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(Sort of a reply to everyone at once. Wow, huge bunch of replies I got.)

Isn't being able to write a character well part of writing fanfic that involves canons in general? I mean, there's even a bit of a stigma against fanfic that has an entirely OC cast or that focuses on OCs instead of canons, so you could say that if on knows the canons well enough to write them in a regular fanfic, then recruiting them might not be such a problem. Although I do kind of get that there is a sort of an in-universe reason for it (leaving canons where they belong, interfering as little as possible.) I see from the links that all the canons mentioned are either dead or clones.

...Hmm. Wait. Are these messages specifically for me as a newbie, or for anyone in general? Because I'm pretty sure that although I'm technically a PPCer, I won't be writing any officially PPC missions (again with my parents), and any characters I create/recruit will immediately be deemed adoptable or free-to-use. That (hypothetically only) includes the canon that I suggested earlier, or supposedly a clone thereof. Therefore, the writing of these characters, apart from initial bios, would not rest on me, but more experienced writers could give it a try.

My common sense is telling me that I should probably do some sort of OC instead, but if I did not at least somewhat consider the original thought, I would 1) have nothing to say in this post, 2) therefore be letting no one know that I read the posts and 3) miss the chance to go look for people who could be up to the challenge.

Other than the stuff in Elcalion's post and a bunch of "no, just no" (which I am not the biggest fan of, as I believe that concrit/discouragement/encouragement should have reasons why), nobody's given me any other reasons not to do this before y'all started jumping into the discussion about examples of canons used. Sidetracked, have we? :P So I would like to hear more about it. Explain further, please. I will listen, despite how I probably sound right now.

-Twistey

I mean REALLY close.

hS

It was posted to FIMFiction in 2012 (and that's a repost of the original story), so I'd say it's old enough.

Watch it here

I'm not even going to try and excuse that. You guys both put so much work into trying to make the PPC run smoothly because nobody else will. And I'm recognizing that, and recognizing I am very good at making a bad situation worse, so I'll step away from it to let the more experienced ones do their thing and not complain.

As for Ekyl, whatever. His PMed apology seemed sincere.

All of us. Including me, including you, including everyone back to Jay herself (who, per her Author's Note, broke down and flamed an author). The important thing is how we deal with those mistakes, and how we move on past them.

I'm gonna stop there before I start sounding like Gandalf, but I think it would be helpful for you to at least say whether you feel that your interactions with Ekyl still present an outstanding problem - or, in fact, your view of Neshomeh and me with respect to being overly controlling.

I'm not saying you have to - it is up to you. But I do feel it would be helpful. I'm happy for you to email me if you don't want to say anything here.

This goes to anyone who feels that one of these issues is or was a problem to them. If any of them would come up in your hypothetical "Why I Am Leaving the PPC" post, then please, say so - either here, or by email to me (huinesoron@hotmail.com), or by emailling anyone you want to act as a neutral party. And if they would have, but you think the suggestions in this thread have put the issue to bed (until/unless it recurs), then please, again, say so. It only takes a couple of words.

Please. Nothing will ever be sorted if no-one ever says anything.

hS

This entire discussion came about because of my actions, which is why I neglected to participate to start with, and then when I did, I made the horrible mistake of sharing information that was not mine to give.

So I'm staying out of the rest.

Let's take a look at the criteria:

- It's definitely over 5 years old, the original fic was apparently published in 2011.
- A Google search for the last year brings up lots of search results... But they're all spin-offs. I'm not sure those qualify as search results about the original fic itself.
- Does it really count as being "famous in its own right" when most of the recent hits are from spin-offs? Everyone knows of the original fic but what most of the fans think when they hear of TCB is the genre it created. As an example, I always assumed the Barrier thing was in the original fic, but apparently it's not? But I'm not exactly active in the fandom anymore so I might just be out of the loop.
- Last one requires a vote of PPCers, let's see what happens.

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.