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"...the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, 'Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!'"

Happy Easter, everyone. He has risen.

-Alleb

(Apparently, since you're free-riding through your first match.)

I have no time in mind, but I really wanted to use the mitten-casting line. ^_^

hS

I still have a small buttload of work to do for college (thanks, poor study habits), but I think I can carve out some time on Wednesday afternoon. Say, around 2:30? Does that work for you?

Does that mean Scape and Hardric get a free pass then?

I'm pretty sure I have yet to see an outright Bleep addiction, though there certainly are overdose effects (mainly to do with memory issues, IIRC). Also, now I've started thinking about the Bleep versions of things that haven't really shown up yet, and...Bleepotatoes? That is, mashed potatoes with Bleep in them? How about Bleepizza? I'd totally go for that. And what about Bleepfries with...hm. Ketchbleep? Ketcheep? Ketcheep is probably the best name I'm going to come up with right now. Might be a little harder to manufacture food with mixed in Bleeprin--for one thing, it wouldn't keep as long or as well--but I'd be very amused to at least see an agent joking about it sometime. Because, really, there kind of is a Bleep version of everything...at least, where 'everything' means painkillers, candy, and alcohol or coffee.

Re: terminology...

PPCer, in my experience, tends to mean a Boarder. I suppose an agent might use it as well, but the general usage I've seen has been for Boarders (whether they've written missions or not!). Feel free to correct me if you've seen it used differently, though.

(The Wiki, meanwhile, actually says it refers to both Boarders and agents, which does make sense. I do wonder what the current usage is, though, and whether Boarders or agents are currently more likely to be referred to as PPCers...maybe that should be a question in the PPC Survey, when it returns?)

Boarder is used for, well, a Boarder: a real, living person who makes posts on this PPC Board. Again, this applies to everyone regardless of whether or not they have Permission. I am a Boarder; Huinesoron is a Boarder; the newbies are Boarders. I'd say that intention to stick around for at least a little while (and also posting, of course) is the main criterion for being a Boarder, though if someone feels differently, they're of course welcome to put in their own definition.

And lastly, an agent, as you said, is a character created for missions (and/or just general life in the PPC canon!) This character might be based on you (a self-insert or a semi-self-insert), or an original character, or an original character based on a recruited/rescued bit character or character replacement or even reformed Sue. Plenty of options.

I...don't think I follow your last paragraph very well, though that may be because I'm getting rather tired by now (long and busy day, this was). Your post below (which is the main one I'm replying to, actually) says you meant 'PPCer' as 'Boarder' here, but...that's not making it any clearer for me, since it sounds more like you're talking about agents. Would you mind further clarifying or rephrasing?

Thanks and goodnight (and I hope the terminology definitions helped),

~Zing

Just going to nab your spoiler block here...

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

As below, I'm glad the ending got you! It's everything I wanted and more! *spins around gleefully*

Ahem. Yes.

I did have fun writing the twist, although it was also hard to kill off a character that I both like and have no actual current intention of killing in canon. Overall, though, this particular fake mission was both interesting and fun to write. Twisting everything while knowing that Dawn wasn't going to set it right in the end...it's very different, and, well, kind of a lot like doing the badfic games, actually!

As for your second paragraph...yeah, from my perspective that was definitely intentional, but from the imaginary fanfic writer's perspective it was probably more along the lines of 'she starts out ordinary but special, builds a relationship with Oliver, anD THEN SHE GETS COOL POWERS SO SHE CAN TAKE OUT THAT STUPID CLINGY LAUREL AND THEN SHE'S GOING TO GET THAT COOL MAGIC FROM ONCE UPON A TIME BECAUSE YOU'D TOTALLY NEED MORE THAN JUST CONTROLLING METAL TO PROPERLY BEAT DEATHSTROKE COME ON.' So yes. From the imaginary writer's perspective, she was probably meant to...well, to go from semi-ordinary (if increasingly rather lucky) to extraordinary in the best way. Unfortunately, it doesn't really come across that way. Not to mention the many tense changes...

In conclusion: I'm glad you enjoyed it (and that you were surprised, of course, since that was my intention). As for the Purim RP, it's probably going to go up after Pesach (aka Passover) by now; so, after at least a couple more days. On the other hand, it might go up tomorrow, but I may hold off so that I'll actually be able to participate too. That would be nice. It is going to happen, though, despite the longer than usual delay.

Thanks for the review!

~Zing

My dear hS, your spoiler block is most amusing. I shall try one of my own, since I suspect it might be a good idea.

Gil-galad was a spoiler block
of him the spoilers sadly block
the last whose block was fair and strong
between the spoilers and the throng.

His block was thick, his lance was keen.
His shining helm afar was seen;
the countless spoilers of fiction's field
were hidden deep within his shield.

But long ago he rode away,
and where he dwelleth none can say;
for into darkness fell his star
in Badfic where the shadows are.

...and, now that I want to actually maybe write a drabble about that...

I'm so glad I shocked you! I ran with the idea of the agent not surviving, despite how hard it was to actually write, because, well, it really is unusual! And fun! You don't get to do it very frequently, because really, how often can you kill off your main characters? Unless, of course, you keep bringing them back...which then leaves you with the Supernatural effect, wherein you lose tension because the audience knows by now that the three main characters are probably never going to be permanently killed off. So it was very fun. Despite the fact that actually writing a death scene for Dawn was kind of difficult--not from the mechanics of it, really, but mainly because I'm not actually planning to kill her off anytime soon.

As for concrit...sure! Good stuff, that, no matter the season.

1. No, I didn't post it on April 1st, though I did start writing it then! I think I mentioned somewhere that April crept up on me? Well, it really crept up on me. I hadn't given an AFD story any real thought in the preceding few weeks. I still really wanted to do something, though. Unfortunately, I finished in the early morning hours of April 2nd, and while I liked what I'd written, it's so far off what I generally write for the PPC that I wanted to both look it over myself while awake and get some other opinions. So I waited. And it's just as well that I did, because I got to make some good edits that way. And, of course, the beta comments were pure gold.

2. Annalise...yeah. She is meant to sort of build gradually, with the hints that in future chapters she'll go even further off the rails. She warps the characters very OOC, changes tenses a lot, and has made the whole thing exist in a somewhat nebulous time setting--it's probably set pre-series, but at the same time Robert Queen is never mentioned (and the same with Laurel and Sarah's mother), and it's just...well, it's meant to feel off, especially if you know the show at all. But hopefully also at least somewhat if you don't know it. She is meant to be not the worst of the worst until she jumps the shark with the X-Men powers, though.

3. I can't take credit for the original idea, actually--I'm pretty sure I've at least seen the concept discussed before--but...hm. I do have an old and unfinished thing for a Sue in the process of being reformed, but I'm not sure it's going to be continued anytime too soon. I also love Mary-Sue parodies, and should continue mine at some point (I used a chapter of it for my Permission piece, actually), but even that isn't really from the Sue's perspective. I suppose it'll really depend on whether or not I find a badfic that would work with it?

Something that would be interesting and perhaps more easily done, however, is to tell a mission through the POV of a character who's been warped OOC. I'm not sure if it'd work better or worse with someone who's extremely OOC than with someone who's only somewhat OOC and watching everyone else act weirdly with confusion, but...hm. I think I'll keep an eye out for this sort of thing as well.

Anyway, hope I've answered everything...and thanks for the review!

~Zing

...may I point you in the direction of the Das Sporking community? They are admittedly prone to swearing in a number of their sporks, but if that doesn't bother you, then I highly recommend pretty much everything they've done. They're a community of sporkers who essentially take both bad fanfiction and bad published fiction (including things like the Twilight Saga and Fifty Shades of Grey) and actually go through it line by line and chapter by chapter (with some summarizing, of course) and take apart what it does well and what it does poorly. They also fill in research fail and use pictures, gifs, memes here and there, and even bring in fictional characters as guest sporkers (which can get hilarious). A lot of them have also written fanfic of their own, and they have an attached spitefic community (essentially, either different takes on the badfic/book scenes or an active take-down). One of the sporkers (Gehayi) is a long-time editor, and I believe a number of the others have degrees that sometimes come in handy--Ket Makura, for example, knows a lot about mythology and religions. Stuff like that. They're currently moving from LiveJournal to Dreamwidth (that is, from das-sporking.livejounal.com to das-sporking.dreamwidth.org), but that's still in progress going by what can be found at the Dreamwidth site right now. There's also a (now a bit out of date) list of main sporkings and another of shorter ones, though you can also just scroll down.

I'm recommending them because I think they're good and entertaining and rather educational, and because I feel I've learned a lot over the past, uh, I think it's a number of years of reading them, now. Das Mervin, the owner, was even involved with Deleterius when it was still around--the equivalent of an oldbie, though I don't think she's ever been a Boarder. But if you're looking to learn about writing and character design and especially what to avoid (and also what people would like to see more of--the comments are full of that!) I'd definitely recommend them. So long as you don't mind some swearing, that is. It's generally not too bad, but the F-word certainly appears. (Basically, they're frequently NSFA--Not Safe For Alleb, who is a Boarder with higher standards than the Not Safe For Work tag. Your own mileage may vary.)

There are also a number of other sporks. Dan Bergstein's Twilight sporks are *hilarious*; he also did Harry Potter reviews, though I'm not sure I read them. He also did the reverse-gender Twilight book on his blog, which I think is something like laserfarm.net. There's also Mark Reads (and Mark Watches, and who knows what else), though he's generally more reviews than writing tips, and the Snark Squad (snarksquad.com), who...I think also swear some? To about the same level. So also NSFA. They're less thorough than at Das Sporking, but still amusing. They do a mix of TV shows and books. (Das Sporking usually just does written stuff, but they did do the Twilight movies and I think ZeldaQueen did at least some of the A:tLA bad fancomic...um...lost track of the name, but Iximaz also missioned it.)

Anyway. Hopefully some or all of these prove both interesting and accessible to you.

And good on you for not double-posting--that's always nice. It does help to adjust your expectation of potential replies on the Board to something more like four days than two--people do have a tendency to get busy or need time to think about how to respond (often while being busy) so there really isn't always a quick response time here. That's not to say there never is, but we do frequently move somewhat slowly, especially at a time when the university crowd, at least, probably has exams.

And on a final note: I remember that meme! I remember when Lily Winterwood was making it. If you go to the talk page for the Mary Sue wiki page (I believe that's it), you can even find both the discussion and the first version of it.

Anyway, (belatedly) welcome! Have the first Swiss Bleepolate I've given out in, uh, I don't know how long anymore. I take it you do write some fanfic, outside of the PPC-inspired-ish one you've got planned?

~Zing

Good to see you back, however briefly. I'd say we should at some point try to finish/edit our number of old cowritten missions and actually post them, but it doesn't seem too high on either of our lists of priorities right this second, so we can leave that for another day. :)

It was an interesting survey to take, really. Funnily enough, it's only recently that I even learned this new fandom meaning for 'discourse'; just in time, I suppose. As for squick vs trigger...I hadn't quite made the connection that they were being used in the same way--they're certainly connected, now that I'm thinking about it, but do people really treat them as the same thing? I'd always viewed them as having different nuances: related, but certainly not identical. Hm.

Anyway. Good luck! Hope it goes well and is interesting to put together and write up.

~Zing (formerly DawnFire--I can't remember if you last dropped in before or after I changed it. I feel like it was after, but just in case...)

PS: To anyone reading this who wants to know, the Purim RP will probably now appear after Pesach (aka Passover). So, after a couple more days. Of course, I might get it up tomorrow, but it seems unlikely at this point. It's still going to happen, though. ~Zing

Though I'm not sure how much help my answers would be, considering my current main fandom is building and painting and playing with overpriced plastic army men.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-562225571

This is what I get for having a team full of sweepers, I guess.

Come join the show! http://play.pokemonshowdown.com/battle-gen7anythinggoes-562225571

Is "PPCer" the same thing as "agent" or "Boarder"? I meant the latter in that previous post.

-Twistey

I'm interested to know, as well.

(hahahah oh man so much pressure)

But yeah, I'll see what I can do once it's out and graded!