The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

I'll miss you and, if you come back, I'll miss the RPs you had on Discord too (I didn't participate to these even half as much I would have liked). I also hope we can stay in contact, even if your hiatus goes longer.

I'll also congratulate for the first mission of human!Lottie. And you found a really nasty glitterbag for celebrating. I know it's not in the description, but with the way she's described, I can almost see her stitched on all the body like some Frankenstein monster, burnt eyesocks... Wonder how the explosion improved that.

All my condoleances to Random Guard. What was his name? Tentative one for now is Joe. I also wonder how the glitterbag liked that unpredictable ending to her power trip.

I also found the 'nononono' cascade from Lottie funny. Irony makes this a perfect mission for her too. That said, I can get her fear too.

Also, side benefit of a remote teleporting you anywhere and anywhen you come back when food is still hot. Should have think of that.

oog oog oog oog oog oog oog oog oog oog oog oog oog oog oogoog ooo oog oog
I have no idea.
oog oog oog oog oog oog oog oog oog oog oog oog oog oog oogoog ooo oog oog oog og
Yes, Most Obama.

The DIS was Internal Security, they were awful. The DIO was - well, wasn't, because it never existed - ... wait, why am I doing this? I can think of at least five reasons not to.

Y'know, never mind. You go on, nothing to see here. :-)

*Nita

The thing is, there's also self-acceptance that I had to deal with. Coming to terms with what I am and what that means.

You guys all helped a bunch with that, in no small part by being incredibly supportive. There were also specific boarders that did even more to help me talk it out and come to terms with it, in part by sharing their own experiences, but... I don't know if they want their names known, so that's all I'll say.

It's Charlotte's first mission after becoming human, so naturally, she and Ix are given a daughter of all the gods and angels.

As for the hiatus, I'll still post missions as I finish them, but I'm otherwise not going to be a part of the PPC. I won't be rejoining the Discord if I properly come back.

Sorry, guys.

This was a nice scene. You did a good job of getting across all the relevant information throughout the piece without dumping exposition.

The bit at the end was unexpected and awww.

Doc already caught the typo I noticed.

- Tomash

I liked this overall.

The repeated scene with the tea was a nice touch.

The twist ending ... ouch.

One complaint I have is that it was rather unclear what was going on in this situation near the beginning, and that a lot of it didn't make too much sense until nearer the middle or the end.

- Tomash

I remember catching myself before typing "DIS" the first time I wrote the acronym. I don't actually remember typing it the second time, so I'm not sure if it was a finger slip from the "a" to the "s" key, or a brain slip from "Dúros Black" to "Black Cat." Ugh.

—doctorlit, embarrassed

And if you go a single kilo-power above that, you'll be banned so hard, your children won't be allowed to join the Board, nor their children's children, nor their children's children.

But, uh, actually, though, I'd argue that there really isn't a distinct answer to 'how powerful is too powerful' beyond how said character's powers relates to the missions and stories you're telling. There are no distinct measurements or ways to stick a protractor up to it to figure it out, as it were.

The most important thing to remember is this:
Is there room for good storytelling, with these powers?

It is from this, I'd say, that the main issues of overpowered characters comes from: a character with ridiculous powers is very hard to write a good story with. There's not much of a story in a man who just solves all problems instantly, who just flicks away the most recent bland villain in an instant right after they've finished generically angsting.
It is also hard, too, to have a logical story with an overpowered character - your story might need to go somewhere very specific, and the powers bestowed upon your character simply do not work alongside that. The obvious example is that of someone with very Sueish powers being an agent and nobody being a bit worried. Your story wants your character to just be treated like any other agent, but with their powers, it's simply illogical for it to go that way!

It can be considered, then, not as a problem of where somebody lies on the 'power-level-scale' but a problem of good storytelling. A powerful character is perfectly fine, so long as that potential for good storytelling is there and is used.

There is certainly room for good storytelling in an agent whose powers cause a lot of worry Upstairs (and there has been, throughout various spinoffs).

So, yeah, that's how I'd suggest looking at it - thinking about things from a wider storytelling perspective, rather than being bogged down in deep-detailed-protractor-specifics. 'Too powerful' would be anything that inherently makes for a poor or illogical story.

Which, uh, is probably pretty vague advice, I realise. That's the sort of stuff that takes a lot of practice drabbling and beta-using to really gather.

I like the way you use a lot of short, fast sentences, both for narration and dialogue. It gives the story a fast flow, which not only matches with the topic of racing, but also feels like a natural way for young kids to talk to each other. The present tense adds to that, too.

I also like that even though the main plot point of this story is one of competition, the runners are all very friendly towards, and supportive of, each other. It prevents the mood from getting too serious, and keeps the story light-hearted and calm.

I'm very amused by the school's star runner being nicknamed "ped." Fun use of Latin root words!

I saw a couple errors:

"He himself is a fan of a story where people being eaten by parasites taking over heads."
In this sentence, "being eaten" is a description. Even though "being" looks like a verb, it actually needs another verb in front of it. So it would read "people are being eaten".

"House Red gains the highest marks and are accorded the main prize hamper."
Since this sentence uses House Red as its subject instead of the people in House Red, it should use a singular verb: "House Red . . . is accorded the . . ."

—doctorlit was never a fan of the field days back in grade school

So, I've finally begun to write up my potential agents and I just wanted to ask something. Since the mission writing guide said something about flowers not liking agents with too much power, so uh, how powerful is too powerful? I'm not trying to make overpowered agents, I just want to know so I won't make them too powerful.

I thought at some point it would give up and just leave it as a string of "oog" over and over, but instead they just keep coming. My question is why the translations sometimes include words and sentences in all caps.

That is like, super high density weirdness which I assume would make total sense if I were high. Have some more weirdness, which TheGoodModAddict found a while back. If you go to google translate, and translate from Somali to English, and just type "oog" over and over, like "oog oog oog oog oog" you'll get some very interesting translations.

This was posted on the Subreddit for fans of the band tool, and tagged "drug related":

The art of a moving line at a rate of 9.99frequency is often heard as a "waetrolia" primitive word speak but if amplified to a 6.725 at a monofrequency of 2.ti orr w.25 watts can bring lude messages from the underlord UL Damian on track parabol. To track parabola. Research?

I enjoy the Harry Potter series, also Warhammer 40,000, Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher series, and various other things. I discovered the PPC via Television Tropes and Idioms (tvtropes), and I hope to write PPC missions using agents Colonel Caleb Bradbury (a retired Argentinian army officer from world 1.567 repeating), and Rasputin Gibbs ( reptilian humanoid from world 1.963, where most conspiracy theories are true). My writing credentials include two completed National Novel Writing Months, and various short stories. I look forward to aiding in the fight against badfic.

... when I have time, it sounds pretty interesting.

Anyways back on topic. You say you have a hard time understanding technical details. If you don't know where to actually start creating technical details, there are six broad questions you need to ask; keep in mind these six broad questions can be used for each part of worldbuilding, although the significance of each question may vary depending on which part you are developing. As you may have guessed, the six questions are who, what, when, where, why, and how. These are obviously too broad to be of direct use, so let's break it down, this is by no means an exhaustive list.

Who - who can use magic
- Can anyone use magic?
- Is talent decided at birth, or can the gift be acquired through some special means?
- What determines power?
- Can a person get more powerful? If so, how?
- Does race affect magic?
  - Are there some types of magic that some races cannot use?
  - Are certain races better at magic?
    - Better at only certain types?
  - Do some races have an innate form of magic?
    - Are some races incapable of magic save for any innate magic?

What - What is magic? (You answered this pretty well already, but here are a few more questions you can consider)
-What are the costs associated with magic?
  - Are there different costs for different types of magic?
  - Do certain races get a discount for certain types of magic?
- Are there any taboos associated with magic?
- Is there an "Order" to the universe that magic cannot break?
  - If there is and it can be broken, what are the consequences or extra cost of breaking said Order?
- What are the weaknesses and limitations of magic?

When - when can you use magic?
- Are there certain spells that only work in certain times?
- Are there auspicious periods where magic can get stronger/ cost less?
  - If so, do certain periods correspond to certain types of magic?
  - Can this time period be used to break taboos?

Where - where can you use magic?
- Are there dead zones? (places where magic does not work or is weaker)
- Are there places where magic is stronger? (Ley lines perhaps?)
- Are there places where certain types of magic is strengthened but others are weakened?
  - Is there a way to manipulate the affinity of such places?

How - How is magic used?
- what is the procedure of spell casting?
  - Magic symbols?
  - Gestures and movements?
  - Sound?
  - Words?
  - Force of will?
  - A combination of any of the above as well as anything I did not think of?
  - Do these differ depending on magic type/race?
- How is magic applied to technology?
- How are new spells discovered?

Why - This is arguably the trickiest, and not always necessary. Just keep "Why?" in mind whenever you make a decision in your world building, if the answer doesn't require too much metaphysical stuff, try to answer it. An example of an answerable one is "Why are there dead zones?" An example of one you could leave alone is "Why does magic exist?"

As for keeping all this in your mind, make a document of the answers you have given as a reference sheet. Also, since these are all yes and no answers, specify if yes.

Oh, and don't forget Sanderson's laws.

Well, kind of. It's really more for an Internet buddy of mine than for me. Des introduced us way backand I've been working on beta-reading his YGO fic pretty regularly. Unfortunately, I need to bust my butt harder than usual when the semester starts (long story, mostly involves me screwing myself) and won't be able to work on it after finishing the "current" chapter.

Username is clickable, so hit me up if you're interested in doing this for a few months.

I was telling an outside friend of mine about this situation, and she shared with me the story of the butterfly's struggle, which I thought was very uplifting. I realize it may not be the right message for everyone at all times, but as we individually and collectively struggle with our various challenges, I hope it's because we're empowering our wings to fly.

There are several versions of the butterfly story out there; this is a link to the one at the top of my Google hits:

http://instructor.mstc.edu/instructor/swallerm/Struggle%20-%20Butterfly.htm

~Neshomeh

I realize this issue is rather moot now, but I still feel this should be added.

Yesterday, I had it pointed out to me that as a result of some circumstances that have/are hurt(ing) him, Sprinkles has been infected with (this is the best verb I can think of here) certain persistent patterns of behavior and conversation style that, in the aggregate, would (in the judgement of the person explaining this) almost surely cause something like this incident to reoccur if Sprinkles came into contact with other vulnerable people similar to X (the victim currently at issue). That is, there is very good reason to believe this issue would not be an isolated incident.

It was further pointed out to me that this was something that would be quite resolvable with some help, but that because of some circumstances Sprinkles is in, he wouldn't be in a position to receive such help at or near this time. This concern for X and other people that would be drawn into similar situations make the person I was talking to uncomfortable with having Sprinkles in the PPC Discord.

I'd like to reiterate that this doesn't make Sprinkles a bad person or anything like that. I hope Sprinkles can get away from the circumstances that are causing and prolonging this issue and get help and healing.

I have somewhat lower estimates of the probability of recurrence than the person who explained this to me did. However, I know basically nothing about this type of issue. In light of this information, I find myself rather unsure that my proposed solution would have actually solved anything. I am also, however, not entirely convinced that making Sprinkles leave under these circumstances would have been a precedent we would want to set.

I just don't know what we should have done anymore. I thought I had a good idea. It turns out that may not have been the case. So, even though we are not deciding on anything anymore, I (entirely symbolically) abstain.

- Tomash

Ah. So I guess I was overall wrong for saying it could apply to us, but... eh, this was still a good discussion to figure out how this all works. Thanks for the clarification.

-Twistey

P.S. On a lighter but unrelated note, I just finished Good Omens. Fun book! I didn't know where to tell you guys, so here.

The difference being that democracy = the people make the rules, and anarchy = no one makes rules.

As you noted, we do have a "how things are done" in our Constitution, and our lack of mods on the Board just means that it's everyone's responsibility to make sure those standards are upheld. Those of us who have been around long enough to have internalized this set the example and instruct as needed, and the newcomers generally either figure out how it works and start helping (even if that's just by passively getting along) or go away.

We're unusual in that we've made this more or less work for so long.

Also, the splinter groups I mentioned were more "we're not doing the PPC anymore but we still want to be in touch with our PPC friends," but it's hard to keep up a relationship with someone when the main thing that you shared isn't there anymore. I think that's why they fizzled.

Though, we did have someone plagiarize the PPC one time, on two wikis. Wikia was very helpful in shutting those down pretty quickly once I showed them the mountain of evidence. That was a nice, simple problem with a nice, simple solution.

~Neshomeh

Haha, we were talking about that chapter a while ago! I've even tried the Botnik writer myself, and it was... interesting.

Anyway, nice to meet you! I'm Twistey, an amateur creator who can't decide which medium to stick to, partially thanks to the 4 years that Scratch.mit.edu had me brainwashed into thinking that the site and its community was the center of the universe, leaving me with the idea that I can program my own games and yeah it's totally fine to program with colored blocks. (But hey, at least Stencyl is a step up. If I try I'll get somewhere.) I'm pretty active on here.

Enough about me, how about you? What are your fandoms? How did you discover the PPC, and what type of stuff do you plan to write for it? Any character ideas? Anything interesting you've already written? I'd love to know more!

Finally, for your newbie gift, here's a copy of a very strange story. From what I'd guess, it seems to be an outsider's misinterpretation of the Original Series. Not that they have any reason to, other than Wikia's adblock ban. If you stick around long enough, I'll inform you of its exact contents.

Nice to meet you! I hope you have a wonderful time here and welcome to the PPC!

-Twistey