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Thanks to hpoggie for beta-ing these. Part 1 is the bios for my agents:

Name: Colonel Caleb Bradbury

Species: Human

Age: 56

Sex: Male

Home Continuum: World 1.567 repeating, a minor alternate universe

Personality: Bradbury is what is known as a “character”. He has a strange ability to procure just about anything just about anywhere, and a related ability to establish himself as an authority figure even in situations totally unfamiliar to him.

Appearance: The colonel is a gaunt man, just shy of two meters tall. His head is very round, a feature accentuated by his rather severe buzz-cut. He has a short beard, skin on the brown side, and a generally weathered look. He is a good bit more athletic than one would expect of a man his age, thanks to the medical and cybernetic science of the 2050s.

History: In his many years he has been not just an officer in the Argentine army, but also a grave digger, stamp forger, purveyor of shoddy knockoff products, piano tuner, ticket scalper, blackjack dealer, and many other things.



Name: Rasputin Gibbs

Species: Draconian

Age: 24

Sex: Male

Home Continuum: World 1.963, the world that exists in certain conspiracy theories.

Personality: On some deep level, Gibbs wants to be in a Sergio Leone movie. He doesn’t speak much, he wears a stetson, and he seems terminally calm. His interest in cookery according to the Galenic theory is just a bonus. He uses Draconian expressions in his speech, such as the greeting “Bast Chauble” and the philosophical concept of going “even more unto Yark.”

Appearance: Gibbs is a seven foot tall reptilian humanoid with a hunched posture, dark green scales, and a nice set of fangs. He is rarely seen without his stetson, and his eyes hold a look of steely determination that took him years to perfect.

History: Gibbs spent many years working as a security guard in Dulce base, a joint human-draconian military base located under Archuelta Mesa. He held himself to a very high standard, and soon became known as one of the most capable officers on the security team. With this good mixture of skill and expendability, Gibbs was an ideal candidate to send on a test jaunt through the base’s new portal. He came unstuck in space and time, and learned of Sues, or as he called them reality-warping entities. When we meet him, he has several unlicensed Sue killings under his belt, and has consequently attracted the attention of the PPC.

There were a few instances of "the PPC HQ" that tripped my "this sounds off" sense, but maybe that's just me.

Second, how are people pronouncing the exclamation points?

Third, how'd Palmaira know that she might only have Nami's memories?

Overall, this was reasonably well written and a pretty good introduction interlude. It maybe could've used a bit more humor though.

- Tomash

I agree with the nomination.

P.S. A second chapter 3. Cheetahmen II on NES also had that.

I didn't intend to post this. It was only half done. There were more points I wanted to make. And it was extremely incoherent.

Ah well. Enjoy my awful rambles.

but there is still archive.is.

Links on pages for agents Laburnum, Foxglove, Stormsong and Skyfire are fixed, but there's a lot more to do.

HG

DISCLAIMER: As I write this, I am disorganized and tired. And sick. So this is opinion, and it might not be totally coherent.

Dragonseye is pretty good. It's full of fun stuff. Like trials for heinous crimes. And songs. And rocks. And a telekinetic bear, a dentist who harvests brains- wait, no, that's something else.

But really, it's got an engaging plot, likeable good guys, hateable bad guys, a decent pace, only a little creepy romance, cool paintings... y'know. Everything that makes a novel good.

Unfortunately for you all, a minor plot element overshadows all of that. For you see, Dragonseye is the first Pern novel to devote a meaningful amount of time to portraying a homosexual relationship (Between bluerider P'tero and greenrider M'leng). And I will take any excuse to discuss homosexual relationships in fiction. So here's a discussion of that thing.

Now, traditionally, Anne McCaffrey writes romance... badly. Not always awfully, but often badly. Strangely, it seems to be better here. Maybe that's because this is one of those relationships where she decided not to be creepy (there's other creepy romance to make up for it in this book). Maybe because the relationship is between two men (and as a side note... for how readily accepting Pern is of gay men being a thing, there sure aren't any lesbians. What's with that?) and as a result McCaffrey couldn't put in creepy gender role stereotypes (not that this has ever stopped other authors...). Maybe it's because despite my objections to the way she writes romance, she is genuinely competent, I read a lot of badfic, and the standards for homosexual romance, in my book, are just that low.

Regardless of the reason, it stands to note: Fic authors, numerous professional writers, and other people of that sort just got slaughtered in terms of romance by Anne freaking McCaffrey, in a book released in 1997. Not just romance, gay romance.

So, let's look at some common pitfalls in writing romance (some specific to homosexual romance, most... not so much), and maybe a bit about how Dragonseye avoids them, if I feel like it. Well... how Dragonseye avoids them here anyways. But that's a discussion for another time.

Make no mistake, this is self-indulgent nonsense. But maybe you'll derive some enjoyment from it.

1. Representation! Yaaay!: In a lot of professional works, there's been an urge of late to add representation for minority groups. This includes the LGBTQ people. And you know what? That's great. Talking more about people who aren't talked about is good. It can lead to interesting stories, and it can send powerful messages of acceptance. However, for the love of god, never write a character that blatantly exists solely for the purpose of representation. Firstly, you will get complaints from someone (and we'll get to why in a moment), but secondly... it just results in bland, boring, bad characters. If all we can remember about your character is that they're "the gay one", then that isn't a well conceived character. Nobody's gonna say, "Hmm... of all the interesting characters in this work, my favorite is the gay one I can't remember much about!" Speaking of which...



2. Being gay is not a personality trait: So. You've got a gay character. Actually, presumably you've got two. So how are you going to characterize them? A lot of people think this is more or less complicated than it really is. In order to do it properly, you have to make an actual character. You know, just like you normally do. Consider how them being gay effects their experience (depending on your setting and their personality, the answer might even be "not very much." If you're writing in a modern or semi-modern setting, however, it will probably have some impact and may be hanging over them like the Doom of Damocles, depending), sure, but as it turns out, gay people come in all shapes and sizes. All of them. Really.
   
   Also, this is just my thing, but... personally, please, don't give your gay character some kind of "stereotypical gay" personality, or at least have a good reason for doing so. This is partly because I feel like it proliferates the idea that gay people are fundamentally alike and that there is a "gay" personality... but mostly because I find all of these stereotypes to be incredibly annoying characters. But hey. If you've got
   
   Dragonseye deals with this part very very well. This might be a consequence of Anne McCaffrey's... fun... ideas about gender and sexuality (all greenriders are gay or female, no exceptions): On Pern, being gay just isn't special, so characters can't use it as a differentiator. And while McCaffrey isn't the greatest writer in the world, she can at least write reasonably distinct and memorable characters. And while the characters aren't the focus, and we don't see a lot of them, they do at least have defined personalities, which counts for a lot.


3. On Romance: A lot of people seem uncertain about how to write gay romance. I dunno why. It's a lot like straight romance, seemingly (although maybe don't ask the man who's never dated anyone ever...). So... yeah. There are dates. And affection. And people liking one another. Sometimes people argue. Y'know. normal relationship stuff. Except that the people involved are both men. Or women, because this applies to lesbians as well, I assume.
   
   So here's the cardinal rule: thou shalt not compromise a character's personality for romance. Seriously. Even i a character is dating, they are still that character. They should still be IC. No radical personality shifts, woobifying, or so on (unless there's story/character justification, obviously). They date the way they'd date a person. That means that the dynamic might be a bit different between two guys than between a guy and girl (or maybe not), but not so different as you might think. But speaking of radical personality shifts...



4. Relationship dynamics Oh jeez. I could devote an awful lot of time to this one.
   
   Okay, so I want you to help me conduct a simple experiment. Draw a pie chart. Fill in the percentage of time a couple spends doing things in bed. Now fill in he percentage of time a couple spends doing things not in bed. As you may notice, the second percentage is vastly higher than the first. Now, when one takes up so much more time than the other, kindly endeavor to justify why the one that takes up less time is the part that defines all aspects of how the couple interacts and relates to one another. Spoiler alert: you can't, because that's BS.
   
   Yes, it's the old "who wears the pants" nonsense. And it truly is nonsense. What happens in the bedroom does not define a relationship, much less the sum total of everything about a human being. Oddly, the perception that it does seems to have largely vanished when discussing straight people. Because if you start writing it, most people's kneejerk reaction is "that's sexist and utterly insane". Which it is!
   
   Real relationships are built on a variety of things. Good ones are probably built on trust and mutual respect. I've never been in one: who am I to talk? But what I do know is that most of it doesn't happen in the bedroom.

I'll have to add one more plug now. LeeandLie is a singer who specializes in adaptations to English of anime openings and endings, and make a wonderful job of it. She has also begun to do original songs as well.

Definitely set up the Wayback links for now, please. As long as we can still copy the content now, I can always set up new pages with those stories on my archive site later.

—doctorlit, regularly discouraged by vanished stories

My roommate showed me Clamavi De Profundis a while ago. Their musical style is pretty distinct, but if you're into that sort of thing it's absolutely brilliant. They do chants and laments and they do them beautifully, mostly in a lower register. Primarily their stuff comes from The Lord of the Rings but their informational video says they're inspired by fantasy literature so I'm hoping they'll branch out to other sources in the future. (They did recently release a cover of the Skyrim theme, which is always a good thing.)

My favorite English professor in college occasionally showed us a Thug Notes video in class so we could get the cliffnotes on a piece we weren't actually reading but helped to understand whatever we were discussing. I think we watched the one on Oedipus at some point, as well as a few others. It's a really good way to get the basics of the story along with a few themes without actually having to read it. I'd especially recommend that to literature students.

I signed in, at any rate, and got an 'access denied' page. It might be good if someone else checked as well, though, just to be sure.

~Z

The first to fourth mission in That Series are not available in RC 88. They may or may not be available on Livejournal; when I try to follow the links, I'm asked to login. Since I don't intend to create another useless account, will somebody who has a Livejournal account please tell me the status of these missions (Warning: all are NSFW):
http://chelonianmobile.livejournal.com/14673.html
http://chelonianmobile.livejournal.com/15298.html
http://chelonianmobile.livejournal.com/15471.html
http://chelonianmobile.livejournal.com/15623.html

Are they still available? May they be friends-locked? May login be required because these are Not For Kids?

I found unprotected archived pages on the Wayback Machine; should I link them anyway?

HG

There's this new YouTube channel that somehow has the most amazing production values, and they make videos where classic fictional characters retell their stories through the lyrics of modern music. It's quite clever, and very well done. They are . . . Unexpected Musicals!

—doctorlit, unexpectedly replying to his own post

His dog got hit by a car (which then zoomed off into the distance like a giant coward) and now has a fractured leg and so on.

His dog, who is a Good Boy, will most likely survive, but the medical costs are preeetty steep, and he doesn't really have enough money to cover it, so he's setting up a gofundme to try and get some assistance.

If you can support him, or maybe share this around with people who might support him, that'd be cool as hell.

short for Overly Sarcastic Productions. Their content mostly revolves around three series:

1) Miscellaneous Myths - which gives you a summary of various myths n legends

2) History / Literature Summarized - ...Pretty self-explanatory, I think

3) Trope Talks! - an analysis of more and less famous literary tropes.

I'm only casually acquainted with Warriors, and I'm well aware of it.

People who know the canon are rather horrified by the content, I'm rather horrified by the SPaG, and, going off my poking at Google, the fandom at large is generally going "oh god why" and there seem to be a few folks doing recent reviews and sporkings (with one of the Google-snippets calling the fic "infamous").

So, yeah, this here's legendarily bad in my book.

- Tomash

I'd suggest to zdimensia that, if she takes us up on this offer, she take a few days at least to go through all the history and put together this one last message, making sure she's hit the points she'd like to address (and pointed at relevant quotes if needed).

I'd also suggest that zdimensia should find someone willing to help her with ensuring her message is coherent and understandable. I think the person I'm replying to (Anonymous) might fit the bill, but I'm not sure.

- Tomash

This has been going on for four years. We can wait a few hours.

~Neshomeh