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After six years, my Lyrical Nanoha and Madoka Magica crossover fanfiction is finally complete!

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8162205/13/IrregularS

I'll fix this and the numbers on Monday.

hS

Was that the Plot Protection Society Wiki? I thought that had a plagiarized version of the "Rambling Band" mission on it.

...there was a time when someone plagiarised it? Not sure that's what Twistey was referring to, though, especially since, to my memory, it happened long before she showed up and hasn't come up a lot.

~Z

Full text for reference:

The PPC is a vast sprawling mess, so it’s perfectly fine to lurk around on the Board and the Wiki for a while before committing yourself. Before you actually post anything anywhere, however, you should post on the Board at least once to introduce yourself and receive whatever gifts people have for you.

For the second sentence, what about:

Before you jump into any community activities, however, please post on the Board at least once to introduce yourself and receive whatever gifts people have for you.

I think that covers what we actually want: lurking is fine, but make sure we know who you are if you're gonna do stuff.

~Neshomeh

LOL: Love Education and Literacy.
Used as a slogan by some Administratum adepts.
FFS: Forget Foul Sorceries.
Please turn yourself in to your local Arbites station if you remember foul sorceries. Remember, citizen, only through the flames of faith can heresy be purged.

When I first posted on the board, twistedwindowpane cryptically alluded to a story that appeared to be someone's misinterpretation of the Original Series. Where can I find out more about this?

Some incorrect article numbers are referred to:

- 23 should refer to itself, not 19; there is a 19, and it's important!

- 25 should refer to 15 and... 24, maybe?

Also, I noticed Article 17 says "Before you actually post anything anywhere, however, you should post on the Board at least once," which is a little confusing. I'm guessing this means "please say hi on the Board before getting heavily involved in the Wiki or Discord"?

I'm hoping this can be a quick fix and not require another vote.

~Neshomeh

Have a Campbell-pattern autolaser.

The official Constitution has been updated with the Fifth and Sixth Amendments - AKA the Harassment and Discussion Amendments. It also now lists the Chitchat Amendment as rejected, and I've updated the list of signatures too.

Somehow, we managed to keep the whole thing in exactly the same number of Articles (29), though the Sections have increased by two. Given how broad the changes are, it's probably wise to go and give it another read.

hS

If it's something the reader needs to know to understand what happens next, definitely include it, and rework it to fit if necessary.

If it isn't strictly relevant to the plot, it's up to you (and possibly your eventual beta[s]) whether you feel it adds enough humor/characterization/whatever to be worth including or whether it just slows the story down.

BTW, since your previous mission-writing question is still fairly high up on the Board, you could've added this one to that thread. With the pace of the Board being so slow these days, it's not a huge deal, but still something to bear in mind.

~Neshomeh

If I was going to criticize Tolkien, I'd actually argue that he's too much in love with words: it feels he focuses on words and language over the story, often to its detriment. So too is the case with the broader worldbuilding: it's great, but it leaves the narrative awkward and bloated.

As a result of Tolkien's approach, Middle Earth is one of the most well-developed, fleshed-out and intricate settings in all of fiction. And unlike most similarly detailed settings, it's consistent, coherent, and clearly the well-thought-out result of one vision, one mind.

However, as someone who slogged through LoTR, barely awake, and was mocked for my peers for being unable to remember the difference between Barad-dûr and Khazad-dûm, I think I can safely say that, at least from my perspective, the narrative suffers.

But maybe my biases are showing...

"Farah Tahar." she said. "Nice to meet you, Miss Seeker!"

"It's not my first time in here, but it's my first time ordering something. You have any suggestions?"

I don't mind anyone not finding Tolkien to their taste, but as far as I can tell, that's Moorcock's whole argument: Tolkien is a bad writer because Moorcock prefers other writers. That's not an argument. A statement like "Tolkien is a bad writer" needs to be substantiated. Okay, you don't like rural romance—fine. But why is it bad? Explain, author. Explain!

And that goes for us PPCers, too.

(And seriously, LOL at Tolkien not taking pleasure in words. "Cellar door," anyone?)

~Neshomeh

"You look a bit lost; I'm guessing this is your first time here in Rudi's," she said. "I'm Ami Seeker. Pleased to meet you!"

... I disagree quite vehemently with 'Epic Pooh'. Obviously some of his points are subjective - he doesn't like Tolkien's poetry, for instance - but the main thrust of his argument is that Tolkien's style is 'cuddly' and lacks tension. Which... I'm not sure how little of LotR you have to read to get that impression. The whole trip to Crickhollow is an exercise in slowly building tension.

He also tries to claim that Tolkien's use of humour is 'unconscious' - ie, he seems to think that all the understated comedy wasn't written deliberately - and that Tolkien doesn't take any pleasure in words. Which, when said about a man who imvented a language and then wrote a world to use it in, is pretty much the height of ridiculous.

At one point, I started on a rather scathing dissection of the essay through the mouthpiece of Terri Ryan; I never quite got it finished, but I might take it up again.

(Oh, he also complains at various points about the use of nobles, artisans, peasants, and the petit bourgeoisie as heroes. I'm not entirely sure who that leaves? Because those four broadly correlate to the Upper, Lower Middle, Working, and Upper Middle classes...)

hS

Michael Moorcock's "Epic Pooh", which takes a view of a sacred cow around these parts - LotR - that is far from complimentary. This is exactly why I think it should almost be mandatory reading for PPCers analyzing Middle-earth's gallimaufry of badfic. How can we properly criticize a transformative work if we do not have critical, thoughtful ideas concerning the original story? At least, that's the approach I'm trying to take with my own missions. How successful that has been is something I leave open to interpretation.

"Ewwww!!!"

Maisarah is reeling in disgust as she sees the animal perching on top of Clarissa's head.

"Neh, a hamster! I trained my little chubby bubby puppy to hide in my hairs." Truly, Clarissa's hair fashion is... traditional. It looks like the beehive hairstyle, but most of the hair are shaped to a large bun. A small hamster is lazily strutting to and fro on top of Clarissa's head.

Aziz wiggles his index finger at the fluffyball, which the animal responds by sniffing at the digit. "Don't you feel uncomfortable having things running on your head?"

Clarissa massages her neck, tired from keeping her head straight. "A little. My neck's hurt though." She slumps her back and rests on a pile of books on the desk. The hamster hides itself snugly between the hairs. A few other classmates watch in awe at the animal clutching at its master's hair and dozing off, until the bell rings to signal the start of class.

The class begins with a Math class. Teacher Zahirah have just returned from her maternity leave, and looks unusually giddy than the usual.

Aziz and Shamsul is slumped on their chairs at the back, trying to make sense of her diagrams. Aziz begins to snore softly when Shamsul jabs his finger at Aziz's ribs, jolting him awake.

The frizzle-haired Aziz rubs his eyes. Shamsul begins his whining. "Why are we learning about circles and angles and letters?"

"That's a good question. We aren't Greeks trying to make circles and being stabbed for it."

"Oh, you remembered Teacher Chong's story yesterday!"

The both of them snickered when they remembered how their History teacher expanded a few paragraphs of their history textbook about some mathematician into half an hour of rambling about being a genius in a mediocre world.

Teacher Zahirah is about to turn and inquire about why the backsitters find circles to be funny when she sees Clarissa's hairstyle. Well, the teacher does not care for the hairstyle, it is not exactly against the rules. But there is a creature she can see lurking behind the large bun on her student's head.

She half-heartedly draws and explains how a triangle, whose base forms the diameter of the circle, will always be a right-angled triangle should the third point touches any point on the cirlce's line. But her drawing turns to an organic creature, a mix between a mite and a hamster.

The class laughs at the resultant figure. Teacher Zahirah slams the duster on the blackboard and wipes the offending imagery from her board, and with it, imagining it gone from her mind. She wipes her chalked hands on her baju kurung, claps her hands, and with the most motherly of smiles, leans to the star pupil with the retro hairstyle.

"Clarissa Wong Mei Li, may I examine your hair?"

Clarissa thought it over for a few seconds. She is sure to have let her hamster back into the cage before the class begins.

"Sure, teacher. Just dont ruin the hairstyle. It's hard to repair."

Teacher Zahirah carefully runs her fingers to her pupil's head, trying to find the offending object.

The hamster, being disturbed from its slumber by a pink earthworm, chomps on the new meal with a decisive bite.

Teacher Zahirah pulls her finger back in pain, to discover a rodent dangling, looking at her with innocent eyes. It squeakes.

"Opocot a mite has feather hairs! Eh, it has hairs! Swinging like a pendulum, always maintaining it's swinging time no matter the size of the swing! Eh, Hamster dangling on my fingers!"

Teacher Zahirah keeps her latah even as she darts back to the teacher's office. In the ensuing chaos, many teachers begin to latah along, even breaking to a gamelan and zapin dance. Other teachers try to calm them down or call the ambulance as some latahing teachers and students decide to jump from the higher floors. The entire school populace unafflicted by the latah just stares in wonder.

Shamsul could muster no reaction on his face, seeing the adult populace of the school turning an institution of learning to a traditional Malay moshpit. "I wonder, do you think Teacher Chong know anything about the history of latah disease in our town?"

Aziz gently rubs his forehead. "I wonder if we will be cursed with latah if we reached a certain age."

Thank you, thank you! I thought if anyone would know this piece and be able to find it, it would be a PPCer. I'll check out the rest of the site, too.

The second one is an interesting perspective. I hadn't ever considered it from a film needs point of view like that.

One of my permission prompts was meant to take place in the mission that I am currently writing. I'm about to reach that point. Should I copy-paste the permission piece into the mission, or does it matter if I rewrite it? Or could I just skip over it?

At least, I think I do, if it's "What Happened to Gallant Captain Faramir?" by Tinw (who has lots more interesting-looking things on their site).

I also stumbled across "Faramir is Evil Like Gandalf is Green: In Defense of Peter Jackson's Faramir" by Jonathan on TheOneRing.net, which looks at the decision to make Faramir "more dynamic" from a film student's perspective. Putting the two together, I guess the conclusion is that some of Frodo's nobility was sacrificed to give Faramir more to do? Still doesn't sit well with me, but I guess it kinda makes sense.

~Neshomeh