The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

Sad Puppies is essentially a voting campaign that tries to influence the outcome of the Hugo Awards. People involved basically nominate books that don't contain "heavy handed messages", and believe the Hugo Awards focus too much on "forced diversity" and social issues. Basically they are the Gamergate and alt right of the literary world. Here are a couple of articles about them.

#1

#2

#3

I've come up with 5 different works for future Badfic Games and other joke badfics, but I haven't worked recently on anything legitimate I have. Oh dear. I need to go do that...

But if you guys want to know what any of my legitimate works are, I can elaborate.

-Twistey

Except one time it randomly gender-bent Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader? Ah, well, so do badfic authors.

-Twistey

I was wondering how the generator would attempt to customize the story to different characters, before I realized that it didn't have to - because it is emulating something where people tend to act out-of-character, it doesn't care if each 'hero' is the same apart from their names.

That was an interesting read. I struggled a bit to make the connection between colonialism (which I understand as the act of going out and taking over places that don't belong to you—does it carry other connotations?) and white ascendancy generally, but I got there.

You succeeded in making me want to go read Griots and Steamfunk!, because SFF anthologies are cool, and ones that offer fresh perspectives are even cooler.

You also succeeded in making me irritated with the Felicity Savages of the world, who don't seem to see the inherent hypocrisy of asking people not to care about seeing themselves on the page while insisting that they only ever see themselves. I'm sorry, who is being narcissistic? Jeez. Just a little critical thinking would go such a long way.

The only thing that really jarred me was the mention of Sad Pupp[y] at the end. That's not something you discussed in the body of the essay, so throwing it in at the end is confusing. But since I'm not your teacher, I can just ask: what is Sad Puppy?

~Neshomeh

...but "Latias' Journey" seems like a good candidate. It has at least three pages of hits on Google, it was published between 2004 and 2009, has its own TV Tropes article, and is pretty well known among dA and Reddit. I've been told that at first it seems innocuous enough, but then there's this bit from the TV tropes summary:

It's absurdly long, surreal and bizarre to extremes, interspersed with plenty of lightheartedness, and plenty of fight sequences. And sometimes it's really, really dark, squicky, messy, and all kinds of disturbing.
Oh sorry, we should've mentioned this is rated M. Pack your security blanket and Brain Bleach.

The whole Tropes article itself is here, and includes a link to the fic itself:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanFic/LatiasJourney

And then there's "Sweet Apple Massacre", which I've also mentioned before... It was published in 2011, has its own KnowYourMeme page, and again, turns up three pages or more of hits on Google. And I think it caused enough of a stir in the MLP fandom back in the day to qualify as well.

I'm still not entirely sure if Latias' Journey is eligible for adding to the list, since I think Legendary Badfics are outright BAD from the get-go and there do seem to be a few tidbits of genuinely good writing in the midst of all the grossness, but I believe Sweet Apple Massacre certainly is.

Harry Potter:


"Who are you guys anyway?"
"Yo, yo, yo I am Snape" said Snape, pretending to be cool.
"Yo, yo, yo I am Voldemort" said Voldemort, who was actually really cool!

Yeah, initially Emma's weregerbilicity (which is a word, honest) was gonna be a joke about weird crossovers, but... well, DNAmy is a thing, and you can definitely get some mileage out of a person with gerbil traits having one of the most dangerous jobs in the multiverse. If nothing else, the phrase "Emma, you don't have cheek pouches right now, please stop eating the Artifacts of Sue." would make an appearance at some point.

Also, the badfic referenced? It's entirely real. =]

Oh, my, this was fun to read, because Cass's attitude towards clothing and looks is basically mine. I do have more than one set of clothes, but I only go clothes shopping if I get too low on shorts to make it through a week. I do the laundry too, but I would most happily substitute a magic spell for using electricity and hot water. Clothes are just extra matter that I would rather not have sitting around. So I can absolutely get behind Cass's attitude here.

The dialogue is simple, but very expressive. I can really feel the trust and camaraderie these agents have built up with each other, despite not seeing them on-page before. I love Cass's plain honesty about her feelings, and Emma's energetic reactions to what Cass says. And the last line of dialogue really opens up a mystery as to what was actually happening before the scene started to trigger this topic of discussion.

Looking back through Emma's dialogue after the reveal that she's a Kim Possible character, her speech definitely has that "confident teen" vibe that the young characters on the show tended to express, so good job getting that feeling across. I have one question though. KP didn't have any lycanthropes, so is Emma a true weregerbil, or one of DNAmy's experiments?

And one thing:
". . . I know you blew threw your money for this month already."

—doctorlit in outfit number four out of five for the work week

A 40k Potential Legendary: Squad Broken (https://m.fanfiction.net/s/7535246/1/Squad-Broken) (NSFW, NSFB), uploaded to FF.net in 2011, but seemingly around long before then. Almost certainly a troll. It caused the 40k fandom to react loudly with shock and horror, and is still known within the fandom today, years after its publication.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Thanks! I'll have a look.

I'm not sure I can offer much feedback or discussion on it, since again, I don't have any sort of background in these sorts of things, but I'll be glad to read this.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iLUEARMKAB0WIQTfllUBtaeNnRzzfmVK3+74uImA+wUCWlrRaQAKCRBK3+74uImA
+6KKAfsFNsa4mWnfdytqhDQH/NFhJATI/dWeVzfzNoWpA5W4AHuIIftLTfLezxLT
x/uK/r9UetR5XsO4XnoasiDFZY+FAf4gv4Ua5NlfqVDGRi3xRAJXWTQuL1YwbxyS
tE9YL5zhLb6IDnKx2wvULozSM1jwCTBwXN3lpcdjpfEsmQIedbq6
=otce
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

I'm quite interested in this, even though I'm not involved in social studies or any literary analysis and have no formal education in literature or fiction. I'd really be down for seeing some of those course materials, and advice from real, trained, educated professionals!

One of the things that really strikes me about colonial attitudes is how readily we see parallels to it in science fiction and fantasy. When we start painting people green, give them tusks, and call them Orcs I sometimes wonder where the line is between a bit of harmless fantasy fun and making a caricature for "savages" or "primitives" much the same way I'm guessing some of the early explorers may have felt during the scramble for Africa and the Americas. Sometimes the caricature isn't so bald-faced when laser guns, space ships, and aliens add a fresh coat of sci-fi paint overtop it but it's still there. I've fallen into this trap of numerous times without meaning to and only realized it when someone called me out on it. So I'd be very interested to read what you have to have to say about the matter.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iLUEARMKAB0WIQTfllUBtaeNnRzzfmVK3+74uImA+wUCWlrQdgAKCRBK3+74uImA
+7IRAf9wGvdByix6KfwZH1dv3KN3ey72Htcq4BfUJi9OqttRyfZKtqQ0L7lurleq
VfAHYjMmwKm/GunVYpubnpBnoNzJAf4yJord8nKxAb8uPH1COvkd2a43dOYmAjR1
th8Y8f4JEjGVJ3zi6+apfSNfKNXtVvlGniYWqjpoVDIHvqD01sHb
=I5wN
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

I found a website which generates badfics. I think this could be of use to the PPC.

https://fanficmaker.com/

(It's funny because normally plants are grown in plots of land, but here, mentioning plants produced plots!)

. . .

. . .

. . .

—doctorlit is sorry












—doctorlit is actually not sorry at all

I appear to have misunderstood the meaning of the phrase 'colonialist ideologies' in this context.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Indeed they are, and much more informative.

For instance, it's one thing for me to tell you "My character likes to speak her mind and can be arrogant but knows when to shut up and be humble too." That really doesn't tell you anything and I can extrapolate that into ways that the author who tells that to me might never have intended. It doesn't do anything for the character. Despite that, lines like that are some of the most irritatingly common ways I see people try to sell me on their characters.

But if I told you something along the lines of "My character is very outspoken when it comes to her political views, but remembers to be diplomatic and polite when discussing them with strangers." or "My character loves to show off her knowledge about space and astrophysics to other people, but whenever someone brings up the science of economics she immediately knows to shut up and listen." That tells you as someone that's going to be evaluating the character a lot more, and also give me more to launch into, without being appreciably longer than the first example I gave.

This kind of approach is something I first found encouraged in online speed dating profiles, where getting as much information in as few words as possible across is more important than anything else, since you only have a couple seconds (if that) to make the best impression you can. This is the same method, but adapted to describing a fictional character.

The best part is, those kinds of pitches also can be used to branch off and provide starting points to talk about other things that has to do with your character.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iLUEARMKAB0WIQTfllUBtaeNnRzzfmVK3+74uImA+wUCWlrBEAAKCRBK3+74uImA
+8Y0Af4nEGFCh+R0ZPCzXOV550OhrQdB/W1yt8JGrj5RyvZQ15PEXLX99UsbvLwI
Wg82FRZyemoiDBqQS+GpuDHET0afAgCPcX0+SmiauqOfTtPOcK/1ESF6t5nu9LQ5
UfCYjtdPjNZGab0Dp0MZcQclZ6RZMWlxRKumX4gFhJCgMRweTnom
=Aekh
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

I end up with that middle section lull pretty often, since I find that starting a story and finishing it are the easiest parts. It's everything inbetween that I find is the most difficult, or finding a way to connect the scenes that I've got a clear idea how to write. It's the scenes that connect those scenes that I have the most difficult time writing, myself.

I've got a fairly simple method that I find works for me when I hit the scenes that act as glue to hold the other scenes together. It's not very efficient, but I find it works when all else fails. I usually try to take off on different tangents with one guiding rule: they must get me to or get me closer to the next bullet-point in my outline. From there I just try to write as many of those as I possibly can in the shortest amount of time without regard for their quality and produce as many tangents as I possibly can. In a way it's almost like NaNoWriMo, except rather than going for word count, I'm going for anything that will at least get me closer. In some cases I might just even write the tangents in point form.

After I do a enough of these, I find that one of them just works or clicks and I get that 'aha!' moment that I've been hoping to get. Or I can even put two or more together that I like. From there, once I have at least something visualized and a few words, it's a simple enough process to rewrite and rework that tangent into something that I won't immediately feel ashamed of.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iLUEARMKAB0WIQTfllUBtaeNnRzzfmVK3+74uImA+wUCWlq8qwAKCRBK3+74uImA
+wcUAf4rk22wtau983IdrEoGa3r8Vfle6E/+A8srEUA8veSfUbvkEvLFSxzWP4Qp
JrhnLQyfGPFG9kEbSmNjvI4JqV77AfwN2RVSovDQFPLhfEShv9+qfCUozPYPLdEe
9XJp12oM/oIaaj9qgFjFBxHz6bUZ9fW++EDpc9DVF7rCt/9PALkN
=RZvV
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

I read music, sorta, but I don't compose music. Which is why I need a friend to help me with that. {= )

I'm also not enough of a poet/lyricist to whip up a whole album's worth of pieces in one month, if that would even count. I don't know; I've only just heard of it.

Is that something anyone around here does, or might want to do, though? That would be cool to see.

~Neshomeh