Subject: It's a brand of brain bleach.
Author:
Posted on: 2014-02-28 22:16:00 UTC
Specifically, it's a combination of bleach and aspirin manufactured exclusively by the mini-Aragogs of the Hogwarts Fanfiction Academy. Accept no substitutes.
Or you could go with the logic that it's capitalized when mentioned in "The Hogwarts Fanfiction Academy," therefore its creators intended for it to be capitalized, therefore capitalization is correct. Either way.
~Neshomeh
I'm wondering if now actually wasn't the best time to request, considering the thread right below. *shrugs* Oh, well.
RC 3-Apple-14: how the agents joined
Rina is a bit of a pack rat when it comes to books, and it was this habit that led to her joining the PPC. She had a tendency to pile her books around her bedroom, and the books' chaotic proximity caused their respective natural plot holes to converge. Since nobody expects to wake up and step out of bed into a pit that leads to a secret headquarters, it was more than a little terrifying when it happened to Rina. After she got over the initial shock, she immediately asked to sign up and invited her friend Randa to be her partner.
Agent Rina Dives, age 17
While PPCing, Rina's default moods are resigned, irritated, and snarky, but if someone messes with her favorite characters, especially Remus Lupin, she'll fly into a rage and usually has to be physically restrained. Her preferred weapon is a crowbar, but she is also a competent archer and has some experience with fencing.
Rina is lanky and inherited her father's large hand and feet, though hers are thankfully nowhere near as big as his. Her plain brown hair is kept short so she doesn't have to brush it. Needless to say, it's always sticking up at odd angles. She wears contacts to correct nearsightedness and will swear up and down her eyes are green, but everyone knows they're really hazel.
Her semi-eidetic memory is both a blessing and a curse; she can perfectly recall things she's passionate about, but anything that falls under the Do Not Want category is retained, too. To add insult to injury, employing bleep products isn't an option as Rina's allergic and would like to live to see retirement, thank you very much.
Agent Randa Roan, age 17
Randa was quite bored with her old life and jumped at the chance to join the PPC. She's a rather quirky person (her favorite tool is a heavy steel yo-yo with a 'Sue hair cord) and comes off as a very happy-go-lucky sidekick, but if it weren't for Randa, Rina would have gone off the deep end a long time ago. It's really thanks to Randa's badfic tolerance that the pair can get their jobs done. (When it comes to the Zelda continuum, though, the roles are reversed, with Randa being prone to raging and Rina acting as the level-headed one.)
Randa's extremely self-conscious about her weight, but Rina refuses to apply any word other than 'huggable' to her; anyone who uses anything else is likely to be introduced to Rina's crowbar. Randa's hair is a warm brown color (almost the same color as her eyes), slightly curly, and falls not quite to her shoulders. She wears glasses so she can see more than two feet in front of her face.
A sketchbook is her constant companion, which she puts to good use by including portraits of 'Sues in mission reports. She prefers to pass time by drawing her favorite characters when she can see them, though.
Badfic: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/9094976/1/The-Marauderette
I'm putting the writing portion below, since I don't want to put it on the 'net and have it confused for an actual PPC story.
Rina kicked her feet up on the console, being careful to not accidentally hit any buttons. She yawned and raked her fingers through her hair.
"You know," Randa said from the floor, "When you asked me to join the PPC, I didn't think it would be so... boring." She gestured to the room; its only interesting features were the console and two old chairs that seemed likely to collapse at any moment. Beds were supposed to be delivered 'soon', which both recruits knew to mean 'not for a long time'.
Randa propped her chin up on her fist. "I'm bored." She glanced at Rina, who was now drumming out a beat on her knees. "Really bored," Randa added meaningfully. Rina sighed and began digging in her jacket's pockets.
A moment later, a deck of cards was tossed in Randa's direction. "Go play Solitaire or something," Rina said, going back to her drumming.
Randa opted to build a house of cards instead. She soon became engrossed in constructing a five-story pyramid, and the project managed to suck Rina in as well.
"Almost... there..." Randa whispered, barely moving her lips. The girls held their breath as Randa delicately positioned the last two cards-
[BEEEEEEEEEEEP!]
"Holy-!" Randa jumped, sending the cards flying. "Oh, come on!" She sighed and kicked at the floor. "What were the odds of that happening?"
Rina slapped the big red button on the console, accepting the mission. She glanced back at Randa. "Here in the PPC? You're kidding, right?"
"Well, I guess there's always later," Randa muttered.
Somewhere the girls couldn't see, the physical manifestation of the Ironic Overpower was grinning.
As you probably know, we look for a few things in Permission Requests: community activity, writing ability, PPC understanding, and characters.
-You've certainly been active (the magic of Ctrl+F tells me you and Randa between you are posting about 16 times per page, which is several times a day), so that's no concern.
-Writing ability: in a technical sense, you've got it down pat. The only thing I've flagged up from your sample is the 'I'm bored' paragraph - the last sentence, since it's describing Rina, not Randa, should really be attached to the next paragraph. But that's fine.
-Writing ability(2): the actual 'able to write a good story' part is the bit I always have trouble judging, but I'm going to go with yes. You keep your characters physically present (Nesh recently mentioned talking-heads syndrome, which you've managed to avoid), and in what is admittedly a very brief story you manage to draw out the resigned/irritated character of Rina, and contrast it with the 'bubbly' aspects of Randa. Not a lot happens - in a recent review of Elcalion's fic I described this sort of thing as a vignette, not a story - but that's okay, since that was part of the point.
-PPC knowledge: Kind of hard to tell, but the things you have included work. I like the L-space-induced plothole, and the line about the beds. I'm not sure the Ironic Overpower has a physical manifestation, though it does have a sealed temple - but the phrase was comedic, rather than (say) R&R going and talking to the IO. You mention things like bleeprin and mission reports in contexts which imply you know what they are, so I'm going to go with yes on this one too. (Out of interest, did you go through the Permission Self-Check before Requesting? If so, do you feel it helped you in any way?)
-Characters: it's actually quite rare these days for people to write their agents as versions of themselves - most people want to write fantastic aliens instead. But I kind of like seeing it again - it's how Jay and Acacia started the whole thing off, after all. You keep them realistic ('some experience with fencing' comes to mind), and have given a bunch of ways for us to tell them apart. I'll include a note that you'll want to be sure to keep an eye on that 'semi-eidetic memory' - if Rina starts forgetting things, it would be OOC.
One thing I will flag up is that R&R are both new to the PPC. Hopefully that means they've actually been trained (at least a little), but either way, you'll need to make sure they act new, rather than falling into the 'Veteran/Newbie' pattern that's so common.
Overall... I'm going to say Permission Granted. Have fun!
I think I'd like to see RinaAndRanda (Randa) get her own Permission eventually (within a couple missions or so). IMO, the ability to co-write with someone who has Permission is best utilized to give newer people the opportunity for some hands-on learning under the wing of someone with more experience. It shouldn't be a way to dodge getting Permission entirely, so I don't want to set that precedent. For what precedent we do have, IIRC, Trojie and Pads wrote together for a while before Pads got her own Permission, but she did do it, even if it was just a formality, so I think we should stick to that principle.
~Neshomeh
I'm not too sure how long she and I are going to be partnered up, because like I said to hS, we're going to more than likely part ways in a little more than a year. College... meep. o_o But if we fall out of touch, I'll just think up a new agent to partner with Rina. (In that case... Maybe I should just start going by Rina? Hmm.)
It makes sense to get Randa to go through the process too, though. Would I be allowed to check it over for her? Because (no offense if you're reading this, Randa) her grammar isn't the best. Nothing terrible, she just tends to not check over her work.
But I really do depend on Randa for my sanity. The badfic we're planning on tackling involves a 'Sue who went after my favorite character, among other things. I almost punched my computer while I was reading it. Hopefully I'll build up a resistance to that sort of thing.
...Knock on wood.
My brain is a little fuzzy at the moment and I'm having a little trouble processing what's being asked of me at this time.
However, I do view myself as more of a..... supporting character if you will. So when the time does come for Rina and I to part, I most likely will be retiring as I personally do not have as much drive for writing as Rina does.
This being said I will most definitely talk to Rina about the situation.
You have no idea how tempted I was to summon a punctuation shower. I'm so happy! :D
*glances back over the sample* Okay, yeah, I get it. My bad. That's definitely something to watch out for in the future. And don't worry; I grew out of the talking-heads syndrome a few years back.
I've got a fairly large grasp of PPC knowledge, I think... though I did only find out yesterday that Suebuprofen exists as a bleeprin substitute. Agent Rina might not learn that for a while, though. ;)
Also, do people really mostly write non-human agents? All the ones I've read so far have had human agents save for Lore and Earwig. Huh.
Don't worry about the semi-eidetic memory. I'm fairly sure I got (un?)lucky enough to have one... and I made the mistake of reading My Immortal. But on the bright side, I can remember stuff from as far back as three years old, and I never let my mom forget that she promised I'd go to Hogwarts when I turned eleven. For some reason, she hasn't followed through with that. :/
I figured both of them being newbies was the best approach since Randa and I are new to this whole shebang. I don't know how long we'll work together, since we only have a year of high school left before we'll split for college. In that case, I might have Randa retire or whatever and Rina'll get a new partner. You know, assuming I stick around that long.
You don't mind if I glomp you, do you? Because I'm just so happy right now and AJDKAJFHSBGBAKDSPARHDNENWJAGSDKAHSVE *squeal*
I kinda new here and didn't see anything about bleepin in the wiki.
There is no such thing as bleepin,* but there is an article about Bleeprin (and its derivatives).
On a related note, please watch your spelling, punctuation, and grammar. They're kind of important around here. By which I mean very important. If you need help, please ask. We'll be happy to answer questions or point out some handy resources.
~Neshomeh
* hS might get a new mini-word out of it, but they don't exist, so it's rather moot. ^_~
I'm seeing a completely illegible mini-Word, since it's a medical typo and thus should be written in a stereotypical doctor's scrawl?
But no - since it's a PPC mini, I think that would technically make it a mini-Agent. Of course, since it's not from a story, it doesn't exist either way.
hS
that you hear on the telly when people cuss on it.
Really, though, that was a typo. Sorry. ^_^'
The word "bleeprin" in your post was spelled correctly. Well, unless you subscribe to the idea that Bleeprin is a brand name, in which case it's a proper noun that should be capitalized all the time instead of the capital and lowercase versions being interchangeable. I've never gotten attached to that interpretation, though. What would Bleeprin be a brand of? All of the other PPC memory-altering products are derived from bleeprin or function through the inclusion of bleeprin, suggesting that it is a substance in and of itself. Would Bleeprin be a brand of bleeprin? If it's not, would the substance that is referred to as Bleeprin have a different original/official name that we've never heard of for some reason? Why would someone name their brand after the item that the brand indicates? It'd be like having Bread® bread.
Essentially, it just raises too many questions.
Specifically, it's a combination of bleach and aspirin manufactured exclusively by the mini-Aragogs of the Hogwarts Fanfiction Academy. Accept no substitutes.
Or you could go with the logic that it's capitalized when mentioned in "The Hogwarts Fanfiction Academy," therefore its creators intended for it to be capitalized, therefore capitalization is correct. Either way.
~Neshomeh
Overall, things look good, but... what department are they joining? I can't see that you've mentioned anywhere.
hS