The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

Bigger myths in general are what my default response kinda applies to, lol. That totally makes sense. *cough, Thor in drag* *cough, Loki and the goat entertaining the giantess*

-Twistey

I make no secret of the fact that I am really, really, really into robot combat. It's one of the few things that I've been passionate about for my entire life. Robot Wars is The Best One and you will never convince me otherwise. So here's a thing.

There's a live circuit in the British robot combat scene. Basically, an arena turns up in a shipping container, is quickly bolted together in a sports hall, seating is arranged, and you get a shedload of robots beating the scrap out of each other. Then it goes somewhere else. Usually, they go to only the most exotic locales, such as Colchester, or Guildford. However, they're coming near me quite soon.

If people are willing to trek over to Maidstone on Sunday 28th October (it's about an hour on the train from London), there will be a live showing of Extreme Robots! at 12:00. Tickets for the event are around £20 a person. I'm going. Mel is going. Ix is going. I think all three of us would love to see whoever else shows up too. =]

So yeah! The show is ca. two hours long with a break in the middle, so afterwards we could explore the interesting things to do in Maidstone, which I am reliably informed numbers in at least the positives. Most of the time. Who's up for that? =]

I enjoyed writing it. It's been forever since I've done PPC stuff. I'm glad you liked it!

-Alleb

Drakaina: A cross between a woman and a serpent. Herakles is said to have sired the founder of Scythia with one of these in exchange for it returning his stolen bow.

Telkhines: Originally inhabitants of the island of Rhodes (namesake of Rhode Island). They were known for their skill at metallurgy and their powerful sorcery. They could shape-shift and summon various kinds of weather, including a sulfurous rain that burned everything it struck. Their use of destructive magic angered the either Zeus, Poseidon, or Apollo, depending on the account, who sent the worst of them to Tartarus and exiled the rest to the sea. They had flippers for hands and the heads of dogs.

Bonus mythology:
The image of Heracles made its way to Japan through India via Buddhism, and the guardian of the Buddha, Vajrapani, is often depicted as Heracles. The Japanese equivalents, the Nio, or Kongorikishi, take inspiration from this. So how have I not yet found a story about the time Heracles traveled with the Buddha?

If a villain was often portrayed as a hero, that would be an example of the Aura of Smooth affecting them, and people generally don't like being mind controlled.

As for the "perfect race" question, I think a non-'suefluenced character could tell something was wrong with the result, as 'sues tend to stand out.

Oh, hey, it's my main source of video game nostalgia!

It's easy to see why they switched Blossomole's design. It really looks nothing like the rest of the family. Interesting that its name references moles, since most people seem to consider that line apatasaurs of some stripe.

The Flambear's family is basically just "bears, but on fire," so I'm glad they switched to an animal line that fit the fire into the real world biology more cleverly. These bears designs are pretty dull.

I'm not sure if the Cruz family is meant to be pinnepeds or plesiosaurs/Loch Ness creatures. If plesiosaurs, I can understand the change to keep Typhlosion/Dynabear from being the only non-ancient organism in the fully evolved starters. Cruz and friends look all right, though, so I'm surprised they didn't get revisited in a later generation.

There seems to have been a mix-up. Why was the objectively inferior Noctowl design published in the final game? Might be because they felt this unused design would look Dark-type, and wanted to communicate its actual Normal-type better, especially in the games that introduced Dark. It still saddens me, though.

I don't see why the manta ray used to look like a bird. That's weird. Unless it wasn't a manta originally?

Old Pichu is definitely dumber looking than actual Pichu. Although maybe Super Smash Bros. Melee would have gotten a different character in that slot, since this version of Pichu looks like it can barely move its limbs? I actually like the Cleffa and Igglybuff designs, though. Cleffa communicates the hinted alien nature of its line better with that antenna, and the published Igglybuff design always looked too busy to me, with that huge poof of hair. A perfect sphere is a much better starting point for the Balloon family.

I was always bothered that Politoed strayed so far from the rest of its family, so I think I would have liked this version better.

At least we finally know why Ledian is the "Five Star" Pokémon. I can see why they changed it, though; it does just look like "angrier Ledyba."

I don't know why Remoraid is weirdly fat, but I love the older Octillery! It communicates the design intent so much better, and matches the name.

I like Tyrogue better here, too. The actual design is such a generic anime aesthetic, but this little fellow has elements of both Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee, and maybe Hitmontop too, if I squint.

Skiploom, Elekid, Blissey and Kingdra could have worked as shown here, though I do like the final Elekid design better.

I guess the joke with Porygon2 is that it switched from rigid to round? Weird that it goes from duck-like to lion-like, though.

Ugh. The legendary beasts look like they were designed by a preteen boy on deviantART trying to be edgy. Vastly inferior to the final versions.

I know it's just coincidence that they've wound up next to each other, but it gives the impression that Sneasel traded the Normal type to Aipom for its Dark typing before the final release.

Gosh. I like Tangela's family members, but a lot of the others here are pretty uninteresting. "Grimer but smaller," "Vulpix with fewer tails," "baby Goldeen but it's Seaking instead," "baby Doduo except it has three heads like Dodrio so where does the third head disappear to during the Doduo stage," and "Ditto with teeth" are not winners in my book. I'm glad most of those got scrapped.

I guess Quilfish was originally Electric-type, or gained it when evolving? Maybe the Qwilfish and Chinchou lines started as a single concept, and got separated later. I actually like the Farfetch'd evolution, and I think I like this Leafeon a bit better than the one we got in Generation 4. It fits in with the original three designs better, I think.

For the "new" set, I particularly like the Bombseel, Kurstraw, Wolfman and Sunmola families. It also makes a weird kind of sense that Girafarig was originally Dark rather than Psychic. Maybe it was too good against Ghost-types? But then, there were only two Ghost-type families back then (three if we count Kurstraw). I'm also confused how Turbann would work in relation to Slowpoke, but maybe there was no mechanical interaction, and it was just world building to have the mollusk also around.

—doctorlit, out of time

But airhorns are more... modern with fellow kids :P

Or species? That strikes me as more accurate. Also, probably replace 'new' with 'old'. Very old.

Anyhow!

Have you fellows heard of the Cynocephalus?

Ancient Greek furries.
But, actually, I'm really surprised I've never seen any mention of these chaps in any media anywhere. You don't even need to worldbuild, because Greek physician, Ctesias, seems to have already done it:

'They speak no language, but bark like dogs, and in this manner make themselves understood by each other. Their teeth are larger than those of dogs, their nails like those of these animals, but longer and rounder. They inhabit the mountains as far as the river Indus. Their complexion is swarthy. They are extremely just, like the rest of the Indians with whom they associate. They understand the Indian language but are unable to converse, only barking or making signs with their hands and fingers by way of reply... They live on raw meat. They number about 120,000.'

And it goes wayy further on than that, too, where he details their general mode of life - hunters who keep sheep, goats, and so on, along with dried 'fruit of Siptakhora' (I haven't a clue what this fruit might actually be.)
They send the sweet amber of this fruit, the fruit itself, purple flowers, and purple dye, to the king of India, and then trade the rest of it with other Indians for food and weaponry. The king, every five years, sends them a present of heaps of weapons - 300,000 bows and spears, 120,000 shields, 50,000. They could probably also bite you with their dog-teeth. They supposedly lived around India and North Africa, and places in between.

He describes them as being good with bows and spears, and, generally living in 'lofty and inaccessible mountains', outright calls them undefeatable in war.

They seem to be a kind of hunter-gatherer society kind of deal, living in caves, outright chasing their prey down and overtaking it, sleeping on leaves and grass and so on. Only their women bathe, and only once a month. The men just sorta stink.
They wear tanned and fine skins except the few rich, who wear linen.
Apparently they live pretty long, too - up to 200 years.

He emphasises a lot that they're quite just, and, well, they seem pretty chill, ay? In the face of the barking and raw meat eating, they seem to fiddle around a lot with sweet fruits and flowers and dyes. In fact, one of them supposedly became a Saint - Saint Christopher! One of the theories is that Saint Christopher was depicted as a dog-headed chap due to a language misinterpretation - Cananeus (as in, Canaanite) misinterpreted as canineus - y'know, dog. People took this depiction and ran with it and now everyone reckons he's a dog-guy.

Marco Polo has also sighted them, in which they are depicted in a less positive light: 'they are a most cruel generation, and eat everybody that they can catch, if not of their own race.'
This sighting took place on the island of Angamanain, thought to be part of the now Andaman Islands - which are around India.
Perhaps these chaps Marco saw were a sort of nastier, distant tribe, long ago branched off from the fellows Ctesias saw, ay? Or maybe Marco was just really racist. Maybe they're just not real at all, but that's a bit boring, innit?

Anyhows, they are gone nowadays, both physically and in media. Which is a shame, because I'd certainly be a whole lot more into a race of just dog-headed hunter-gatherers who live in mountain caves and who have mean island cousins than the old elves and dwarves!

What do you lot think? Are there any other old, weird races and species that just don't seem to appear in any fantasy or anything at all, when they really probably ought to?

Whatever happened to Noctowl, ay? Look at that! It looks like a Hoothoot underwent a sort of evolutionary process, rather than just, er, turning into a regular owl!

And Animon looks insane. Looks like it's going to rocket off into space. Bloody awesome.

Also, early Mantine looks so coool. I can't remember what particular creature it resembles, but it's not depicted very much anywhere at all. Kinda reminds me of that whole Sea Monk thing - that fish they found ages what looked like a monk, and that they got sorta religious and such over.

And, phew, Kurstraw. Man that's a cool design. I guess they sorta got that thing later on, with Banette and so on, ay? The ghost doll deal. Still, it looks pretty distinct and cool on its own.

Aaah, they're cool. I don't even care if they're fake - they're proper cool looking.

Twisted, I think you're overanalyzing this a little bit. Just ignoring and giving the problem as least credit as possible is my approach, and I feel that this situation, though "unresolved", will not progress any time soon, and can be safely ignored.

Regarding the "Board Villain".

The juxtaposition of your new idea, on this particular post, makes you really seem like your Board villain is zd, or Bram, or Palin. Vilifying people is a harsh and mean thing to do. If you didn't mean it that way, please please clarify it.

She stared at the robots, mentally taking note of their details. “Oh my cod.” She turned her head back to her partner and Connor. “I would’ve loved to see them DJ!”

Lemon looked at the robots. “It’s funny. So far, the only robots I’ve seen have guns attached to them.”

Chelsea smirked. “Maaayybe they aren’t like the ones in your continuum.”

“I suppose not.” Lemon shrugged.

...I couldn't help that one (Nony) spelled "Ix" as "Icks", which is an incorrect spelling that couldn't exist except under two conditions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see zd as being the kind of person whose strategies extend beyond doing the same thing (meaning trying to shapeshift back onto the Board) over and over, meaning that she likely wouldn't do that on purpose. That misspelling in particular sounds just about right to have been gained through word-of-mouth conversation.

So, at least in one case, could these things they say to introduce themselves be true? Is zdimensia, at least in one case, not trying to sneak on the Board again, but rather siccing her friends on us, or maybe just telling all her friends about what happened so that they'll by nature come to the Board to attack us?

Again, correct me if I'm wrong. I don't know the whole situation here, and honestly, I don't want to know more than I already have witnessed. Just posing an alternate theory.

Also, the thing with Palindrome, and how it sorta reflected my own little "I'm so like zd" breakdown in front of hS after realizing I did something pretty wrong (but largely inconsequential) a long time ago, still troubles me. I highly doubt that we ourselves are portraying her as such, but I get the feeling that from witnessing what happens when zdimensia comes back/assigns a friend to do the work, some newbies may get the subconscious impression that she's sort of the designated villain of the Board, to be treated as either pure evil (perhaps as the villain of a PPC fic, serious or not serious - I also thought of her this way at the time, and the similarities to me were "signs" that I "wasn't pure enough to stay") or as an unsung martyr. I don't think there's anything we can do in the way we treat her and the subject of her to make these things change, but I will tell you that I intend to craft a new "Board villain" from whole cloth. This new one has already played an indirect role in the shipfest fic "Man on a Mission", as you will see when the full version is released, and I intend to have her make appearances in other Board events. So if you start noticing that the fictional badfic author keeps showing up in a lot of different posts of mine, this is why. Oh, and if there is anything we can do otherwise, do say so. I probably am going to go through with the "new Board villain" character no matter what, as she's kind of an interesing concept, although I'm willing to be talked into the idea that she might not exactly be "the new Board villain".

-Twistey

I don't go on the Discord, but if they trust you, I trust you. (And also I wanted to add to the "and my _____" thing. :D)

-Twistey

Hypothetical questions about interpreting canon:

1. Is there a way for a canon character to be against the existence of the PPC, whether from their opinions or being convinced so by someone other than a Mary Sue? Could some canon villains who get portrayed as heroes a lot like that fact and thus generally like badfic? Could someone whose motivations include creating a perfect being/race be ticked off by the fact that those pesky agents manage to destroy all the Suefics starring a success at that endeavor? Or at least, could someone who doesn't have an Aura of Smooth convince them of this?

2. What does one do if very little or no personality is shown in a canon for given character? How would that affect what's "canon" with regards to their personality, and how should they be portrayed as true to canon as possible/when not OOC in a PPC fic?

And the simple question:

3. Is there any good reference source with regards to hS's PPC video game? For next Badfic Games, I'm planning on writing a glitched copy cruddypasta of it, so I'd like to know how the game actually goes and such. Preferably without having to download it, because parents.

Thanks,

-Twistey

But I'm fine with you in the mod position.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B2LPxggvqY