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[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'.

... but "Boarder's" somehow put the thought of some sort of dimension-hopping superhero that goes by Boarder (whose full names should not be splashed all over the place, obviously) in my head, given the context it was in.

(also if you want to see the antithesis of every kawaii neko boy, watch Red Dwarf; it has a Cat character who acts like a cat - he's a vain, preening narcissist who is largely concerned with eating, sleeping, and thinking about sex. =] )

But yeah, not only did I want to dodge the tropes of Time Lord OCs with the good old Oncoming Form, I wanted to dodge and discuss the tropes of mission writing and the PPC as an entity. Feel free to do that. Just, y'know, have a story and personality for your bad kitty too. =]

If a canon has been determined to be a replacement, though, then see what everyone else has said so far about recruiting Sues.

I wouldn't say I'm the biggest Star Wars fan ever (I just enjoy the movies a lot tbh) but I did see that if you sync up this trailer and the one for The Force Awakens a lot of the shots/angles match up startlingly well, almost frame-for-frame. Apart from that, I couldn't really tell you what I thought.

I'm excited, sure, and also that one really cool planet with the red dust was epic, but like. i don't know

What are some rules for recruiting canons? I've got someone in mind who would be of good use to you. Based on evidence from her story, she's only got a specific skill set when it would come to your operations, but I imagine that she's probably pretty good at remembering the details about stuff she's read. Also, she's from a historical fiction, and a lot of stuff from the general time period in which she "lived" is used in several pieces of badfic, and even original fic by authors who think their Villain OC Donut Steel is TEH EVULZ enough to pull that kind of stunt. (Much to my chagrin!)

For those of you who read the book, you can probably guess who I'm talking about by now. If you know you have the right answer, you are officially cool.

-Twistey

The only question I'd have about this is: what if you're trying to challenge yourself to make a character of a cliche/frequently-used/frequently-done-badly species/etc and successfully dodge the tropes? I know I've done that at least once by drawing a legitimately scary neko Creepypasta. Would I be correct in saying that as long as the character is done well and has a purpose as hS says, the fact that I created the character as a challenge of my character creation skills is okay?

-Twistey

And it makes it even worse when they look cool and you don't go into detail with them, because it just makes your readers rage quit so hard. Some of the fan favorites in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic are secondary characters, because they're given great personalities (Lyra wants to be a human, there's a constant "war of the music genres" between Octavia and Vinyl Scratch, and Derpy is, well, derpy.)

On Scratch, I have an adoption project where I put up any OC/RP character that I've stopped using or didn't use very much in the first place. I always ask the other users what they're going to use the character for before I let them have the character, just because I don't want the OC to go unused again by a different person. It's a good idea, really, and I think that's one of the things I'm going to keep coming back to Scratch for once I've officially left. That and checkin' up on the friends I've made.

-Twistey

... that the primary outstanding issue he sees with Nord Ronnoc is the latter's tendency to use something about himself which has been censored by the Nameless Admin to shield himself from criticism. He feels that this situation is analogous with Bramandin's repeated failures to improve her behaviour. He has further implied that this behaviour has taken place in the PPC community, though I am not sure he has stated such directly.

In light of the email on this subject that I have just received, I withdraw my suggestion for a solution to this outstanding issue and will not be making any further suggestions or votes about it.

hS

Ilraen, Derik, and Gall are all recruits I picked up because I really wanted to write them.

Ilraen is an Andalite, which is cool to start with, and I needed someone Nume could be convinced to work with after his original partner, Cameo, turned out to be an awful person I didn't want to write anymore. Then I got to play with the idea of someone who has had to build himself from the ground up, without the benefit of normal childhood formative experiences. Now that he's matured a bit, he's going through some teenage-ish angst about who he really is, and how his human upbringing (if you can call it that) meshes and clashes with his Andalite identity.

Derik was a side-character who existed for more or less the sole purpose of being a visual gag: "LOL, wouldn't it be funny if there was a dragonrider called E'rik who looked like the Phantom of the Opera and had a dragon called 'mask' in Swedish?!?!1" He didn't really do anything, he was just there. I happen to be a PotO fan AND a Pern fan, so I couldn't leave the poor guy like that. I was interested in starting a new spin-off in the DMS to take on the Sues my DIC team couldn't, and Derik was a shoo-in for me.

I originally paired him with Earwig, a kender made up by Phobos, whose shenanigans were intended to be a foil to Derik's drama, but I couldn't write the guy, and Phobos didn't really want to, either. Then Gall came along, and she was just perfect: sassy, no fluff, no nonsense. Ideal for poking Derik in his sore spots and refusing to let him dwell on them at the same time. Since HtTYD is a bit anachronistic, she can also make most of the jokes and references I want to make, too. And she's a girl. I thought I should have at least one girl in my line-up, since I am one myself, and it lets me bring that perspective to Suedo-feminism.

I'll also note that at least one member of FicPsych is on record as hating it when agents dump helpless bit parts on them and then abandon them. {= )

~Neshomeh

"We have light-speed communications with the convoy only," the Comms officer reports. "We can send them a message, but they won't receive it for a few turns."

"Hit on the convoy's north ship!" the TO calls out. "Looks like... looks like they caught it on the sidewalls. No damage."

"Rather like our situation here," the XO mutters. "No hits, no damage..."



The current situation, since I had to zoom out a lot:

-The central convoy ship has no sensors. The north one just took a miss.
-Tango 2 has no shields or decoys; every other enemy ship is intact.
-You have no missiles worth controlling (the one you just fired is barrelling off towards the inner system to accidentally violate the Eridani Edict). There's a 4-point one coming in towards you from Tango 2, and a slow-moving 1-pointer wandering in from the east. There's also one 4-pointer headed up the convoy's tail.

I don't know how people are feeling about this game; responses have definitely slowed down. If you want me to speed things along, I can play out the next few turns on autopilot. What I'd need to know is:

-Is the convoy dedicated to swinging north at this point?
-Does HMS Thornbird want to match vectors with (ie, fly alongside) the convoy, match vectors with Tango 1+3, or zoom past them both in a headlong flight to the south?

Or I'm happy to keep playing turn-by-turn; I think it's fun. ^_^

hS

I have received an email on this subject. The person who contacted me agrees with my original wording (consequences up to and including a ban) but not with the Tomash amendment.

Tally currently stands at 12 agree with the Tomash amendment, 1 disagrees with the amendment but agrees with the more open-ended wording in the original proposal.

-Phobos