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Interestingly, the reason the locals look human has never been made clear. Parallel evolution, probably. There was once going to be a book about how they came here from Earth (by time travel), but luckily that got cancelled.

So, good news! The fact that you can easily divide the people around you into humans and non-humans means you're probably not in a war-zone, where there would definitely be people wearing helmets. Hooray! Now let's work on the finer details.

How many people can you see?
-Thousands or more.
-A few dozen.
-About five, and they look pretty sketchy.
-One, and I'm kind of squeezed right on top of them.

Lessee...

-Bad relationship writing: Whether it be slash or het or whatever, writing relationships badly is a quick and easy way to bug me. Out of character characters, total lack of chemistry, go down the list.

Yaoi and ABO writers (I can find no proof, but I firmly believe the two have a deeply-entrenched ancestral link) tend to be guilty of this a lot. For most of the bad writers in this category, their idea of writing a relationship between characters is taking the characters they want to write and crowbarring them into fitting rigid archetypes, regardless of canonical characterization. And the relationships they write are also kinda rapey a lot of the time, which leads me to my next pet peeve!

-Core conceits that are horrifyingly disturbing but never recognized as such: Imagine a world where about once a month, you lose all control of your body and are forced into an alternate mental state. When you return to proper consciousness as yourself, you may find that you have committed horrific crimes against the people you care about, done awful things to yourself, or forced people do to do awful things to you, leaving you memories that don't bear thinking about. This is probably horrifying for you, and makes you really uncomfortable just to think about.

Welcome to ABO, because what I just described is a semi-common interpretation. And yet in the fics that have it, the characters aren't horrified. "Oh yeah, I got forced into horrifically sexually assaulting a person by my genetics. business as usual!"

Most characters in a given canon aren't psychopaths, and many have a common moral ground with the audience. If someone is dating their sister, or the world's been turned into a violent game of bloodsport, or their best friend just murdered someone in cold blood, they should at least acknowledge that this is messed up and disturbing.


...Look, ABO just bugs me, okay?

Currently: not swarthy in the Bragollach/Nirnaeth

Right, I think by now Maedhros should be retreating. I strongly suggest you tag along. Unfortunately, I can't really guide you through escaping a battle - it's not like I can tell you there's an arrow coming, ha ha! - so I'll take my leave for a little while. If you manage to survive long enough to reach safety, I'll speak to you again.

Oh, um... to be on the safe side, if Maedhros or any of the other elves start paying attention to you, you should put your hands in the air and say "Eldameldo." It means 'elf-friend' in the Quenya that your new hopefully-friends speak, and it should tide you over until I can give you something more to work with.

You might need to say it fairly emphatically. And repeatedly. Um... good luck!

...

Oh, hey! You're not dead! That's awesome news, well done.

So... other than the land of the living, where has Maedhros led you?

-To a hilltop fortress.
-Deep into the woods.
-I got captured by Orcs and am now a slave in a mine.
-I got mixed up and ended up following some dwarves home.

((tbh I don't even know what Tolkien means by 'swarthy'.~hS))

Ix starting to come out of her shell was my favorite part about this, honestly—it'll be nice not having her spook every ten seconds talking to other people.

I'll grab Zing to take a look at that bit later. Thanks for the feedback!

I mean, not even a moribund linguistics professor from the 1940s could describe me as swarthy, but it definitely has some capital-C Connotations. Then again, compared to a filthy ginger leaflugged poncey elven prettyboy, I probably count as something approaching mud. So we'll go with that.

Then why do they look human, though?

Oh, uh, yeah, I can breathe. That's a thing. That's a good thing, right, Mysterious Voice?

~Z

Canon: Star Wars

You've fallen into a galaxy full of possibilities, a vast canvas of war and peace, heroism and villainy, stables and starships. I'm sure you'll have a great time, provided you can survive the next hour or so.

Now, here's your first question. It's very important that you answer this as quickly as possible:

Can you breathe?
-Yes.
-No.

PS: No, sadly there are no Time Lords here. Probably. Though at this point I wouldn't be surprised if someone hadn't written them in.

Currently: on the Eastern Front of either the Sudden Flame or the Unnumbered Tears

Congratulations, INSERTNAMEHERE - you are privileged to see Glaurung the Golden, Father of Dragons, devourer of Elves and Men, scourge of Dorthonion, Nargothrond, and Brethil, the Terror of the North. Isn't he cool?

No, by the way - he isn't cool. He's hot enough to burn the flesh off your bones.

Now that the Great Worm has shown up, Maedhros should be retreating soon (as is only wise!). I strongly recommend you tag along with him; while there's definitely going to be some awesome stuff happening here, it's pretty much going to end with the triumph of Evil. I mean, depending on which battle you're actually in, you could see an army of dwarves face down the dragon, an entire cavalry regiment set aflame, or the betrayal of Maedhros by... um... huh.

Say, while you're waiting for your unwitting guide to retreat, would you say you'd describe yourself as... maybe... 'swarthy'?

-Uh, no.
-Yes, why?
-What the heck, Mysterious Voice from Above? Are you racist all of a sudden?!

((I find it oddly hilarious that 'Maedhros fights Orcs on Anfauglith and then Glaurung shows up' still isn't enough to narrow down which battle we're in... dude had a rough time of it. ~hS))

I'm confused. Why isn't everyone here an alien? Waiiit, I've seen this show--the human-looking ones are Time Lords!! Awesome. :)

((Because I very clearly remember there being several threads running at once last time, and also, why not?))

~Z

Currently: watching Maedhros fight left-handed.

You'll be glad to know that Maedhros is definitely going to escape this fight. Don't worry about the fact that he's running on only one hand - the other one getting cut off was a whole thing, and ages ago now.

Now, as we said before, Maedhros is excellent at this fighting thing. If you wait around a bit, and keep out of sight, he and his warriors should easily be able to dispatch these Orcs.

...

How's it going?
-The Orcs are all dead.
-Brave Sir Maedhros is running away.
-The Orcs are all dead, but now there's a huge dragon.
-The Orcs are all dead, and he's started on the humans.

Wow, you two really found a bad one this time. I don't have much to say that isn't incoherent squeeing at Ix coming out of her shell and Jacques's introspection at the end; I only noticed one thing to critique.

Near the end of the mission, Jacques summarizes the bit with Samanthea speaking French, but then that scene is quoted just a few lines later. I think it may have worked a bit better to just have the French scene and then the Agents reacting; the way it's written, quoting the fic just seemed a bit redundant to me. That's a really small thing in a long mission full of awesome, though, so great work!

This informs us that we definitely shouldn't trust him.

It seems that you've stumbled into the presence of the legendary Maedhros, son of Feanor, sometime High King of the Noldor, and frankly the most with-it of House Feanor (maybe excluding Celebrimbor). The good news is that he is a mighty warrior, and won almost every battle he was involved in.

The bad news is, there was one time he failed spectacularly. But I'm sure you'll be fine!

Currently: watching Maedhros get his murder on.

Which hand is Maedhros using to wield his sword?
-Right.
-Left.

I would compare him to some distant relative of warner bros studio exec's oc Tauriel, but he just killed an Orc that was trying to bite my shins off.

... But it's still valid.

More than anything, I hate authors making things up to justify romantic pairings and then saying it's True Love. I don't care what the pheromones are doing or what a character's "magic" or whatever wants, I want to see how two characters' personalities interact.

Again, the only fic I read is bad slash so I can torture everyone around me with it, so I don't know if these things are all that prevalent in fic as a whole, but it really pushes my buttons.

Currently: in a fight.

It sounds like you've landed in a [b]war[/b]. This is one of the best places to be if you want to spend a lifetime discovering new things about your new home. The only downside is that said lifetime may be... rather short.

Now, keep yourself out of sight and let's see if we can get a few more details. The smaller group in front of you sound like Elves, who are generally good; the other set are Orcs, who are bad. For now, let's focus on the leader of the (probable) Elves.

Is the leader...
- Fair-haired?
- Red-haired?
- Black-haired?
- Black-haired, but also kind of glowing a bit?
- Radiant with the light of Iluvatar?
- A family group?

This is for people who make people go, and I quote, "oh hey, PERSONNAMEHERE has actually been really great for the community!". I cause arguments and drama and I get unreasonably angry at minor provocation. While I wouldn't go so far as to say that I'm bad for the community (though there were quite a few people over the years who'd argue otherwise), I'm nowhere near the standard of both behaviour and output that a PG/Moderator should uphold.

...but there's a small group of tall, pretty people trying their hardest to kill a bunch of really ugly people who are trying to return the favor? I'm kind of just hiding right now so I don't get caught in the crossfire.

~Z

You've landed in a world of magic and mystery, of heroes and history, of wars and... something else ending in -stery. Sophistry, possibly.

The good news is, there are lots of places in Middle-earth where you won't be immediately killed. On the other hand, there are also lots of places you will be immediately killed. So with that in mind:

Is anyone trying to kill you?
-No.
-Grubby people.
-Pretty people.
-Short people.
-Really ugly people.
-Spiders.

((I should highlight at this point that even when 5/6 options point to 'yes', 'no' is still perfectly acceptable. The nature of the question means it looks loaded, but it's really two questions: 'is anyone trying to kill you', and 'if so, who'.

Obviously any of the yeses are also acceptable. ^_^

And yes, I cribbed this one wholesale from last year. Why not? If it worked then, it'll work now, and Mysterious Voices from Above don't make work for themselves. ~hS))

I can post more, actually, especially if people I've cowritten with are okay with it. I've also moved the stuff I posted on LJ to Dreamwidth, which is at least where Das Sporking is now, so maybe that counts as a bit of the community...?

Lily Winterwood was also posting missions and Multiverse Monitor articles (among other things) on Tumblr, which seems to have at some point actually gained a fic-writing community or seven; while I don't believe she's currently doing any PPC writing, the old stories are still up and she mentions the PPC from time to time.

I always kind of associated LJ with the PPC--the older PPC, from pre-2010, that I grew up reading (yes, you can feel old now. Sorry). That's why I originally set up there: a bit of nostalgia and continuation of tradition, and, well, why not? There were quite a few people who posted missions there or on Dreamwidth, from what I remember both of that time and of the immense amount of reading I did beginning in 2013 when I became a Boarder.

I...have lost track of my point a little, but hopefully this makes sense regardless. And yeah, as mentioned, I'm game to post some more to AO3--I was using it as a sort of backup, as well as a kind of 'well, why not?' and then kind of forgot about actually posting things on there. It's been busy.

~Z

PS: Speaking of which...hS, a whole bunch of us, at varying times, began university degrees and reached the last couple years of them. That might also impact the posting rates; I definitely know there were times when I barely even checked the Board for months, and certainly wasn't posting, because of that. It was just too much to balance--this was mainly at the time I was doing two degrees, I think, and was generally just very stressed out.

PPS: I remember that filed away project! Or at least, it sounds very familiar. Also still sounds like something of a good idea.

Pretty much everywhere.

Yes, many characters are flawed. Yes, it can be interesting to see how events or people would change if specific characters were actually evil out manipulative, *especially* if there's already a bit of canon support for it or at least something that can be twisted that way.

Character bashing, however, generally consists of the author and characters going out of their way to portray someone--often someone close to the main characters, as in Ron Weasley or Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series, as secretly evil, physically disgusting, sociopathic, heartlessly manipulative, etc, and then publicly deriding them for it. It ignores the characters' best traits--in fact, it often ignores that they exist, or portrays a complete misunderstanding of the character in canon--and it's just plain uncomfortable and even upsetting to read. I hate it, and would much rather have a more balanced portrayal of a deeply flawed character, thank you very much.

~Z

PS: When you pair this with Scary Sues and protagonist centered morality it gets even worse.

PPS: Why, yes, Partially Kissed Hero was rather on my mind while writing this post. So was Gwen Cooper, though. ...and Peter Pettigrew, actually, though that's a whole different and kind of tangential rant.

Having written Elves and being mostly able to parse Sindarin names (the necessity of a dictionary varies from year to year and name to name) must be good for something, right?

~Z

Tomash is an active participant in the community, and he has already shown his ability to handle responsibility. He is generally able to examine both sides of a given situation, and does not make decisions rashly. I believe he would make an excellent mod.