05-28 11:34:00 UTC Reply

Good to know. Thanks, everyone. ;)

Always. by Huinesoron on 2014-05-28 11:38:00 UTC Reply

Though, as people have said, sometimes things fail to produce actual minis, instead making things like clones. Those wouldn't share an identity with a mini of the same name.

What I don't think I've ever seen is an agent encountering a mini which knows them - one which has previously been adopted by an agent they're familiar with. That might be interesting, though only really in a mission which needed spicing up.

And an agent running into their own mini... hmm.

hS

Agent running in their own/known mini happened. by Sergio Turbo on 2014-05-28 11:49:00 UTC Reply

It was in my first collaboration with Firemagic.

Here's a little excerpt:

Tera ran over and scooped up the white-and-pink Nanoha POV. “Oh, you poor thing. Did the mean, nasty Suethor kidnap you? Did she? Poor widdle mini.”

A reward for you. by Huinesoron on 2014-05-28 14:06:00 UTC Reply

For proving me wrong. ;)

Terri Ryan reviews 'Legendary Illogic'

hS

Wow, thanks. by Sergio Turbo on 2014-05-28 16:07:00 UTC Reply

And wow, having an "old" mission reviewed after so much time makes me understand how much my writing style has changed.

Anyways, I agree on the lack of conflict - in the end that mission was tiring but not extremely "dangerous" for the Agents involved.

The other collaboration was better, IMHO.

Writing styles really do change. by Huinesoron on 2014-05-28 16:32:00 UTC Reply

I actually rewrote parts of the first couple of DOGA stories once already, and aim to rewrite them again when the Great Readthrough gets there. I feel generally dubious about all my PPC writing prior to, oh, mid-2005 - that's the majority of 'Tales from DOGA', and the pre-hiatus Reorg (plus a few sundries). The stuff after that, I'm mostly content with - at least, right now I think I am! No doubt when I get to rereading it I'll cringe and edit the whole lot of it.

Anyway: it's hard to balance threat levels in a mission, particularly a cowrite. My missions tended towards the opposite extreme - the number of times in the DOGA files people almost got killed is unbelievable.

Anyanyway: like Terri says, it was a generally enjoyable mission. I'm not sure you'd ever have gotten much more than that out of someone who doesn't know what a Nanowriha is, or what's so lyrical about it. ;)

hS

Oh hey. by Neshomeh on 2014-05-28 22:31:00 UTC Reply

If you're going to be editing, let me know when you get to "Brown DragonRider." I'd love a crack at fixing it up. I was actually editing stuff as we were adding to it back in the day, and I still have that file. I keep thinking I'm just going to go ahead and clean it up once and for all, but then I realize it'll take a lot of work and I could better spend my time on other things, and it would conflict with the version you have, and bleh. But if it wasn't just me doing it, it would be worth it.

Also, this is sort of off-topic, but since you're re-hosting the old Multiverse Monitor, may I request that you add anchor names (<a name="name"></a>) for each page and/or article? That would make linking to things so much nicer. {= D

~Neshomeh

Can do. by Huinesoron on 2014-05-29 11:16:00 UTC Reply

Though I've got the entirety of Reorg and CD to get through before I go anywhere near missions, so it'll be a looooong time.

And... sigh. I suppose so? At the moment I'm literally yanking the HTML from whichever archives have it, so it's a royal mess (every single paragraph is a div, for instance, with blank divs between them... I don't know if it's a product of the archiving, or Starwind just wasn't very good at HTML/used a site builder). Yeah, I guess I can do that.

hS

Issues 1 & 2 now interlinked. by Huinesoron on 2014-05-29 14:19:00 UTC Reply

I'm deliberately leaving all spelling and formatting errors in place, along with the various desperate pleas for co-authors to submit their stuff, assuming them to be part of the general lacksidacksical effort Agents Starwind and Estelnar put into the MM (unlike Starwind-the-Boarder, who poured months into it). That includes the massively (in Chrome) broken Page 5 of Issue Two.

However, if there's anything else clearly broken - which looks like it shouldn't be - do let me know.

hS

Cool. Thanks! by Neshomeh on 2014-05-30 15:00:00 UTC Reply

Yeah, I figured you wouldn't be editing the MM stuff. It's hard to tell what's an actual mistake and what's deliberately wrong, like calling Constance "Constant" throughout the first article. I'm pretty sure that's deliberate, since you wrote it. {= )

And bleh, I hate bad code. My only experience with a sitebuilder suggests that they're serious perpetrators (or at least that one is), so yeah. All the sympathies.

~Neshomeh

Well... nobody actually knows what Lyrical means. by Sergio Turbo on 2014-05-28 18:44:00 UTC Reply

It's probably an artifact as the "prototype" for the series was more of a regular MG show.

Then someone had the great idea of hybridizing it with Gundam, and the Nanoha we know and love was born.

I'm pretty sure it happened... by Ailavyn Siniyash on 2014-05-27 22:05:00 UTC Reply

...in that Doctor Who/Artemis Fowl mission that exists, but you'd have to check.

-Aila

Well... by Desdendelle on 2014-05-27 22:56:00 UTC Reply

That'd be my first mission. So, wait, I set a precedent? Huh.

So it appears! (nm) by Ailavyn Siniyash on 2014-05-27 23:10:00 UTC Reply