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I just so happen to have dug up the perfect response to the 'money-grubbing Christopher Tolkien' notion.

Mercenary CT: An Alternate Timeline

"1981: Concurrent with the release of 'John Boorman's The Lord of the Rings', 'The Lord of the Rings II: The Dark Tide' is published. It is critically derided as Puerile Adolescent Wish Fulfilment, though some publications praise it as a guilty pleasure, but is a resounding commercial success, topping the New York Times Bestsellers list for several weeks. Reaction from Tolkien fans is split, mostly between those who want Middle-earth to be considered Tolkien's creation alone with no extraneous work from other authors, and those who believe Middle-earth should be shared with everyone. The most common criticism is that the story is almost identical in construction to The Lord of the Rings, including two Hobbit heroes and a quest to destroy an artifact of terrible power."

"1995: 'Disney's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King' is released. Not as successful as its predecessors critically or commercially, though still a hit, here the divergences from the book are most profound: the Witch-King fights Legolas to add further angst to the Aragorn-Legolas romance, Sauron personally leads the army at Minas Tirith before being defeated by Aragorn when the ring's destruction leaves him vulnerable, and Gollum becomes a fully-fledged hero by saving Sam from Shelob and finally destroying the ring himself. The story ends with Frodo crowned King of the Shire, Aragorn & Legolas founding the United Kingdom of Men and Elves, and everyone lives happily ever after. No Scouring, no Grey Havens, no passing of magic, and the inversion of Tolkien's world is complete."

Yeah.

hS

Raynar Thul accidentally launched a Killik invasion fleet, because Jedi Joiners exert a very powerful influence on the Killik.

The Necrons... where are they at this point in time? Lexicanum reckons they're just sort of bobbing about helping people out occasionally (including fighting the Tyranids quite a bit).

Actually, they're probably more significant by their shadow: their very existence will give the entire Milky Way a pretty big phobia of droids. (I mean, the Imperium already has one, since 'AI goes bad' is one of their big hereditary fears.) While Artoo can probably get by, I think Threepio is going to be the subject of a lot of hate and fear.

On the other hand, the GFFA has a recent war when they fought armies of droids. Clone troopers were quite literally built for the job. So the Necron may get a nasty surprise if they try to attack the Alliance.

The big problem here is that 40K has a lot of factions, while the GFFA only has two. There's only so thin we can stretch those before the enemies start turning into 'and then we fought some different folks'.

How do the Necron think? Are they going to ally? Take advantage of one of our distractions? Try to claim some key tech for themselves? Or just keep on killing?

(I need to put together a summary of The Story So Far, don't I? Not for any serious purpose, but just for kicks...)

hS

We know the ending of Round Two was a bit disappointing; rest assured that the Borg will not be invited back. But the Space Battleship Tournament is still here!

From your name, we're guessing you're a Culture ship. Do you have a rundown of your stats and specs that we can look over? It'll help us to actually write you present you accurately to our viewers.

And to any other prospective contestants - come on in! We've already had a message of interest from a Mr. Ronan the Accuser, with a ship named... Dork Easter or something? Transmissions can get a bit glitchy out here, I'm sure we'll get it straightened out.

((But seriously, people, who should come along to Round Three? Given this thread, I think the Tau and the Tyranids should sign up; and of course our apparent champions will be returning. Who else has a Space Battleship?))

((hS))

Did my invitation get lost somehow? This tournament sounds fun.

Were you worried I'd stomp? Because I'd totally stomp.

... wait, there was an entrant with a time machine? Uh ... disregard this message, please.

[stream ends]

(( - Tomash ))

Man, that's pretty Sueish. The ones from my fanfics don't seem so bad now... If you can get through the cringe enough, I'd love to see the illustrations. Huh, maybe I can help you learn to cope with the cringe. I currently can cope with every bad thing I've written (except for this one robot that I don't like to talk about.)

Of course, mine weren't that over the top but were still Sues nonetheless, because everything came so easy to them. They never had any real conflicts or consequences. It was stupid. I'm trying to think of any specific examples that were obvious Sues, but I can't really. Oh jeez.

...Wait, it seems that my Sues actually became more Sueish over time up until the point where I started actually trying to improve my writing. I had the idea for a story once about a friend and I getting stuck in a fandom and taken in by main characters. I still have a few guilty pleasures and personal tropes I indulge in in my current works that could be Sueish if taken too far, or at least very bad writing. (For one thing, I love being the center of attention, and lots of my stories are inspired by my own personal experiences, so in most of my stories, either the #1 protagonist or a prominent antagonist starts off being based on me. Not only does it open up a potential for wish fulfillment when I think of my creation as myself, but it's also generally very annoying to see a character based on the author play a major part in a story that isn't literally about the author and isn't a fanfiction with the author's 'sona. Especially if the author proudly calls the character not just an insert but an avatar, which is another way of saying "ATTENTION EVERYONE! THIS WHOLE STORY IS A WISH FULFILLMENT AND I SE NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT!". I usually solve this issue by making the former insert much different from me in appearance and personality. I also tend to create another character that is meant to be literally me, and have her sort of hang around in the background or be an Easter egg. There are a few exceptions to this rule, although over time I might become sick of them and turn the inserts into regular non-insert characters. But anyway, enough of that rambling.) Every time I think about a piece of writing I'm working on, I think to myself: Do I need to remove my personal tropes from this work, or would it be okay to leave them in in this situation? If I need to take them out, how can I do it? That's helped me a lot with improving my stories, and as a result, I do believe I've stopped writing Sues... at least, they aren't Sues in the final drafts.

I proofread and revised that last paragraph like 25 times, wow.

-Twistey

Silhouetted against the suffused orange light of the pumpkin speaker, his masked eyes scanned the patrons, noting what each of them was wearing, how far they'd gone toward screen accuracy, what they were eating, how they were acting around the other patrons, and a multitude of other details, including where anyone could be hiding, others who kept to the back like himself, where the exits were and possible obstacles in an emergency.

"Hey, Zero," said Jack, clad in the green fatigues and black tactical jacket of Stargate Command, looking over at the Detective's theatrically-caped figure, "Maybe you'd have more fun if you stopped brooding in the corner like a sulky teenager."

"I only want to know who's in attendance and how to get out of here if I have to," said the Detective patiently, "After that, I'll talk to anyone you want me to."

"Or maybe talk to anyone you want to? It's a party-- you've gotta learn when to relax," said Jack, stepping beside him and taking a sip of the ice cold apple cider behind the unmoving Detective.

"Give me a few minutes, and I'll join you," he promised, pressing a button at the back of the mask so that the carefully crafted back pieces slid up into the transparent faceplate and cleared the helmet for removal. He messed his now dampened and scruffy hair up off his forehead and offered a small smile of reassurance to his partner.

Jack nodded, and left to go and mingle among the guests, and the Detective replaced his mask behind him.

Closest thing that the 'nids have to that is the Genestealers and their cults. Almost the same kind of idea--except then when you reproduce, you have baby 'stealers.

Bring out your best costumes and get ready to pig out on candy! That's right, ladies, gentlemen, and variations thereof, it's time for the 2017 Halloween costume party!

Come join us on the Other Board!

Richard Legard was wearing a black trench coat with a gray collared shirt, black trousers, dark brown Cuban heeled boots, and a pair of red gloves. He also had a white bird-shaped mask with a black design around the eyes. The ensemble was pretty much out of a Disguise Generator. Marina Nicodelli had traded her black coat for a brown trenchcoat, the silver crucifix around her neck for a silver pentagram, and was holding a carved staff, with some cavity at the top of it.

"That's a rather easy disguise, you know Marina?" Richard said quitely.

"You were the one who gave me the idea, Richard," the dark-haired wizard said with a small smirk. "And a good one actually. And you can talk, with your DORKS."

"I couldn't find the right clothes, and... I don't think I'd have any chances of making something myself."

"Yeah. let's see if we can meet someone interesting".

Without further ado, the two of them splitted up, Richard wandering around while Marina went to the bar.

It had taken a lot of coaxing and pleading, but Ix finally agreed to sew them matching costumes. Now, Charlotte was clad in an elegant, pale yellow gown, her hair curled in ringlets. Ix was wearing a black cape and had a white mask on the left side of her face, and she was clutching a rose in her sweaty hands.

"Hey! Nice costumes, you two!" an agent said when she spotted them. "But isn't your mask on the wrong side for the Phantom?"

Ix's cheeks flushed.

"Come on, let's go find someone to talk to," Charlotte muttered, putting a hand on Ix's back and steering her away.

The PPC Halloween party was just beginning to get underway. Agents mingled here and there, some sitting at tables and chatting over food, others milling around the room, dancing and admiring each other's costumes. A long table full of sweets and snacks was set up along the back wall of the ballroom, and in the corner was a tub of apples floating in cold water. A cloud of live bats fluttered about the ceiling, à la Hogwarts, and spooky music oozed softly from speakers disguised as Jack-o'-lanterns set around the room.

Namely something from the Legends continuum. Killiks, an insectoid species coming from Alderaan, but the bulk of the species had left the planet long before the fireworks for DS-1's inauguration went off the reservation.

Killiks could, and can submit other sentients to their hive-mind, up to modifying the brains' chemical, creating people called Affiliated, if I remember that term right.

In the New Jedi Order story arc involving them, the idea was that Jedis... were both more (the Force make them more receptive to the changes to Affiliated) and less (if they know about that, they can use the Force to guard against the changes) vulnerable to that.

Of course, for that arc, things went predictably on the 'more' side for a while, given the fact Alderaan had blown up, Jedi had went extinct for a few decades, and even before that there were not so many Killiks lefft on Alderaan... Any possibility of something similar with the Tyranids' Hive Mind?

And while the Eldar got a passing mention earlier... What about the favorite people of idiosyncratic sentient droids of W40k, the Necrons?

And it's this: what if the core personality of a Tyranid bio-organism was constantly in both a healing trance and/or battle meditation?

My idea is for a kind of Zoanthrope 2.0 - taking some cues from cephalopod physiology, because the Nids are all based off H.R. Giger and he based all his creepy ideas from stuff in the deep and weird parts of the ocean. Rather than the current massively centralized brain seen in the typical Zoanthrope, what we instead get is a lot of "synaptic ganglia", for want of a better term, spread out through the entirety of the organism's body, but primarily in its head and its many, many, many tentacles. These tentacles allow it to conduct both its Warp powers and its Force powers, each operating semi-independently while the prime personality concentrated in the head focuses on the battle meditation or healing trance as needed. Additionally, it would doubtless act as a relay node for the Hive Mind as well, since Zoanthropes already do and this is a Zoanthrope on steroids.

My internal nomenclature for this thing is the Tentathrope, to represent... well, take a wild guess. It's a psychic Tyranid bio-titan with a bucket of Force powers thrown in for good measure. It can blast ground units with the powers of the Warp and probably take out air units and vehicles with supercharged Force lightning.

Be afraid.

Be very afraid.

=]

Have a pile of multi-coloured pens.

All the questions to ask have been asked, so... Have a pot of black-hole coffee and my welcome.

I'm sure he'll do a bit more digging in the Professor's waste paper basket and find something lucrative along those lines. =]

One is that elves - for whatever reason - don't seem to write the nice stuff down. The Silm jumps over several hundred years because Morgoth wasn't attacking at that point, so who cares? They never wrote out the history of Doriath prior to the First Battle, either. Maybe they remember the good times in some other way, or maybe it's a religious belief - that in Arda Marred, recording things that could come from Arda Unmarred is almost blasphemous.

Secondly, elves are really bad at /doing/ stuff. There were no elf-organised attempts to infiltrate Angband and steal the Silmarils, even though they had hundreds of years and Beren threw one together in a season or two. No elven army marched on Sauron through the entire Second Age - even when he invaded them! (The Last Alliance was clearly a Dunedain idea.) The four times the Noldor took the initiative are the three Kinslayings, and the Battle of Unnumbered Tears. Elves aren't about 'doing' - they're about 'being'.

I bet the /dwarven/ history of the First Age would be much more exciting.

hS

I'm going with 'the least depressing from a really terrible Age'.

A replica of basketball that Kuroko plays. Does not allow you to be invisible, but have fifteen seconds of distractive cuteness when employed, with a minute of cooldown. Use it well. Effect is muted with those possessing Hawk, Eagle, Emperor Eyes, and in some cases, Perfect Copy.

Eragon isn't very good, but if you enjoy, it does not have to wreck you with guilt. In fact, starting from the very bottom allows to soar to the skies, right?

If I get too specific in describing my old Sue, I'll probably unearth a truckload of memories that I've been trying to block out of my brain for the past five years. So, let's see...

She was a night elf death knight, part dragon, part nightsaber, knew draconic, and she wore a lot of awful outfits. There was a point where she was able to get a drop of blood from the dragon queen. She also godmoded a lot, but that I partially blame on my 12-year-old self for not knowing how to RP. I didn't have anyone to tell me what to do, so a lot of my RP learning was just figuring it out by trial and error as I went.

Actually, she originated from an even older fanfiction trilogy that I wrote, so old in fact that it's written on actual paper! Each story took up one spiral notebook and had illustrations. They are hidden at the back of my closet because if I see them, I will scream.
This character prototype was a draenei death knight who united the Alliance and Horde against the Lich King, killed said Lich King, and was redeemed into a half-ish paladin.
In the second story, it takes place some time after the first where the main characters are all half-bred teenagers who mastered the elements and came from Feralas: the blood elf/night elf fire hunter who trained a dragon, the tauren/draenei water shaman who died at the end of the third story, the troll/something wind rogue who I didn't care about, the human/blood elf earth paladin who was the love interest of the hunter, and a god-freaking cat girl from Sholazar Basin. I don't remember what happened in the third story, just that it ended in Wintergrasp and Sylvanas fell off a cliff or something.

I need to go... lie down... on the floor...

Hey, Newbie!

Welcome to the PPC, you don't have to be insane, but it does help. I'm the resident Other Person With A Pretentious Name, and a fearsome, 8-foot-tall sorcerer serving a sinister god-

((Suuure.))

...Also, I am crazy liar. Pay no attention to the voices. Anyways, nice to see you. Take a Bolter and a flask of Fenrisian Ale (I'd be careful drinking that stuff if I were you), and gather round the fire. Feel free to tell us more about yourself. Or don't.

Have one of my own shed feathers and a Golden Snitch with a Pokeball engraving!

Haha! Interesting that you do most on YouTube - guys, this might be a sign that The PPC Channel might be a good prospect to look into after all! (I have a better idea of how it would work now - if anyone wants the explanation, I can give it to them.)

Anyway, hi, I'm Twistey, and I'm not going to judge you at all for liking the Inheritance series! I actually read Eragon and was okay with it, but well, usually I don't read books I don't like and I almost always like any book I read. (Guys, put the knives down! Put the knives down!) My biggest fandom (outside of my own written worlds) would have to be Wolfenstein 3D or anything else made in the 90s by iD Software. I'm a lightly-used-bie, as I usually say, with a few agents-to-be.

About that Mary Sue you made, can you describe her for me? I'm kind of interested to hear about her. Maybe we can compare childhood Sues, that would be fun.

Ah, yes! I almost forgot your newbie gift! Let's see. *rummages through a bag*. Aha! Since Halloween is coming up, I'm going to give you a truckload of fabric and other stuff to make costumes with, as well as a bottomless face paint palette and a shapeshifting wig! I can use a sewing machine, so if you need me to sew something together for whatever costume you end up creating, just ask me! ;)

Nice to meet you, and welcome! I wish you a wonderful career as a PPCer!

-Twistey

Steinbeck is all like "Mass production and working in groups is destroying our creativity. Nothing good can come out of collaboration."

and I'm like "Oh yeah?! I can debate that! *shoves Warriors series in his face, or at least pretends to in the form of annotating in the margins that I would do so*".

But the actual story bits are decent. I've gotten to love some of the characters (especially Sam Hamilton. I loooooove crazy inventor characters), and the one borderline Sue there is isn't 100% Sueish. I think...

But yeah, Steinbeck is a bit opinionated indeed.

(Okay, good, you did. Hahaha! I plan to make more of that meme.)

-Twistey

Pronounds are she/her.

As for favorite mission, I can't quite decide. It's probably a many-way tie between Cupcakes, Forbiden Fruit, the Rose Potter series, Unholy Lich-Bunnies, Celebrian, and Harry Potter and the Butt Coffee. I actually had to go back and reread that last one when I realized that the Agents were pokemon.

>>

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*spikes the punch with the void*