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People are angry. Do you understand why? If you can't demonstrate that you do and take the appropriate steps to reconcile with those who are angry, the dust won't settle until the banhammer has swung.

I believe that anyone can change. I think that you need to learn to recognise when you are in the wrong, and change yourself instead of demanding everyone else change for you. Until you are capable of this (and I know you can be), I'm sorry, but you have no place here.

I haven't slept well since my Monday freakout. ((Don't get me wrong, it was pre-planned, I was just not calm when I did it.))

I think that I should not communicate anymore until my sleep schedule is normal.

I think that I should be given another chance after everyone rests.

I also think that no decisions should be made until after I return.

I might close my Bramandintook account for the while. I cannot guarantee I'll check my zdimensia account.

July can have my phone number
Neshome can have my phone number
Huisoren can have my phone number
Nameless admin can have my phone number
Ozzie can have my phone number
Skarmory can have my phone number
Miah can have my phone number

I've been treating the Despatch as a very meta area.

Sometimes the self-inserts are just Sues, and we don't hear about whether or not any of them are actually a representation of a real person.

One of the stories I have worked on for awhile is a lot less creepy if she is considered to be just a shell.

*gives peanut butter cookies*

This is a fictionalized version of Miguel, so I'm not committing libel. Sort of like how Ami's a self-insert of me, but she's not literally me.

Also, Miki used to be a mini-Chimera Anima based on Mint's dog, but a particularly bad sentence in his homefic ended up having him talk. I figured a talking dog could have a lot of potential for comedy and/or cuteness. :)

I also use one of those phones! XD

So ages ago I wrote a piece from an original fic, and I remember some of you guys really liking it. The universe it is set in has gone through a couple of iterations since then and this is from the latest of those, so you'll possibly recognize a few names at least. Without further ado I give you... Part 1:

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This is an Excerpt from a no-holds-barred interview with the famous Ward of The Protectors, the most well known, and some even say first, hero group in the world to date:

“Origin stories? Wow you do want to set us up like superheroes don’t you.

But no, we’re not superheroes darling, we’re very much not. Perhaps Anti-hero would be a better way of describing us. We defend humanity, those with powers and those without, but when we do so, we don’t hold back, we do what we need to do when we need to do it to get the job done and to harm as few people as possible. But that doesn’t always mean we don’t kill anyone, especially when you think in the long term. How many times must someone break out of prison and threaten others lives before you realise that you should put them down for good? With us, that’s once if we’re being nice.

So yes, origin stories. Well I mean we weren’t bitten by radioactive animals when we were younger if that’s what you’re wondering. Each of us is a human naturally born with powers, and whilst we think we know where that’s from it is something I cannot actually reveal.

Some of us were friends long before we realised we had powers, hell James, or Tempest as you know him, and I went to the same pre-school together and worked our way up to Uni together. But university is where it all began, when our powers really began to come into their own, with the mysterious eighteenth birthday thing that couldn’t get more cliche if you’d tried, and a lot of student drinking.

Don’t ask why it helped but it did.

Now like I said, it was at university when it all started happening. We were all freshers and so were experiencing freedom for the first time. Hell some of us barely knew more than one person at first, and in Nick’s case that was because I’d somehow ended up in his bed one night after partying during freshers week.

I was studying Engineering at Imperial College, I can’t remember what everyone else was studying, but we all eventually started to mingle in similar sorts of societies and friendship groups that existed cross-universities, learning about our powers and how we could use them, in secret of course because when the government weren’t ignoring us like we didn’t exist, they were, like the rest of the world, trying to get us executed or whatever for being ‘unnatural abominations’ and the like.

So yeah, that may be where some of our hate and extreme tendencies come from, but it was necessary, or at least so we thought.

Our first real adventure together came about halfway through the second semester of our first year. We’d started actual discussion about whether to become heroes over christmas, using our social media stuff to message each other, bouncing ideas for everything from codenames to costumes between each other. But our first real chance to shine came around the end of February.

So I’m not sure if you remember, but right when this was all happening there were quite a few groups worldwide who were ‘discreetly’ getting rid of those humans with powers whilst paying, or sometimes even getting paid, as the government's looked the other way. Well we’d found one that had operated in London and decided to shut them down.

They weren’t the hardest prey looking back at it now. Probably about a dozen of them, they spent quite a lot of time spying on and researching their latest target before they struck and got out of there to a warehouse they were using as a base near Dover.

So we get a train and then a couple of taxi’s down into Dover itself, claiming to the taxi drivers when they asked that we were going to get drunk with some old friends who lived that way. And, once the drivers were gone, walked back out of town to get to our real destination.

Anyway, we find the rough area that the warehouse was in and Lucy and Nick, sorry Ghost and Spectre move forward, Spectre slipping from shadow to shadow and Ghost casually walking through the other warehouses, completely invisible and intangible checking each one as she went. The rest of us followed, Telath keeping us all linked up so we could ‘hear’ one another and talk telepathically if we needed to.

So we get to the warehouse to find it almost completely empty as it seems the group have gone to get another target. There’s a couple of guys left inside who’re meant to be watching the base but between an open skylight, Falcon’s flying skills, Clone’s transformations and Ghost and Spectre we were able to get three people inside without them realising and from there it was easy for the three of them to take down the two guards (and steal some of their pizza whilst they were at it). I never learnt the full detail, I didn’t want to know then and I’ve never asked since. All I know is that it wasn’t lethal.

But yeah, we have to sit down and wait for the rest of the group to arrive, not knowing where they’ve gone or when they’ll be back with just a single pizza to keep us entertained. Thankfully the nearest supermarket hadn’t closed and so a couple of the guys went off and bought a large amount of energy drinks which we used to try and keep ourselves awake.

Now it was about 4am when the rest of the group came back, they had a girl I remember who had the ability to control water. But they drag her inside expecting to be greeted by their buddies and instead find the nine of us half asleep instead. Both sides take like a minute to realise what’s happened and then we get into what had to be the most tired fight in history. We managed to win when Telath thought about sleep so much she broadcast it out at everybody and the group and half of us just collapsed and fell asleep.

So the group had cells on sight and so those of us who were still awake stuffed them in there before giving everyone who’d fallen asleep kind of comfortable places to stay before going to sleep ourselves.

We woke up about 1pm the next day, utterly confused, then elated at what we’d done… And then half of us realised it was a Monday and we’d missed at least one lecture, which caused a little bit of panic as we tried to work out what we’d say to our lecturers. Because “Sorry I missed the lecture because I was asleep after a hard night of fighting crime,” wasn’t going to cut it we figured.

Our second problem arose when we realised that we had no idea what to do with the group that we’d just beaten. We were still fairly idealistic at that point and the thought of simply killing them never crossed our minds. So we realised we couldn’t turn them into the police because they’d just be let out again almost immediately and our words would sooner get us all into trouble than get anything done, or get justice for all the problems the group had caused.

It was Cassie, the girl we’d rescued, who came up with an answer and so skipping the rest of Monday and spending it relaxing we headed out Monday night with the unconscious members of the group and managed to set it up so that they were all arrested for public indecency the next morning. The police didn’t believe their story about us, and so we managed to get away scott free. Not that we knew it until Cassie (who turned out to be a local) let us know because we hadn’t heard anything about it up in London where we had returned post haste.

So yeah, that was our first adventure together, our ‘origin story’ if you could call it that. Cassie is still a good friend and has helped a couple of times, most recently in the Normandy Incident, which I’m sure you’ll want me to tell you all about later.”

To read the first part of this exclusive interview turn to page 23 and make sure to get your newspapers for the rest of the week as Ward talks his way through the entire history of The Protectors.

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Dahlia is so cute. I had a little bit of trouble figuring out who Miki is.

You do a pretty decent job of describing the two canons for those who don't know.

It's entertaining, especially when they start singing the Lego song.

Sorry, not a good review.

Except, are you aware that Miguel is TimeJumper's IRL friend? https://www.fanfiction.net/r/894267/

I do have tone problems, but I'm unaware about any name calling. And I have never done anything with malice.

I might have quoted someone else saying bullies, or talked about my high school bullies, but when did I call you bullies? Was it outside of this thread?

I admit to telling you that I felt harrassed. Other than that, I have never reacted in anger.

If you point it out to me, I'll try to correct it.

I cannot recycle the character to fit the prompts. Just one psychotic vampire with issues. She may not belong in the PPC.

I honestly haven't tried other characters with the prompts, except for once. I'm sure that if I played with my army of characters, save for the vampire, I'd come up with some good stuff.

I am sure that most of your characters will fit most of the prompts. Even if I get lucky, you could easily tweak the character to fit and I would not notice.

I would like to see someone pull a prank on your vampire and her partner.

I literally have no idea what you're saying in most of this post. Were you actually responding to me there?

But if I understand your last paragraph correctly, you believe that I can make 55 agents who can handle all 72 prompts with no trouble - while you can't even come up with 2 that can deal with 1.

That... is a very worrying admission.

hS

The last of the requests listed was also denied by JulyFlame, not just by the ban.

Are you talking about the ours? It is interesting that the agents almost screw that up.

I do have one specific thing that doesn't come up all of the time, but I don't seem to have the knack for. Remember http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?id=199610;article=301458;search_term=solo because that is one case where it is perhaps right to say "I can't."

Just this morning, I found fanfiction.net/s/6922962/1/Time-abhords-a-paradox-Well-screw-what-it-wanted NSFW MPREG SLASH

I'm not saying I shouldn't try it, but the malpropisms will trip me up.

The prompts aren't bad. Even optional, they are serving a good purpose.

As far as testing creativity... Perhaps.

I am assured that your agents are good, and should not give you enough trouble to prove a point. You can use Mattman's choices because I do like to see how others approach the prompts.

Dfyddd and Constance argue over who gets to do the Duty, and Agent!hS and Kaitlyn bargain for goods at the General Store.

I have my second-generation Nosgothan vampire use dermal Suebeprophen patches. She admits that she doesn't know if she's allergic to Bleeperin.

There was a problem with the team, and I should have been allowed to shelve them until I figured out what the problem was.

I'm not seeing vague and broad when I look at some of the prompts. I did have success with inserting the word "not" into a lot of them.

Here's a point of interest.

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Ehm... your plot is good, though your answer to the question 'why does the vampire want coffee?' is 'he doesn't'. A partner is always a good way to force someone to do something; in the event that you can't do that, either (maybe his partner is a Dalek?), you'd need to work in another character who they both have reason (social or employment-based) to try and help. Arrogantly. Anyway, I think the plot as it stands works well - Shimon's initial resistance, his reason for acquiescing, and his 'victory' at the end (which makes me grin).

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There might still be a problem with Samantha, though she seems to be working okay.

Quite literally, she needs nor wants anything but blood. Well, she does have a fear of dying in Nosgoth, which translates into wanting to please the Flowers and keep her job.

Samantha is the dominant partner, and is so uncaring for what Liz wants that she doesn't get dragged anywhere. They also rarely go to the same locations of Headquarters. (Samantha goes to the Watering Hole for blood and avoids the Cafeteria.)

I can mess with having the Foxglove Official ordering my agents to do the prompts. I'll skip the one where they visit the Nursery because it won't be funny.

The problem with that is that the prompts were rather vague and broad. Most of them were situations where any team could be slotted in and have something happen. If an agent team isn't able to do anything with the prompts without being ooc, then there is probably something wrong with the team as PPC characters.

The Permission Prompts were introduced for two reasons:

1/ To stop people from posting unsuitable stories and being denied Permission because they couldn't read our minds.

2/ To test your creativity.

A PPC mission will throw very strange things in front of your agents, and of you, the writer. See this mission as an example. If your response to anything in the least bit unexpected coming up is to throw up your hands and say "I can't write this!", you will not be able to write PPC missions. That's just a fact.

The Permission Prompts are quirky. They're unusual. But they're in no way impossible. For sure, there are a couple which impart emotions on your characters - but that's why they come in pairs, so you can skip those ones if you really want.

Still don't believe me? I'll prove it to you. Pick any one of my PPC agents - anyone on that list with a department abbreviation or 'Retired' next to their name (the others are non-agents). Pick any TWO prompts from the list. I guarantee you that I can write a short story using both of those prompts and that agent, whatever you pick. Because that's what being creative is all about.

hS

I wanted to be sure I wasn't just reading in the implication.

~Zing

This is why the prompts were unfair. This is why asking me to use a team not of my choosing was unfair.

I pointed out that all of the prompts were out-of-character for my agents. (S&L) They were also a team that didn't really interact outside of missions. (S&L) They turned out to be ill-conceived. (S&L) I didn't find the problem until writing an interlude.

I wanted to start with Kim and Hue. They are a simple team that fits the PPC expectations pretty well. They still don't interact much outside of the missions, but I was able to find a prompt for them.

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They were hoops, with the extra restrictions. Prove that you can write well with very strict limits on what you are writing.

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There needs to be an expansion of what can and can't be done without permission. Just the prompts is too narrow. Points 1 and 2 are very good, and should be added to the permission page.

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I think that it is good that the prompts are optional. Maybe have an expectation that everything written before permission will be re-written before publication.

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I wish that I had thought to ask for a co-write. That would have helped.

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Out of interest, this file is from the first week in January of 2015. https://docs.google.com/document/d/17KAEkhoe6ykKuFk8WjoUiUCALDU4DjGiQbqsU0LlGEE/edit?usp=sharing It shows some of the problems I was having.