The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

First, I'd like to reiterate a point I made further down the thread. We've voted against mods. This means that everyone is responsible for participating in complaint resolution, not just the three-four of us that have actually said things in this thread. If you (collectively) are unwilling to do that (I'm not convinced this is the case, mind you) can we just cut to the chase and hold a mod election?

Now, to be fair to us, the Bram thread above did have somewhat broader participation for some reason, so it's possible there are things about this thread that have dampened participation (or, conversely, there are things about the Bram thread that have encouraged participation).

So, without further ado, a few observations:

1. For a lot of these things (Granz, the witch-hunt (sort of), etc.) those accused have spoken up, admitted fault, and apologized. The accusers (which, in a lot of these instances, are us, collectively) seem to have accepted these apologies as sufficient, so there's not much more to be said. If you think this is insufficient dispute resolution in any instance, please go complain now.

1b. People haven't been pressing their claims, so there's not much to discuss. The main example I have here is Scapegrace. People accused Scape of engaging in a pattern of bad behavior and not getting called on it. Then, hS and Nesh said (by omission) that there wasn't anything punishable about that pattern, since Scape seems to be improving, it's caused by a loss of control, etc. The people who wanted Scape called out haven't disputed this sentiment. So, if you think there's still something that needs to be done about Scape's behavior, please speak up now.

This also goes for some of the other accusations, such as the witch-hunt or even Ekyl.

2. In some of these cases, there aren't clear heroes and villains . Either the person who did something wrong has apologized, admitted fault, and so on (see above) or it's unclear who, if anyone, did anything wrong. If it's unclear what needs to happen or who did something bad, that doesn't mean you should stay out of the thread. Get in there and try to move things forward. For example, if you want more details, ask for them. If you want something clarified, ask!

So, yeah, if you want something fixed (even if it wasn't on the original list) either participate in that process or accept the fixes (or non-fixes) the people who did post decided on. If you do stay out of this one, though, kindly please don't accuse hS, Nesh, or me of being railroading dictators after the fact.

- Tomash

hS and Nesh have covered a lot of what I might like to say, so I'll try to keep instances of repeating them to a minimum.

However, I'd like to note that you have accused unspecified other people here of being manipulative and/or insincere. I also call on you to either give more details (names would be good, names and examples of the bad behavior would be great) or retract the allegations.

As a suggestion (let me be clear, I'm not saying you have to do this, or that would be a bad thing if you didn't, just that it would be a good thing if you did) you might want to take another shot at the apology for the Brink incident. Your apology in this thread is rather vague and could, in context, be interpreted as insincere (see Nesh).

I suggest that, if you want to try again, your apology should identify some actions you took or didn't take. It doesn't have to be too specific (see Miah's "I made some pretty big mistakes, and I hurt several people. I am sorry."). Furthermore, you should (in this case) apologize for the harm your actions caused. You can do that without admitting that that harm was somehow your fault, of course. Both of these actions would make it clearer what it is you're apologizing for, which would help refute the interpretation of your posts that paints you as insincere and/or manipulative.

Obviously, if you've already done something like this over PM, you don't need to do it on the Board again, unless you'd like to.

I was also going to ask that anyone who has any light to shed on this situation as it intersects with the PPC here and now, please do so. Right now, all we've really got to go on is the word of two people who don't like each other, with the obvious bias that entails. Has anyone else had any problems with either or both of these two in the chat? (I hope not.) Or, would anyone care to vouch for their conduct lately?

~Neshomeh

Even assuming good faith and interpreting this remark as sympathetic, which is rather a stretch, it's still condescending. Either un-recuse yourself and voice your thoughts in a constructive way or else shut up.

~Neshomeh

Alright, so first I'm going to try and describe all the historical stuff (and include a few suggestions)

- Back in 2013, Herr harassed Nord over PM in the IRC. He's apologized for this. As far as I know, he hasn't done this since and isn't planning to. So, I think the apology should do it

- Nord allegedly stalked HerrWazzek, one component of which was a like/retweet spree (?) on Herr's Twitter back in 2015. If this was after a (mutual or otherwise) "I don't want to talk to you again (or have you trying to get my attention)", then some sort of apology for the accident in question is probably in order, if it hasn't already been offered. (Obviously, if any of those "if"s aren't true, my suggestion might not be applicable)

- Herr has posted about Nord's [something, [Redacted. ~NA]] on the Board without Nord's consent. Herr has, in the past, used that information in order to level accusations against Nord, possibly in a harassing way. Herr, what you did there isn't right (especially since [something] wasn't common knowledge here), and you owe Nord an apology.

- There was a dustup about a fic Nord posted, which has since been deleted. Herr says that Nord either ripped off, if not plagiarized, a fic Herr wrote (which is different from the Herr/Nord collaboration?) or said he planned to do those things. Herr would like an apology for that in either case.

- Herr and Nord collaborated on a fic. After their falling out, Nord reposted the fic, but eventually took it down at Herr's request. Nord then drew on the ideas in this deleted fic to write his own work. No one seems to have a problem with this.

- Herr, when accusing Nord of bad behavior, gave as an example a time he make a joking death threat and Nord didn't quite take it as a joke. Herr, I'd like to remind you that it's really hard to convey tone over text, especially if your joke isn't obviously one and you don't use some sort of marker (the way you write, emotes, certain words, etc.) to indicate you're not serious. Furthermore, joking death threats are, like Nesh said, Not Cool.

- Herr alleges that Nord has [allowed/encouraged/I'm not even sure] his (Nord's) family to harass him (Herr) about things he (Herr) said, and to threaten Herr into becoming Nord's friend in the first place. It is unclear what, if anything, Herr wants to happen here.

Based on all that, it looks like Herr and Nord have (like hS said) some valid complaints against each other, generally about things that happened a good while back and/or outside of the PPC. I suggest that, after we finish these discussions, Herr and Nord should stay away from each other and not try to get each other's attention. That's the best course of action for the both of them, from what I can tell.

Now, Herr has accused Nord of a pattern of bad behavior. I'm going to focus on the intersection of that with the PPC and detail what I think are the elements of that accusation (if I'm misstating the alleged problem, let me know), which are that Nord has, in PPC spaces:

- Done bad things

- Used [something that was redacted [Redacted.~NA]] as an excuse for doing those bad things. That is, that he's declared that he shouldn't have to apologize or otherwise face consequences because of [whatever was redacted]

- Made no significant effort to improve his behavior or otherwise manage [whatever the redacted stuff was]

I don't recall any of these elements happening here in the PPC. If that's just my faulty memory, I'd appreciate something more concrete to remind me about this stuff (Board posts, logs, specific descriptions, what have you). I'm not going to suggest anything be done at this time because it's unclear that there's anything to do something about.

If, instead, the pattern of behavior happened a few years ago elsewhere on the Internet (with maybe a brief pop-up here in the form of the 2013 IRC thing), and especially if it has stopped since then, then there's nothing to be done, I think. (Well, maybe Nord could acknowledge past wrongdoing, assuming the accusations are accurate, but I don't think there's anything about this situation that we need to take Action (tm) on if I've described it accurately in this paragraph.)

That way there's at least a slight chance of me finding them again if/when they're needed. :)

hS, sheepish

It's always been that way, I think. It's odd, but it works!

Of course, if you want to host a second copy anyway, it might be a good idea. Having backups is always good.

~Zing

To be fair to me, this is what I see when I click the link:



Don't ask me why I took 'Not Found' at its word without even trying 'Download'. Just... don't. :(

hS

I was able to download both of them with no trouble just now. I can send you the files, if you want, but they certainly aren't gone.

If you meant the Troupe reviews (I don't think you did, but there are similarly 2-3 of them and she was the main writer), those should still be available on her Tumblr. If they're not, I think I still have the Google docs.

~Zing

Wait, are they Nuzgul if they're not in LotR? Plot-Rovie, perhaps? Or plot-Pittin?

hS

Oh where, oh where can it be...?

It looks like the two issues of Lily Winterwood's incarnation of the Multiverse Monitor have vanished from the internet. Does anyone have copies of them? I'm willing to host them (as I already am with Starwind's version), but don't have copies to host.

hS

She'd be the most competent Lady President since Romana's rule.

[Checks] It looks like Tawaki had quite the collection of dead-and-resurrected canons (Behnashiren, Jara Hamee, Lusa...), but I don't actually recognise their names. My guess, going on how Tawaki wrote missions, is that they each had a single mention - "Oh, my new partner is Behnashiren, king of D'ni, we resurrected him".

Then there's Alec and the rest of Team Phoenix, who do seem to now be described as copies. And we have Spud Avec's Maxie Dasai, who is apparently pilfered from a Web Original series? Other than that, it looks to be explicitly replacements and clones of various descriptions...

hS

See, there isn't much that a majority of PPCers have all heard of these days, since we don't all share Lord of the Rings or any one fandom in common anymore. So, we came up with a set of criteria for judging what's Legendary.

LonelyStar has addressed the big one. (How old are those fics, though? At least five years?) Now all that remains is for PPCers who are in the MLP fandom to voice their opinions.

~Neshomeh

He springs from a typo in a published book that made him plural for a moment, so the Suicide we know is basically a clone of the canon character. Suicide Prime has never left his home universe. That is a hair-thin technicality, though. You probably couldn't get away with something like that today.

There are other, explicit exceptions (see: Team Phoenix), but it's one of those things that was found to be a bad idea after the fact, so yeah, definitely don't do it. Just because a thing has been done before doesn't necessarily mean it was a good idea.

~Neshomeh

Things I flagged up, in no particular order:

-It looks like we get a proper Jedi training sequence, a la Dagobah. That's cool!

-This:



Seems to be Luke's Jedi Academy burning down; it definitely comes over the same way as the flashback in Force Awakens. All those domes and spikes look kind of like church domes - think the Vatican and St. Peter's. But I can see how it draws on the old Jedi Temple.

-The rebels Resistance seem to love ships with bits dangling off them. Both the dust-skimmers and the capital ships in the space battle have big long dangly things.

-Is this the first printed book in the Star Wars films?



It's certainly a rarity. I like the Internet theory that this is the Journal of the Whills, as referenced by Rogue One, and harking back to the original title of the first film.

-That one shot with the beam of light, right before the book... is that wood? Looks like a tangle of dead roots or something. Definitely not the cave-rocks theme we've had from (what's Luke's planet called again?) Ahch-To so far.

-Look at the circular side-plots in this shot:



Princess Leia is a Time Lord and nothing you say will dissuade me.

hS

There are some examples of recruited canon characters (Agent Suicide being probably the most prominent), but yeah, in general, you would have to do an amazing job in writing them to make it work. So in general, better not.

Elcalion

No, for real, if you haven't seen any Red Dwarf, fix that situation immediately.

A month ago the entire Discord was up in arms about how we have a Culture Of Bullying, how people always want to Brush Everything Under The Rug, and how Nothing Ever Gets Fixed. Now, when you have a list of actual complaints from actual people placed in front of you, the only people who've tried to find a solution to any of them - in a week - are me (repeatedly accused of forcing everyone to do things my way), Neshomeh (ditto), and Tomash (currently banned, for heaven's sakes).

Spoilers, folks: the reason it looks like Neshomeh and I always get our way is because we're actually willing to speak up.

Seriously. What the hell?

hS

I swear guys, I really, truly, honestly will tackle My Little Unicorn. I have been saying it for years now, but it will happen. That abomination of a fic is mine. There has been a slight hiccup, in that the story has been taken down most places. Now, this is not because Mykan has become ashamed of his past work. No, it seems it has been taken down from FanFic.Net, Fimfiction, and DiviantArt, because it was too bad. The story broke several rules, and was taken down by the websites, not by the author. So, in my eyes, still fair game. Besides, this thing has made the rounds of Something Awful quite a bit. It is infamous in the brony fanfic community. At least, it was. Don't know it's status now. Still as rancid as ever. Why, I think I should do a dramatic reading of this abomination of a fic. I do have a few days off coming soon...

Anyway, as much as I would love to go into the histories and the impacts of these stories, the fact remains that, they are not Legendary Badfic for the PPC. Generally, Legendary Badfic are the kinds of stories that everyone who is aware of what fanfiction is has heard of. To stay with MLP, not everyone knows Death and Resurrection, but we all have heard of Cupcakes. These stories are close to qualifying. Darn close. Especially the Conversion Beuru. But, on the whole, I just don't think these are nearly well known enough in the PPC subculture to count as Legendary Badfic. Sorry.

Not going to make My Little Unicorn any less painful to tackle, but still.

I was around from Board3 to around Board4.30, so yeah.

If you need to check the Board time, why not make an interesting and insightful post somewhere else on the front page? It both gets you the information you need and moves the discussion along! ^_^

hS

Be cool to see, that! 'Specially given how very subversive the PPC, as a whole, is. It's a good thing, that, to have a proper plan for a character beyond 'They should do some stuff' or, lord help, 'They should do some stuff and be real strong and have cool powers and be real cool.' Playing around with tropes is always brilliant. Long as you give 'em more character beyond subversion, of course. Good starting point, subversion.

Also, I disagree with Scape's point.
I think you should watch Red Dwarf if, and only if, you want to see a really good show and you're real smart and cool and nice smelling and you like really good things.

First:

My Little Unicorn Series

Tv Tropes page (for those who want to check it out but don't want to expose their eyes to it):

Number of Past Year Google Hits: 5 on the first page

Explanation: So, once upon a time there was this guy who went by Dakari King Mykan. And he watched My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and decided he hated it. So he decided to write his own alternate universe without all the things he hated, like Equestria (the story instead takes place in Unicornicopia- I'm not joking, that's the name) the canon characters (He focuses on his own OCs, who are all anthro winged unicorns with special attacks), the message of friendship (replaced with a message of believing- what they're supposed to believe in is unclear), and character depth & development of any sort (He thinks it takes away from the action, so all characters shown basically consist of a name and a gimmick). Throw in a complete and total lack of originality and writing skills, and you've pretty much got the idea.

Second:

The Conversion Bureau

Tv Tropes Page:

Number of Past Year Google Hits: All but 4 results on the first two pages

Explanation: This one is a bit iffy, since by now the general idea of the original fic The Conversion Bureau has become its own genre, with highly varying authors and quality (I believe most people would point to Chatoyance's take on TCB as the worst). However, the original fic is quite poorly done and very well-known in the fandom, so here goes:

Equestria has landed on Earth, and humans naturally want to go there, since they're all evil brutes who've been killing each other off via wars, disease, and the other usual suspects. However, to do so you must (presumably permanently) become a pony, via a serum from the eponymous Conversion Bureaus. A serum that causes the drinker to lose that pesky "human nature" of theirs so they can live in harmony with others. Converts must also adapt to Equestrian culture.

Our Hero goes to get ponified at a clinic conveniently staffed by the Mane Six (despite all of them having canon occupations) and instantly befriends them and goes to live with them in Equestria.

Now, the author's intent was that the wish-fulfillment was the central part of the fic, but the misanthropic undertones that he didn't intend (or at least, not quite so blatantly) were latched onto by some of the creepier members of the fandom, who added some extra horror (Equestria is surrounded by a Barrier that is expanding, sometimes because Celestia's deliberately expanding it to force ponification, and there are pro-pony and pro-human terrorist groups), wrote prolifically, and turned what was originally a very poor fic into a MLP-specific genre.

It should be noted that while the original fic is definitely not as bad as some spinoffs (TCB stories exist that take the entire thing up to eleven), that's less 'well, this is good-ish' and more 'I may have fallen off a giant cliff and am now hurtling at terminal velocity towards my doom, but at least I'm not also on fire'.