The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

Sorry for being largely absent at the moment; I'm dog sitting and can only get internet through the cell phone.

If I'm thinking of the right person, Hades introduced themself on the Board two or three months back. They said their parents didn't approve of the PPC, and their internet access is being blocked or watched in some way, limiting their ability to participate. I would think they would have seen your message, though, since they clearly use the wiki regularly.

Hades, I'm sorry if I've misrepresented your situation, or confused you with someone else. I can't properly search the archives right now. And also need to go to sleep.

—doctorlit

I'm never going to not smile whenever I get to post that now.

The Aviator and Zeb take on an Iron Man wannabe who romances Widowmaker while lusting after Tracer.

Alternate blurb: The Aviator and Zeb get really excited about an Overwatch mission, but are traumatized multiple times in quick succession.

I would also like to thank Alleb for the mini type introduced in this fic! She and Larfen actually started working on an Overwatch mission before I did, so I just used the minis they had planned. Credit where credit is due. :)

Your characters sound awesome. I have a bunch of incomplete OCs sitting around somewhere gathering dust. Unfortunately, I don't think any character I create, or have, would cut it as agents.

Out of curiosity, what powers do you characters have?

Also, while you're here, any idea who's adding links to agents with no pages on the Wiki?

Yay cowrite! {= D

Re. CH: I think I'll try to talk to them one more time, and let them know that if it doesn't work, my next move is to poke them with a temp-block, leaving them only the ability to comment on their own userpage. If that's what it takes, that's what it takes.

Re. claimed badfic: Okay, got it. Let the record show that there are several reasons it is not cool to claim an entire canon's worth of fics on a fanfiction site:

1. Basic politeness. It's not fair to unilaterally exclude other people from sporking Sues in the LoK section if they want to.

2. Thirty-plus claims at once is outlandish and almost certainly unrealistic, given the tiny percentage of people who even reach TOS's 26 missions. That's not even asking whether she intends to spork fics from other continua at the same time.

3. There are, in fact, 927 English-language fics in the LoK section at the time of this post, and the claim as stated is not just 30+ fics, but also "everything LOK on fanfiction.net" barring some exclusions. Assuming generously that the exclusions eliminate roughly half that number, that's still over 400 fics. They can't ALL be mission-worthy, and even if they were, sporking them all is definitely impossible for one person.

4. It's hardly even necessary. Given the diversity of interests in today's PPC, there is almost zero danger of anyone taking a fic another person wants, let alone thirty-plus. There's no reason to stake out anything at all unless you really have your heart set on it for story reasons or whatever—and even then, you have to make good on your claim(s) eventually or give it/them up. See above comments about the outlandishness and unreality of thirty-odd claims, let alone hundreds.

5. Just in case it didn't take the first time, basic politeness. Play fair; share and share alike; don't hog the ball; and all the other childhood maxims we shouldn't have to explain.

Did I miss anything?

~Neshomeh

It's a useful power, and one that any admin has the ability to grant.

However, I find that reverting is usually good enough, and it gives you the opportunity to make a comment about why you're undoing an edit, which is always a good idea. Rollback does not—possibly because it is assumed to be used only on obviously malicious edits. We've had almost none of that since the wiki was founded, though. Just the occasional clueless people like CourtlyHades, who are mostly harmless even if they annoy us.

That said, if at some point it looks like we need more people with that power, it's always an option.

~Neshomeh

I was getting worried when people weren't pointing out errors. I'll get right on that.

My reasoning with agents always being able to find an empty compartment is that the Word World is pretty empty whenever the Sue doesn't acknowledge the existence of other characters; anything not directly related to her or her fic is up for grabs. :)

Thanks for the review!

But I did. ^^;

And I'm glad I did! Getting back into the saddle is great, and this was a nice return mission. The interactions between Ix and Charlotte are cute, and there were some pretty good gags in there. I think my favorites were Harry interrupting their kiss with ".", and "Me caveman. You sexy." I had to work hard not to laugh out loud at that one. Sometimes the low-hanging fruit is the best fruit, especially since you spiced it up with Ix's genderfluidity. ^^

I have some nitpicks for you; sorry if anyone else has pointed them out already, but I haven't looked at any other reviews.

- Watch out for often repeated emotes like sighing and eye-rolling. It might just be me, but I notice when the same ones pop up within a few paragraphs of each other.

- “And the time Supergirl crushed your to rubble?”

-- Either this should be "you" or there's a word missing.

- Sue enough, no sooner had Harry reached the park than he was literally running into her.

-- Should probably be "sure," though it's so apt you might just keep it. *g*

- “Jeez, you’d think by now people treating him decently wouldn’t be such a mind blowing experience.”

-- Should be hyphenated: mind-blowing.

- “MInd slave?” Ix muttered.

-- "Mind", unless "MInd" with a capital I means something I don't get.

- Should PPC agents be able to find an empty train compartment to hide in? Don't Harry & co. always have trouble finding an empty one?

- Harry ambled right past Ron and Hermione without so much a second glance, lost in thought of the Sue.

-- "Thoughts" plural, probably. If he's stuck on a single thought, that might be worth elaborating on for a joke. {= )

- Charlotte didn’t look entirely convinced, but she nodded and took a peek at the Words, placing a quick kiss to Ix’s temple.

-- I'd use "on".

- “This one was more trigger-happy than we’re used to, most just like to stand there while we read the charge list.”

-- The comma should be a semicolon, linking two independent clauses.

Not a nitpick: Ordeith?! That name rang a bell when I read it, so I looked it up and it turns out it's one of the names of this recurring villain from the Wheel of Time series. Good grief, right? I'm surprised I couldn't turn up anything on Kairia, since every other "original" aspect of the fic is stolen. Sheesh.

And now, back to work!

~Neshomeh

To be clear, I made that proposal because having the power to revert edits in one click (which, from what I can tell, is all I was nominating you for) seemed like something you'd find useful. Not sure that would let you completely break things, but that's your call to make.

- Tomash

she believes she is ready to return to the Board, that she hasn't been allowed to return yet because we're unwilling or unready to allow her in at this time, and that she disagrees with the reasons we've given for not allowing her back. She also particularly disagrees with Granz's suggested course of action as it has not helped produce an improved mental state in the past.

(My thoughts:
1) Getting a summary of the state of the world "on paper" like Bram asked is a reasonable thing to do, which is why I'm relaying that. I also think this is a decent summary, inasmuch as it applies to us.

2) I disagree (well, there's a very slim chance I'm wrong) with Bram's self-assessment of her ability to return to the Board. This is going off of conversations we've had, among other things.

3) Note: I helped edit this a bit.)

- Tomash

(P.S.: No one involved expects anything to change as a result of this post, including Bram.)

Maybe in the future if I can keep from having another meltdown, but you saw how well that went when I was a Discord mod. I'd rather not give me the power to totally screw up the Wiki if that happened again.

Or the Board, for that matter. I'm really not sure what they're doing on the Wiki other than to promote that game they seem to be obsessed with.

And yes, that is what I meant.

I'll take a look at the cowrite, too! Let's see if I can even remember what we were going to do... or if I can find it in the docs. XD

I mean, the Board has ... a few, I think, Discord has two mods that tend to be on a lot (Delta and Maslab) and PoorCynic as admin (who is on often enough, but less frequently), and the wiki hes four, whose levels of activity there I don't know.

However, looking at the user roles list, there's this "rollback" permission that a few of the active Wiki users might find useful. Do we have the power to grant it? If so, I nominate Iximaz, going off of this thread and the recent changes logs.

- Tomash

Does anybody know anything about that person? Have they been in the Discord, perhaps?

I've tried contacting them via their userpage, but it doesn't seem to have gotten any sort of response, and I'm getting a bit ticked off with them now.

Re. the claimed badfic page... are you pointing me at Bram's "I'm claiming the entire LoK section of FF.net" thing? That... IMO, that is ridiculous, and should not stand. But is that what you meant? Just wanna be sure.

(Speaking of poking, may I poke you to our cowrite? I added to it, finally... No rush, though.)

~Neshomeh

I think "block me for my own good" ought to have extended to the wiki, too, especially since it's now obvious that she won't stay away purely of her own will. Unless there are any objections in the next 24 hours, I'll go ahead and do that tomorrow.

As for wiki admins and other user levels, there's a guide here, but admin-level users (a.k.a. sysops) basically have semi-phenomenal, nearly cosmic power as far as the wiki is concerned. An admin has access to the top-level functions of the wiki, including but not limited to CSS, deleting and undeleting pages, and blocking IPs and users. Current sysops are:

- JulyFlame (wiki creator)
- Huinesoron
- Araeph
- Trojie
- Laburnum
- Sedri
- Tawaki
- VixenMage
- Aster Corbett
- Delta Juliette (under Techno-Dann)
- doctorlit
- Me
- Also dummy accounts for the Sunflower Official and the Marquis de Sod, which I think most of us had access to at some point. They mainly just exist for, e.g., the welcome message for new accounts.

So, that's about four admins who can be considered generally active, I think: me, hS, doc, and Delta J (whom I'd be happy to grant admin status under a new account, if she makes one).

~Neshomeh

Guess I ended up late for reading and reacting for this mission, and well, Tomash says what I thought better than I could. Still, congrats for stepping out of the hiatus zone. Hope youu'll be on a roll for a while, Ix.

BTW, please remind me: where are you again?

Soleil: Yep, from the game! Transistor is super fun, and I want to explore a character coming from this setting.

Both: Good points. Mind instantly jumped to what I want them to be post-development, realize I probably shouldn't do that, whoops.

(Oh wait! What department are your two in?)

Aside from the two who aren't going to be agents but function similarly (the "Fanfiction's Hired Mercenaries" that I came up with while I was still worried about my parents somehow finding out I'm on here), here are some short descriptions of my pending characters.

This quartet consists of the three Callahan siblings (Erika, Amber, and Connor, from oldest to youngest) and their good friend Miriam Almstedt. Amber and Miriam are partners in the Department of Geographical Aberrations, Erika is currently partnerless in the Department of Angst, and Connor is in the Department of Mary Sue Experiments and Research, which is a non-action department. The three girls in the group all have some sort of powers (although Erika and Miriam both got theirs accidentally), which they use to their advantage while on missions. The four of them have a pretty close bond, and always look out for one another. There is a bit of a personality contrast between the girly-girl Miriam and the tomboyish Amber, which leads to a couple arguments every now and then, but overall, they work well together. Erika is rather sarcastic and uses that as a strategy to give angsty characters a reality check, and Connor, lacking powers, dedicates himself to STEM disciplines and academics. Let me know if I said enough about them or if you have any questions!

-Twistey

For Soleil: Is this Transistor the game, or some other Transistor I don't know about? I'm pretty interested. I like how her personality develops in a way that might actually be considered negative - that's an interesting twist on character development. I also like how you pointed out how someone from Cloudbank would react to being in a (mostly) World One-like setting.

For Nocturne: That's an interesting pairing. I also like the character development there as well. Asking oldbies: Can a character who is an agent have joined the PPC in a time before they were actually put in, or do they have to be in the same timeframe as when their W1 writers put them in?

For both: Remember that you shouldn't try to force character development to happen too fast. Usually a lot of us start with one character concept, and then the things that happen to the agents while on missions and in interludes are the spur for character development. It's like a role-play: If you expect your character to do X Y and Z, you may end up railroading stuff and forcing it in. Let the missions and badfics take the wheel so it feels natural.

-Twistey

(I almost became a mini by typing "twistedwindeowpane". Glad I caught myself. Whew.)

That's pretty interesting with both. Probabilities are quite fun to have as a factor for magic in fantasy. There's also Ladybug from Miraculous, but I don't remember if her Lucky Charm ability is random or not - however, she gets an item and has to figure out how to use it to do whatever it is that she's trying to do. That's a pretty cool ability, because it combines powers with smarts instead of just being 100% power.

-Twistey