Subject: Yeah, customised minis are a Thing.
Author:
Posted on: 2015-06-17 17:17:00 UTC
section eight (Yes, that's a capitalisation mini, back before I knew that wasn't such a good idea) gibbers madly; Buckingham place has crenelations on its back; and so on and so on.
Is it possible for minis to-very rarely-appear as different creatures than they normally do?
For example:
-Very rarely, a Star Wars mini will be a mini-wampa or a mini-bantha or something, instead of the usual mini-rancor.
-A mini-basilisk for a Harry Potter badfic, instead of a mini-aragog.
-Mini-mumakils/oliphaunts (I can never remember which name is right), mini-Smaugs, or mini-warts for LOTR/The Hobbit stories.
There's no reason why it could not occasionally happen. Minis come from misspellings and they're usually powerful but non-unique monsters from the continuum or occasionally small versions of the characters. Many minis have their personalities influenced by which name they're misspelled from.
The precedent that has been set is that the vast majority of minis are of the standard type, but a very few could be different. If you do this, try to have a reason for it--if the sentence that creates the mini includes a hint that it could be something other than standard. Say a Harry Potter mini is given a description that sounds like it should be a snake--you could have a mini-basilisk named Foldemort or something.
The difference between writing original fiction and fanfiction is that, in one way, fanfiction is easier, because fanfiction writers can use what already has been created and don’t need to think up everything themselves, but in another way, original fiction is easier, because fanfiction writers must work with what is already there and cannot make up whatever seems convenient.
The same should be true for PPCing. Once the mini for a continuum is defined, it is part of the PPC canon and we should work with it, not come up with new varieties, not even in very rare cases (which actually translates to: whenever the writer really wants it to happen).
To use your example, "Foldemort" conveniently spawning as a mini-Basilisk would probably look like lazy writing to me, as if the writer could not think of a way to show that a mini-Aragog got Voldemort’s personality, but wanted to make a connection and thus went with "they both have snakelike features". It may not appear to be lazy if it is really well written, but even then I would prefer to see the same amount of effort put into writing a mini-Acromantula with some snakelike traits.
HG
For example, in Little Miss Mary, I happened across a particular gem: Death Easters. So of course the mini-Aragog spawned in pastel colors and wearing bunny ears. How could it not?
In a previous mission, wolfbane (instead of Wolfsbane) appeared to be smoking like the potion it was named after. Armortentia (Amortentia) appeared to be golden, also like the potion. Venomos Teentacula looked like it was made out of plant material, and so on.
section eight (Yes, that's a capitalisation mini, back before I knew that wasn't such a good idea) gibbers madly; Buckingham place has crenelations on its back; and so on and so on.
Why not have both? An alternate mini would already be pretty rare, but it would also usually have some characteristics of a regular mini.
Let's use a mini-Warg as a basis for this. His name is Olifant, and he was spawned when some Suethor misspelled Oliphaunt.
When one such creature does appear, there is a 50/50 chance that Olifant will be either a normal mini-warg or have features similar to a balrogs-being shrouded in flames, demonic horns, bat like wings, etc. However, Olifant could also have other odd features. Being spawned from a misspelling of Oliphaunt, he could have large tusks or leathery skin similar to an elephant's. This way, not only can we have alternate minis, we also have far more legroom to make each mini unique.
(For the record, mumakil is the native plural form of mumak, while oliphaunt is a Hobbitish idiomatic term. ~hS)
It's just an idea that occurred to me. I have found one badfic in particular that has so many spelling errors, whoever's sporking it might as well have a bit of variety.