Subject: I don't know..
Author:
Posted on: 2015-05-22 12:09:00 UTC
If they were made completely of metal, why would Smaug have a weak spot? His skin would be metal, and, more importantly, his insides would be metal as well.
After the first draft, a huge re-write, advice, discovery, tweaking, and a bit more, I finally feel ready to ask. The second roll-of-the-die-sample is based on prompt 5.2.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zkDzdqrA63vz0xuAF-tODRusFjK6vZwA-QxVSw1XSYM/mobilebasic
The link is for the type you'd see on a mobile device (I'm using an iPad at the moment.) If it doesn't work, I'll try the computer-based link.
Thanks to Darkotas and Omega for their feedback!
Your Permission Giver let you get away with it, but if you ever again imply that We Flowers That Be sit around in pots...
Actually, We are quite mobile when We need to be. We went on missions before We recruited non-floral agents, and you should have seen the party We had at the Fifth Anniversary. When the Sunflower Official was introduced in TOS Chapter 5, he deliberately stayed behind his desk so that Jay and Acacia could not see how his business suit’s trousers fit his stem. Thus, how We manage to walk is everybody’s guess, and We prefer to keep it that way.
The Snowdrop, Head of Department, Uncanonical Department of Inaccuracies
[[I was quite busy these days and got no chance to respond to your request for a second opinion on the SO scene, so you get this instead.
Also, there is a sentence in your Agent #1 Profile I don’t quite understand:
Za’kiir grew up in the Anequina region of Elswyer, the desert-land half of nomad warriors.
I don’t know about this lands geography, and my grip of the English language may not be as good as I want it to be. Are you saying that this region is one half of a (group or tribe) of nomad warriors?
Hieronymus Graubart]]
I could edit the sample if you like. One question: Do you feel like I got His personality mostly accurate?
As for Elswyer, it is split into two regions: the desert-land of fighters and nomads, the warriors; and the jungle-land, home to merchants and traders and makers of Skooma, Elswyer's world-wide-famous sweetened rum. Both reigons are under a king, known as the Mane, who is born when the two moons of Tamriel are in a perfect yet rare alignment.
You write English well, don't worry.
21.05.2015 Characterization?
This aspect of the SO looks good to me, but I’m probably the wrong person to ask. I don’t trust my own ability to keep anybody in character.
BTW, it’s not necessary to use capital letter pronouns for the Flowers. The Snowdrop using Capital-We is just my attempt to give him a distinct personality. Apparently the little guy tries to feel bigger than he is (being uncanonical and all), and he is tempted to use the pluralis majestatis even when he talks only of himself.
Also, the Snowdrop may be exaggerating. Although I try, I can neither read nor remember every PPC story ever written. It’s possible that other Flowers reside in pots (and may levitate rather than walk).
Thank you for explaining Elswyer’s geography. So Anequina is a desert-land of nomad warriors. Now I’m even less certain that the desert-land half of nomad warriors actually says what you intend to say. Removing the word "half" would probably improve it.
Should you edit the "sample" (and the agent profile)? Absolutely! (And don’t forget the irrigation/interrogation problem Des mentioned.) The question is not what I like or want. I’m just an attentive reader and don’t have any power whatsoever. The point is that this isn’t just a sample. If you don’t decide to redo it and give your agents a different back story, it is the prologue to your spin-off and should be linked on your agents’ wiki pages (which should be based on your agent profiles). I hope you want it to be as consistent with TOS canon as possible.
We don’t want outsiders getting the impression that the Protectors of the Plot Continuum are a bunch of hypocrites who can’t write a straight sentence and aren’t able to keep even their own canon consistent. Therefore We try to catch the errors which escaped the beta readers. Shut up, bighead.
HG
They are both one country. I don't know what the jungle-land is called, unfortunately.
Some Flowers are certainly potted (the Bonsai Mallorn, the, uh, 'potted fern'). Others spend all their time wandering around (the Daisy - not the Marquis, the other one). The Floating Hyacinth has been seen at least once bobbing around in a fountain. The Chlorophyll Club has pots for the Flowers to stand in and eat.
But how the Flowers move? I know I've avoided addressing it; I don't know of anyone else who's done so. They Just Do. ^_~
hS
You've got your story prompts, but where are your agent bios and a link to the story you want to mission?
Get those up and I'll come back to this, alright?
I copied it into a Doc, though. Do you want me to link you to that?
Or you can find another one.
http://www.quotev.com/story/4653027/The-10th-Member/1/
I'll post the bios when I get a chance, have to get ready for school now.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mztUaVNMpwHiZMxhQNfAaxUiDXQ0bpmjN9wk0oDY3_4/edit
Is anything else needed?
Because sweet heavenly Mithras, that fic. Eugh. I can't be havin' with Legolust. Like, I get that Orlando Bloom is really pretty, but, like, no? He's... really, really boring? His entire role in LotR is "guy who am shoot arrow gud". And he's not even that brilliant! He fights like a modern European target-shooter as opposed to how archers and skirmishers actually fought with those weapons-
*We are experiencing technical difficulties, please stand by while we try to get hS's hands off Scape's neck. Ix, fetch the big crowbar, please?*
But she gives a very Urple description of his eyes - HIS EYES! YOU RUINED THEM WITH TOO MUCH DETAIL, YOU MONSTER! - and later mentions how he was the only one to protect her from a nightmare because "her soul trusts him the most." UGH.
Oh, and did I mention she has TWO severely overpowered Cute Animal Friends? A Unicorn-Pegasus (but she calls it a HORSE, can't break canon after all!) and a shapeshifting wolf-raven creature. *sharpens sword*
Shapeshifting has been shown to be canonically possible, so long has one has a Maia for an ancestor. Sure, it's rare for it to happen, but if one really wanted a character like that, change the fate of Elered and Elurin. They live, have children, boom. There's your Maia ancestry, through Melian.
Animal friends.. Dealing with the assumption that our OC is an Elf, not too difficult. Elves are shown to be very, very good with animals. He's got Maia blood to boot, and he's related to Beren through Dior. Animal friends aren't very surprising at all.
Magic jewelry really isn't all that hard- after all, Saruman made some rings which we know nothing of, and there are the "essays into the craft" that I can't remember anything else about. I'm actually hoping to mention them (maybe involve them) in my Tenth Walker story.
Psychic? Well, why not? Galadriel and her family can do it (as far as I can recall). It's not too far a jump to think that others from Aman might be able to. Heck, it makes me think that if an Elf were powerful enough, he could do it without being from Aman- slap one of the unknown rings on his finger, say it increases the strength of his mind, and boom. Psychic.
Now, can all of this be woven into a "good" story? I think so. The hardest part might be coming up with a reason for our OC to stay in Middle-earth, rather than leaving for Aman. There'd also be the issues of what he would do during the War, who he would lead, who he might follow, and all of that. But I think it could be done.
Though I'm tempted to get the shapeshifting direct from the source - what would a vampire look like when not in bat-form? (We know Sauron could shift into it; it seems at least reasonable to characterise the entire race as shapeshifters). I'm gonna go with 'not pretty even if she tried to be'.
You're right about magic jewellery and psychic powers (of a sort - the word is tercen, 'Insight', and precisely how 'telepathic' it makes you is up for debate. Luthien sensed that Beren was in trouble, for instance...); the trickiest one is actually the Animal Friend, as anything other than... well, just an animal. Obviously we could go via Huan - but I like to avoid 'it's all from Aman/Maiar' wherever possible.
That said... there is one animal in the Third Age known for its cognitive abilities. ^_^
A fox passing through the wood on business of his own stopped several minutes and sniffed.
'Hobbits!' he thought. 'Well, what next? I have heard of strange doings in this land, but I have seldom heard of a hobbit sleeping out of doors under a tree. Three of them! There's something mighty queer behind this.' He was quite right, but he never found out any more about it.
What do you think? 'Fox, Thinking' as a CAF to any Elves, Dwarves, and Dunedain passing through the Shire?
(Actually, I've just remembered that both talking ravens, and humans who speak Thrush, are perfectly canonical. :D)
hS
The Fox; one hundred percent canonical, one hundred percent cute, and one hundred percent our CAF. Awesome.
I'm guessing the Fox would be less likely to hang around the vampire, though. Which reminds me- what happened to them, and the werewolves?
So, we've got shapeshifting, Sparkly Jewelry, and possible mind powers- all completely canonical. Wow. That's interesting..
(Also, of course, Beorn can shapeshift, without even being an elf!)
'Werewolf' is a bit of a misnomer; Tolkien seems to have used it synonymously with 'warg', and with 'wild wolf' and 'great wolf'. Basically, think 'intelligent Dire Wolf' and you won't be far wrong. Sauron aside, there's no evidence they could shapeshift. And what happened to them? Nothing! They're still around in the Third Age, teaming up with the goblins to sing songs about fir trees. ^_^
Vampires... well, it's difficult, since the only two we ever hear about are Sauron (again, shapeshifting) and Thuringwethil - who's already dead by the time her name comes up! It's pretty clear that they're messengers of Morgoth, and that Sauron keeps a few on hand in both Tol-in-Gaurhoth, and when he holed up in the Nightshade.
It's also clearer than I said that they could shapeshift. Sauron turned into the 'giant bat' form, but Morgoth wasn't surprised to see Luthien in a form that could speak, and stand in front of him - not a giant bat, in other words.
So what happened to them? They may have all died in the War of Wrath - they weren't fighters, after all. Or... well, there is an army of giant bats in The Hobbit, and the movies definitely didn't show them as ordinary bats. Given that Tolkien ripped the setting off The Hobbit right out of his Silm manuscripts (check out the dwarf-hating Elvenking in his underground city!), I suspect they're actually bat-form vampires. Perhaps, with Morgoth gone, they can no longer look human - that would make a certain amount of sense.
hS
I wonder how long they live if they aren't killed. 'Cause there's a certain wolf that killed Finrod Felagund, and he's gotta go. *sharpens sword*
That's sort of terrifying- and it does mention the bats fastening onto the stricken. It would be really interesting to write about them. Do you think they're immortal- well, clearly, they can be killed, but ageless?
Finrod killed him to protect Beren, remember? And then the Lady Luthien dropped a castle on his corpse. He's very dead.
It's fairly clear that a bunch of Melkor's abominations are long-lived. Draugluin, 'Father of Werewolves', is around in the late 460s, but it's hard to imagine werewolves don't date back to the very early days of the War. Dragons and balrogs are both immortal-in-the-Elvish-mode. Vampires... well, again, it's hard to say.
But look at it this way: Sauron was able to make a Ring that accidentally makes its wearer immortal. That suggests that the immortality comes from contact with the chunk of Sauron's power that he put in it. And, as we know, 'the whole of Middle-earth was Morgoth's ring' - he put bits of himself everywhere. So werewolves, vampires, even orcs are probably all un-ageing.
(Though orcs would be anyway, being mutant elves.)
hS
No, I had forgotten; it's been a bit since I've read the Silmarillion. I should probably brush up on it.
I hadn't thought about that; so there might be Orcs and wolves running around that served Morgoth? I mean, it seems fairly unlikely, since they fight so much amongst themselves (or Orcs do, anyway), but there might be some ancient Orc chieftain somewhere, plotting revenge..
So it's entirely possible that a) the bats are vampires, b) the vampires are immortal, and therefore c) at least some of them may have served Morgoth.
And that leads me to two questions; are vampires necessarily evil, and are they born or created?
As ever (or more so than ever): this is speculative. We know virtually nothing about vampires specifically. But...
-They were probably born. Morgoth's usual process (or rather, Sauron's, since he was apparently the one who created orcs - and werewolves) seems to have been:
--Make the first of a species by twisting something natural. Orcs are twisted elves. Trolls are, according to Fangorn, twisted Ents. Werewolves are presumably twisted wolves.
--Engage in an aggressive magical breeding program. This is how Draugluin gave rise to Carcharoth.
--Let them just keep breeding. We know that orcs, for instance, bred in the Misty Mountains.
There is an alternate scheme: the one used for creating dragons. It goes:
-Make a body out of inanimate matter.
-Persuade a Maia to run it for you.
This probably doesn't make something that can reproduce. We've no indication that dragons could breed, and very strong indications that balrogs couldn't.
So why do I say vampires are probably the former, rather than the latter? Simple: they're based on bats. Balrogs and dragons are only loosely based on other creatures; vampires are pretty obviously corrupted bats. So they were born.
But, as I've said somewhere else, the 'born' method involves sticking a little bit of Melkor's essence inside the creatures in question. This is apparently hereditary (which might mean that Morgoth grew more powerful as his armies grew, which would figure). But it also has the effect of making his creatures Default Evil.
Think of it as having a little Shoulder Morgoth (there's an image for you...!). Does it make you necessarily evil? No. But it means your primary drives are going to be selfish, and quite possibly power-hungry. Can someone who's predisposed to see themselves as the most important person in the world (except for the Master, of course) be good?
Well... that sounds like a story in the making!
hS
a passage saying that the plainest to the north of the Lonely Mountain were the breeding grounds of dragons, though. But I can't recall anything else..
Little Shoulder Morgoth.. Heh..
That reminds me of a passage; I can't remember if it's in Silm or LOTR. But it's talking about the motivations of Orcs, and how they live in fear of Sauron and hate for him, and hate for themselves, and hate for everything less pitiable than they are. And that makes me think of the scene in the movies, when Aragorn falls off the cliff, and Legolas speaks to the Orc. The Orc is holding the Evenstar so gently- he's cupping it, really, like it's the most precious thing he's ever seen. And I can't help but wonder if whatever tiny bit of Elf that might still have been in him longed for beauty again.
Ahem. Anyway, yes, that does sound like a good story!
Even more clearly, in a draft manuscript somewhere, Gloin apparently mentions 'a dragonet new from the shell'.
But that doesn't mean that they breed like normal creatures do. I'm now picturing a dragon melting together a vast horde of metals into a ball, then heating it still further so that some of the dragon's own innate fire passes into the 'egg'. The fire-spirit in the centre of the 'egg' would then work its way outwards, building itself a body from the metals around it; finally it would break through the last shell of metal, and emerge as a young dragon.
(All this assumes that you take the 1917 descriptions of dragons as mechanical as canon, rather than just reading them as mutant lizards or something.)
hS
If they were made completely of metal, why would Smaug have a weak spot? His skin would be metal, and, more importantly, his insides would be metal as well.
... is Tolkien talking about the fact that the elves touch the world only lightly, and by the Third Age were already withdrawing from relevance:
Legolas probably achieved the least of the Nine Walkers...
^_~
Though, of course, it must be said: Legolas, not that good? Er, how many archers do you know who can climb on top of AT-AT-scale elephants and shoot them dead? How many archers do you know who can get multiple clean, single-shot kills while shield-surfing down a flight of stairs?
Let's face it, Legolas may not look like much of an archer - but you can't argue with results!
(Besides, it's not like the guy obeys the laws of physics anyway.)
hS
But that isn't how lone archers actually fought. Look, I'll link you to a video that explains this far better than I ever could:-
Lars Andersen: Makes Legoland Look a Total Scrub
I mean the video.
And he won the War of the Ring singlehanded, I think you'll find. So there.
(Obligatory crackpot theory: perhaps you don't need to fight sensibly when you're facing orcs. Did any orc in any of the movies ever try anything other than 'charge into your face and hack at you'?)
(Also, haven't watched video yet; will watch later)
hS
Seriously, when I was watching the Hobbit movies, and Legolas showed up, all I could think was "You're not hiding your status as a Solar Exalted very well, you keep using Charms..."
No, I'm not letting that go. It was my 'what is this' moment in the theater more than anything else.
~DF
Throwing his sword and it actually working, and then violating every law of physics by using the falling blocks as platforms. Legolas, wat r u doin.
That's basically what happens in the fight between Cloud and Sephiroth in Final Fantasy: Advent Children. Except it's even MORE ridiculous, because they platform in 26 directions.
He can now defy the physics of falling objects by slowing down time! It's too ridiculous now.
At least this ugly beast fits the blargh weather outside. Anyway!
1. Community involvement - I recognise your name with a glance and don't have a kneejerk cringing reaction, so I think we can safely say you know the community and the community knows you.
2. Writing samples - the samples are good and show a generally good grasp of the PPC. There are two things to be noted, however. One - you have a couple of, erm, auto-correct-induced typos ('irrigation' for 'interrogation'); two, you didn't quite catch the SO's appearance right. Other than that you're good.
3. Badfic - that's a Tenth Walker aright. Nothing too enormous, but there's nothing wrong with missioning a classical Sue.
So. May I have a Dramatic Drum Roll? No? Very well.
Unless a more experienced PG has any issues, my verdict is Permission Granted. Conga Rats, Silenthunder!
*blows noisemaker* I look forward to your missions! Also, have three bars of Bleepolate!
Looking forward to your first mission! :D
I've seen sporkings where the fic in question was too long, so the agents would go and portal to certain spots to take care of the really bad spots. I have a feeling I might need to do that. So what's a good rule of thumb for knowing when you need to do that. On the other hand, what's a good way to know when to skip chunks of writing that don't pop out, and how to make the transitions smooth from shocker to shocker?
I was wondering if it's mandatory to post every sporking link I do on the Board, or will that be saved for the Wiki profile?
Three, the Wiki isn't letting me sign into it. I tried with a new password, and still no go.
Lastly, can I have a beta if needed?
1) You have to develop your own rules of thumbs for that. If you want to see what other people did, most people link to the badfic they sporked, so you can look at the mission and the badfic side-by-side and see what they did. It changes from person to person and from mission to mission.
2) Wiki has an article on that.
3) Have you tried signing in to another Wikias? If you can't sign into any Wikia, it's probably a problem to be solved with Wikia itself. If it's just the PPC Wiki that gives you problems, you should poke the Wiki admins to see if you're caught in a ban by mistake.
4) Of course. Post a beta request on the Board and someone will answer it, 99.99% of the time.
What's some differences between a Replacement!Sue and a possessed character? They seem like the same until an agent says otherwise in the sporking.
Possession shouldn't be confused with plain old OOCness. Possession usually implies a Sue- or slash-wraith, which respectively make the character behave in a Sueish or slashy way. If they're OOC but not particularly Sueish or slashy, or if there's already a Sue in the fic to blame for characterization issues, possession is not likely.
~Neshomeh
In theory, a possessed character is being forced to do things they wouldn't normally do because a wraith is making them, but they're still more or less recognizable as themselves. Sometimes more, sometimes a lot less.
A replacement, on the other hand, is what you get when you surgically remove the defining things that make that character who they are and replace them with BS. I always look for a name-change to seal the deal, too. If they can't even claim to be the same character in name anymore, that's a wrap: they've been replaced. See Archir the Emerald, for example, who was originally supposed to be Harry Potter. Other examples from my missions include Severus "Sithchean Bran" Snape from "Family Ties" and Hermione "Nadia" Lupin-Black (or whatever) from "Harry Potter and the Dragonriders of Pern." I could've gone the same route with Ginny in that mission, but although she was pretty speshul, she wasn't too horribly OOC motive-wise, her name didn't change, and her backstory was still intact, so I just had her be possessed.
Unfortunately, what seems to happen in practice a lot of the time is that a writer just wants to kill or recruit something, so they declare it to be a character replacement. It's annoying. Please strive to avoid doing this.
~Neshomeh