The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

If you write for the Cafeteria, you're basically writing a barkeeper who hears all the gossip. If you write Building Maintenance, you get to write a fractious team who're repairing the damage everyone else does. If you write Finance, you're going into badfics to pilfer technology (see here). In Personnel, you might end up writing a liason with other pro-canon organisations...

The Infrastructure Departments are far more varied than the Action Departments. They range from the DIA dragging insane agents to FicPsych, to FicPsych treating said agents, to something DoDAEG who have their own problems.

One thing you might want to keep in mind is that a lot of the Infrastructure Departments are the 'responsibility' (for want of a better word) of one person. It would be quite rude to write FicPsych without talking to Neshomeh first, for instance - for one thing, she knows a lot more about it than anyone else! She's also put a lot of work in over there. So if you have a department/division in mind, naming it so whoever's hovering over it can offer advice is a good idea.

hS

I'll host if no-one else wants to, but if someone does, go for it! I know I had a lot of fun, and I'm sure Sergio and Iximaz did for #3 and #2. It is a fair amount of work, though.

If someone else does want to pick up the mike, I'll offer to put together a custom arena along the lines of last season's (which was in HQ - obviously we're not going back there, right?). I'll consult with whoever does it to try and transform their ideas into a working setup.

hS

Our jolly, old self-exile, Tomash, isn't able to partake in paper books, due to his too-bad-for-even-correctional-lenses eyesight. He needs e-books for the back light and the ability to automatically magnify text size. Alas.

—doctorlit, speaking for Tomash

I'll very likely have to resort to double layers eventually, especially since my parents think I'm out of bookshelves but I'm not above cramming more in because I really don't care how presentable my house is.

—doctorlit saw the live action Beauty and the Beast. When the Beast showed Belle his library, doctorlit was thinking, "Ah, yeah, girl, work it, girl, soak it in, girl!"

Should mention, just in case.

I have a teleporting character called the Grey Man with ridiculous advantages and one superpower and a penchant for tech, but that's pretty much it.

Actually, there area about a billion places I'd love to go in the real world, given the chance. I suppose the top of the list would be Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

(Side note: If I weren't an overly excitable twerp I'd've found much nicer, smaller images for this, but, as it is, I think they do the place justice. But I'd be lucky to have the patience of a five-year-old, so these'll just have to do. :P)



I'm a huge fan of symbolic detail, and so while Rosslyn Chapel is hugely high on that list as well, I was asked to pick a place which, frankly, is a smidge unfair. But I probably made that clear in the title, so, erm. Moving on.



The idea of a city of temples is just immensely appealing to me, and I'm a huge fan of the imagery of the vedas of Hinduism, though I don't count myself a member of the religion.

It's just an interesting place, and not all that commonly mentioned.

Also--hS! Petra's a brilliant choice. I've been twice, actually, and I can tell you it's as gorgeous as it seems. While the treasury itself is obviously gated off, in the totally-not-Canyon-of-the-Crescent-Moon valley leading up to it, you've got tons of places to crawl around in leading up to it that were also built by the Nabataeans and make use of the same architectural style.

The colours in the exposed sandstone in the last picture have even more contrast in one of the smaller shrines I found.

On top of that, the rock formations themselves are beautiful, with weird, Lovecraftian shapes to them that are eerily beautiful. It feels like it's full of secrets, and it would, strategically, make a lovely place to hide out with enough resources.

If the walk seems a bit much, there are also people selling carriage, horse, and camel rides, setting up their own small enterprises on-site.

I'd have to say the most curious thing about the place is the fact that the treasury itself, both times I visited, was surrounded by cats. All over the place.

So, erm, forgive the travel infomercial, but I just really, really like Petra and I thought you might appreciate more thoughts on the place.

But school and work will be restraining. Would it still be possible if I pop in and out?

It apparently chooses Tributes for the next PPC Hunger Games. I would like to return it to their rightful owner, perhaps to use them for a new Hunger Games?

Password: "NSFA"

There are so many places I'd love to go, most of them in the UK. I guess, if I had to pick one...

Stirling Castle, in Scotland.





Robert the Bruce is my many, many times great-uncle and he once laid siege to this castle, which I think is way cool. Not to mention, it's a pretty building. Apparently the place has been besieged no less than eight times, and it's also seen a number of monarchs crowned there. So yeah, since Hogwarts is out of the question, I'd like to visit this castle instead. :)

I might have mentioned that one for myself, but I was lucky enough to be able to visit during my honeymoon. If you go, I hope you're lucky enough to have a tour guide or someone who tells you the story of Finn MacCool while you're there. ^_^

~Neshomeh

Maybe London or Paris. But I'm an actor and you can't make it without being in LA so...

Unless Real Life gets in the way at some point. I'll post a character sheet later probably.

Since I'm a Basic Bob, my first answer would be London or Rome (two places I *really* want to spend some more time in!), with Athens and Louisiana being the next two...

But if we're talking one specific landmark we have on our bucket list, for me it has to be the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland.

There's an agent or two for possible future use who I think would fit well in a non action department, but I've never written for that category before, the non-action departments (Well, yes, I did write one Intel report, but you have your work cut out for you there)... How does it work?

1) Jace was a teenager when he fought Alhammaret. He is mid-20's when he first shows up on Lorwyn (where that card came from). There were years between those two points.

Also, it looks like he is standing on rocky terrain, so maybe it's moss?

2) Palin was tortured, I think that probably has more to do with his state in that series. They broke his hands and left him useless unless he uses magic, which he can't get without breaking irreplaceable artifacts.

The love and life thing is what I was talking about. They have devoted their whole life to magic, so when it disappears it pretty much takes their their perception of who they are with it. Some of them got on fine without it, some of them looked for new magics, some of them went a little nuts, some did a combination of those last two.

-Phobos

First off, the card I was basing Jace's character off is "Jace Beleren." Since that card didn't have a specific time period attached to it (other than after Alhammaret), I decided to make it right after the fight with Alhammmaret. Also, look the card up on google images; you'll see that there is grass on a version of that card.

Additionally, about Krynn magic being addictive; there are a few parts in the books (particularly Legends and War of Souls) where mages say the magic is their love and their life. For example: in War of Souls, the lack of magic basically turned Palin Majere into an addict scrambling for his next fix (i.e. magical artifacts from the Fourth Age that were still imbued with old magic).

Every time I think I'm out...

Anyway, let's take a look at what we have here.

1) Are you known in the community? Yeah, I know your name, at least, and I'm barely considered to be here.

2) Can you write? This is a more difficult question. SPaG is fine, which I would expect given that you have betas, so good there. However, you have a problem with story-flow. I think this may be what hS was talking about. Your characters go from one emotion to be next without passing the intervening space (teleporting emotions?).

An example of this would be when Arden goes immediately from sombre and depressed to totally ecstatic because his partner points out the bed that was in full view the whole time. He could see the bed, but he didn't react to it until it was pointed out to him, and then it was a sudden full reversal of emotion. It is all very sudden and gives the impression that each thought and action is totally independent of what came before it. And I know you mention this in Arden's bio, but it isn't limited to just him. Even if it was, he is incredibly jarring on his own. You'll want to work on the flow, going forward.

3) Your characters. This is where we run into some big problems.

Jace "Shiny" Beleran - One of your two characters is (arguably) the main protaganist of the MTG story. That's not a particularly encouraging start. Add to that the fact that Jace is incredibly intelligent and powerful even beyond his mental magic. That's part of what being a Planeswalker is: semi-phenomenal, nearly-cosmic power, itty-bitty living space. This is a man who beat an infinitely-old, eldritch abomination at chess without any magic at all. He might be the greatest mind in the multiverse. AND he has powerful magic at his disposal.

Also, what time period is he supposed to be from? According to the bio, he just ran afoul of Alhamaret and lost his memory, but that point isn't depicted on any Jace card that I'm aware of (and I did check). There's Vryn's Prodigy where he is a kid before the Sphinx took him in, and everything else is after he lost his memory and grew up on Ravnica. And none of the cards have grass in the picture, so that didn't help pin it down.

All of this is to say, there are major problems and I'm really not comfortable with this character, at all.

Arden - Seems fine enough. I just don't recall ever reading that Krynn magic is addictive. Some mages went a little nutty when the power got turned off that one time, but that was because the magic was all they had in their life, and they didn't know how to cope when they thought it was gone for good. In the grand scheme, this is a small detail that can be easily adjusted.


So, verdict time. Permission denied, for a couple of reasons.

For one, Jace has to go. Create a new character that isn't a near-god-level protagonist in the story they come from. The idea of a card being transformed into a living being isn't a bad idea, just stay away from the Planeswalkers and probably the Legendary Creatures as well. There is still plenty of room to play there. Maybe the character is a Deputy of Acquittals, or a Goblin Test-pilot, or a Simic Guildmage. The multiverse is a big place.

Secondarily, you need to work on the flow of your stories. The lack of clear progression from point A to point B can be off-putting, and you want your audience to be able to follow along.

There are good parts of your request so fix these few problems and re-apply. You are probably not far off.

-Phobos