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Congratulations on your continued survival!

The idea of a lonely scene felt rather normal to me when I started writing, and I didn't really see Marina wanting to talk that out with someone. She sees this situation as her problem, and one she cannot fix at the moment. The first version of the prompt didn't even use the line, only implying it. But Delta also pointed out it was a to short one, and once I expanded it, the line just flew in.

The additional bits I added along the photography's description also springed to mind while I was writing about her family, and were a fine way of fleshing up the prompt in my mind... once I got the sentences to be less clunky. And well, Marina has been moving away from normality from the day she discovered about magic. PPC is only taking this journey further than even the Dresdenverse could manage.

Renfield is a modern moniker for a special breed of thralls. Bottom line of that worldbuilding bit: Black Court Vampires are a breed of pretty much Stoker vampires, except they look like super zombies rather than unaturally beautiful, and naturally got hit hard when everyone could get their hands on a book describing all their tricks and weaknesses, and the White Court is a rival breed of vampires, psychic predators preying on lust, fear, despair... Renfields take their name from the madman of Dracula, and are thralls with their minds so ravaged they become crazed berserkers, and only got worst from there, not lasting long before they go on a pretty much self-destructive rampage. They're 'as good as' dead the moment their mind got shredded enough to earn that moniker.

I have to thank Desdendelle for the last point. When I asked for Permission for the first time, Marina was still a character I had designed for a Dresden Files RP settled in Philadelphia, and the setting I created wasn't quite identic to Real World, something he pointed out. Tweaking her backstory to bring it back to Real Life Philadelphia did put her somewhere between 'canon' and 'RP character' in my mind. Meaning that Butcher hadn't written anything about the situation in Dresdenverse!Philadelphia, so she doesn't contradict canon... unless Butcher does write about Philadelphia (no clue about this ever happening though).

I figured out it would be a good idea to reflect this with her having instable home 'verse. It would also make a good initial justification for her staying in the PPC rather than trying to go back home. Not everyone falling into a plothole want to stay, but not everyone can go back either.

Also, those sound like awesome presents!

In a less facetious sense, I've been working on stuff for my degree. My first major assignment, a 1500 word essay and accompanying 500 word critical reflection concerning how colonialist ideology affects writers of speculative fiction, was handed in a few days ago. It went well! I... think. =]

Other than that, well, I've been tidying up Trenchbreakers, working on my first actual literary book review (a compare-and-contrast article about Rivers Of London and Full Dark House), polishing a new division's introduction, hammering together the next couple of Doktor Trollenfisch und Gabrielle missions, thinking about an interlude involving Algie and Lola, and putting together a plan for my next Wobbles and Notary PPC Power Hour.

Also: would anyone be averse to me swiping teaching material from my course and posting it to the Board as writing advice? It might help people out. =]

What's everyone been writing recently?
Does anyone have questions about writing to ask the PPC?
Does anyone have unsolicited writing advice?

Post it, share it, or whatever. I figure it's high time we talked more about writing, because we haven't done a lot of writing discussion lately...

Anyway, I don't go hunting for badfic since I need my sanity for college, but I do have a list of all the stinkers I took off the Unclaimed list the last time I did an epic cleanup. Let's see what that has to offer...

https://www.quotev.com/story/2838998/No-Safe-Place-Legolas-Love-Story Classic second-daughter-of-Elrond Legomance, except this one has special powers and her dad's been keeping her hidden from the rest of Rivendell--excuse me, "Rivendale"--for presumably that reason. Also she joins the Fellowship because of course she does.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10669101/1/The-Roamer Immortal spy chick who used to be human, minis all over the place, but some bonus points for knowing that Morgoth exists.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7454917/1/Magic-by-the-Starlight Harry Potter/Star Trek TOS. I'll just include DawnFire's notes on the subject: "The language is awful. The Sue is evil in an overblown manner, and is put in Hufflepuff by the Hat for no discernible reason. The Hat itself—I can't even. Gratuitous Drarry. An overly-Scottish Scotty who says 'aye' far too often and is, of all things, the DADA teacher. Also, an absolutely enormous number of AVPM/AVPS references. May be a My Immortal parody, too. [...] After reading the two new chapters, I'm almost 100% positive that it's a parody. It's too intelligently written to be real. It's deliberately bad, references fanfic tropes, and seems to be going through a checklist of badfic traits. Also, if you look at the profile, the SPaG is perfect. That combined with a screenname containing the words 'bloody tears'... well, if it's not a parody/trollfic I'll eat my hat, that's all I'm saying."

https://www.quotev.com/story/4499505/Now-she-is-gone Ohhhhh my Lord, where do I even begin? She's Frerin's daughter--by an OC elf of all things--runs away from home after he dies (so presumably just before the Company sets out), and then finds herself in Mirkwood along the way because of course she does.

Namely because: 1) I needed an excuse for at least one of my agents to reveal knowledge of the Fire Emblem series; 2) mishandling of transgender issues is something I've been meaning to tackle at some point; and 3) oh dear god the general CRINGE. I haven't handled that many NSFW/NSFB badfics in a while, so I might as well rectify that in preparation for that big thing I'm planning for my Floaters team.

...why must I make my PPC self-insert suffer so much? X'D

Also, here are two badfics which I also plan to deal with in the future:

- "A Pirates[sic] Life For Me" - Ice Age - T-rated
A wild girl in the forest, haves an dream to became an pirate! But when she turns into one, its the worst thing she ever did! Buck is back and the pirate's survived? EllieXManny and DiegoXSiera ofcourse!
A Spellcheck Scrat right in the fic description, beige prose, poor grammar, and a human protagonist with a strange name (by tribal human standards) AND CAN TALK WITH ANIMALS! WHAT THE FLOCK?!

- Two Fractured Halves - My Hero Academia - M-rated
AU in which Izuku has a dormant quirk that only awakens when he takes a leap of bridge with the intent of ending his life after Kacchan pushed him to far and when all might said the thing he feared most and that was all it took to bring Izuku to the bridge that fateful night. Soulmate AU too, Izuku is OOC sometimes and OP. First Fanfic! Constructive Criticism is welcome.
Description says it all. The introductory chapter even gives a full list of abilities provided by Izuku's "quirk", which is way too many for a single quirk by the manga/anime's standards. Also ew. Just. Ew.

I'll give you ths black-hole chocolate cake with red berries coating, and black-hole coffee to go with it.

Well, it makes me feel awful to see them part like this. I do appreciate that both are seeking a return to Vailnor, but have entirely different and irreconcilable views on how to do so. I like that the decision feels final for both agents, that there are consequences for each stemming from the decisions on both ends, but that the agents still make their decisions and face what comes. A very strong emotional piece, showing off characters with strong wills and senses of self.

Random question that never occurred to me before: are all those plants in pots, or are they growing out of the generic surface?

—doctorlit wouldn't mind some undying lands, himself

. . . when we're providing concrit to a short story from 1844 written by an author who's been dead for a century-and-a-half-plus.

Although considering the Angel's weird speaking mannerisms and mixture of different accents within single sentences, I have to wonder: maybe the errors were intentional?

—doctorlit approves of posthumous concrit, though

I want to keep all the books I already own. So I would be a little one-sided in an "exchange."

—doctorlit is selfish and materialistic, didn't you know?

So I just finished reading Part 1, and I'm so glad I finally got the chance to do it.

(spoiler block goes here there and everywhere spoiler block goes here there and everywherespoiler block goes here there and everywherespoiler block goes here there and everywherespoiler block goes here there and everywherespoiler block goes here there and everywherespoiler block goes here there and everywherespoiler block goes here there and everywherespoiler block goes here there and everywherespoiler block goes here there and everywherespoiler block goes here there and everywhere)

Right, that's probably more than enough.

Anyway, yeah, I'm really enjoying this so far.

Favorite part: July stepping back into the PPC. That was amazing.

Favorite line: "I quit the PPC. It doesn't mean I quit her." Seriously, I love that line. It's wonderful.

And nice hook at the end with Library! We don't know who she convinced, and we don't know what's in the white box July gave her, and...well, it's a good hook for wanting to read on.

All in all: enjoyed it a lot, both writing style and content (and Ilraen's cameo!) Looking forward to reading more.

~Z

There is an interesting mix of lines that make me remember that these people were writing from a very different cultural context and lines that directly mirror things people write today. I agree, some of them really do remind me of 'Texts From Last Night'. I suppose in many ways we are not that different from the humans of two thousand years ago...

When we're talking overseas shipping - and remember we have members from at least six different countries here - you could be looking at twice the price of the book in some cases.

A few years back, we did a PPC postcard exchange, where people passed their addresses to a single person who dealt them out at random. It worked okay... once. No-one was really interested in doing it a second time.

Unfortunately, it seems that most of your post is just an attempt to work out the kinks in the shipping side - and I don't think they're resolvable. It's just too complex.

hS

I guess you could do it by copying the whole thing into Google Docs and adding comments, but is it something that can be done in an actual e-book format?

I quite like that part of the idea. Otherwise, it's just 'pls recommend me some old books', which isn't really the same thing.

hS

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Happy Birthday to you, eatpraylove.

I wish you the best for your 23rd!

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Here, have a triple chocolate cupcake (chocolate with chocolate chips and chocolate icing)! Don’t forget to blow out the candle and make a wish!

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I like this idea.

You've mentioned three concerns: high costs of postage, the risk of a borrower absconding with the borrowed books, and the privacy issues that arise with giving out a mailing address to a stranger on the Internet.

So, I have an idea, and while this doesn't address how satisfying it is to actually get a parcel in the mail or hold an actual printed book in your hands, it does address the problems you've already realized: what if we started trading things like public domain E-books? There are many over at Project Gutenberg, especially old classics that weren't copyrighted or that have had their copyright expire. The hard part is finding something that appeals to you out of all those titles and that's where having a large group with similar interests could come in handy in helping to sort through the massive amount of books to find what you're looking for.

You've also mentioned that there could be the potential for an emotional or a personal aspect to this, such as reading the annotations or the remarks left by the previous readers, which is also something that could be done electronically. After all, it's one thing to get a copy of an E-book, but it's another to get an E-book that a friend liked and recommended to you specifically based on what you like or don't.

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Yep, today marks year number 23 around the sun for yours truly. Fortunately I have two--two!--lovely Barnes and Noble gift cards to pamper myself with. And a cute turtle charm from my boyfriend, because he's actually the best. :D