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So would my flag still be Sable, a book proper on a bend sinister argent? Or would it be something else?

shoves gardian under the bed

Ahem, anyways. I personally don't like using minis with improper caps because it could make two minis with the same name. I have one exception and that's gardian, but that's because I continued with the all lowercase letters. If I stopped, it wouldn't be consistent, as annoying as it ends up being.

If caps in the middle, or no caps, or no caps in the middle when they should be are the only errors, a mini is not made, in my opnion. gardian exists because it's a misspell of Guardian (Spirit), not because of lack of caps.

-kA

Yes, you can use Sir (I think we've had a Ser around too), and you can invent whatever magic you choose.

hS

A new month, a new mission by the two and only Jay and Acacia:

Protectors of the Plot Continuum: All Souls Night

And "All Souls Night" itself is still available on FFn, here. It has a sequel and all!

(Some very interesting reviews on both of those, but also some very grumpy ones.)

hS

Since Sue Lord rewrite had me taking out a bunch of the capitalisation minis with the exception of jack harkness since he's already been written into continuity. :P

Well, the guy I was referring to (who, by the way, I have never met, even online) has written a badly disjointed, illogical story with an obvious Mary Sue; a story he then self-published. However, the part he is notorious for is his inability to take any criticism whatsoever, to the point of calling anyone who doesn't like his story an "internet troll". It's actually kinda sad.

• Ls, wondering why he even bothered.

Because I finally got to getting the stuff out of my head, behold: a rough draft I wrote up in a couple of days.

Knight Fox of Orange is a strange creature dressed in elaborate and conveniently concealing robes who is most definitely not a small vulpine pretending to be a human.

When Fox first landed on the shores of Conti-Nyuum, it had no idea what it was getting into. It had arrived from the lands of Tivit on a whim, and this land was far different from anything it had experienced before. The local Marizu, however, caught its eye - it had heard rumors of creatures like these, and Fox decided to stay far away from them until it understood their threat properly.

For months the mage wandered from town to town, learning of the battles of the heroic knights and barons against the Marizu. With this knowledge came a desire to join their ranks, and as such Fox traveled to De’endee, the keep of Lady Iximaz. To this day Fox isn’t sure how it happened, with it barely understanding how Plort even functioned at the time, but it was dubbed a knight and sent out to battle the Marizu the best way it knew how: with magic and the occasional bite from its definitely human mouth. Its ensuing crusades against the Marizu were infrequent and longer than necessary due to its own incompetence, but Fox was determined to do its part nonetheless.

During its travels, it got to witness many citizens being knighted, and previous knights and even barons disappearing from the lands of Plort. Some left behind empty residences, and Fox took advantage of this to claim a small, ramshackle cottage in the north-eastern Diskord for itself. With this newfound shelter came complacency, however, and its battles against the Marizu became even more infrequent - Fox spent more time planning ways to fight than actually fighting proper. Nonetheless, fights still occurred, and Fox felt a great sense of accomplishment each and every time.

Alas, few journeys are without setbacks, and Fox’s was no exception.

It seemed that in the time since Fox had left for Plort, a vocal group of Tiviters had grown hateful of the Protectorate, claiming the Marizu were innocent victims the Knights and Barons unfairly hunted down and browbeat into submission. As a result, this fringe group took it upon themselves to vehemently defend the Marizu and spread anti-Plort propaganda across the expanse of Tivit.

Seeking refuge from the newly born plague of Corvids, Fox made the mistake of traveling into anti-Plort Tiviter territory, though whether it went there out of nostalgia or because it was caught at sea and Tivit happened to be nearby is unclear. Trained knight and mage that it was, it was in no way prepared for the angry mob it stumbled upon within minutes of its arrival. And so it fled back to sea, avoiding flocks of Corvids and persistent Tiviters wielding mind-warping threads of iron until it made it back to the comforting shores of Plort.

Dismayed by its experience, Fox went back to its cottage to hunker down for a while. Its drive to battle against the forces of the Marizu was stifled, and it refused to leave throughout the rest of the plague until it had acquired a peace of mind, a process that took nearly an entire year.

Eventually, though, it ventured back out into the lands of Konti-Nyuum, wanderlust taking hold of it once again.

And some heraldry, because it seemed fitting: Or with an orange fess, charged with a small circle, also Or.

When asked about the circle's meaning, Fox claimed the heraldry felt "empty" without it.

-OrangeFox, posting this late at night so the nervousness is dulled somewhat

I sit in a couple of writing circles, and you reminded me of a horror story I heard. Names changed to protect the innocent and guilty.

One man, Oscar, has a story, and a couple of characters, and although I haven't seen his actual draft he seems reasonable enough an author. Another man, Michael, is not so reasonable. I've seen a couple of his drafts and the only thing keeping them from being PPC fodder is the fact that they are original fiction. I in fact sporked two of his things and was in the process of sporking a third before stopping it.

Michael's poor writing ability (rife with Gary Stus, implausible events, terribly undescribed environs, paper-thin characterization and awful worldbuilding) isn't the focus of this story, however. Instead, the story is thus:

Michael grew fond of a character Oscar wrote, and said to Oscar that one of his own characters (to clarify, one of Michael's characters) could seduce the character Oscar wrote.

There are worse stories of misconduct that I know of, but none that are as personal as this one.

“Well,” said Linstar. “Which ship is it?”

"Nah, I don't know any instruments." Deirdre could sing a bit here and there, but she'd never taken lessons.

Rebecca grabbed her violin case and walked out the door. "If I'm not back by tonight, you can go looking for me," she said, closing the door behind her. She walked off to find the orchestra, whistling a tune to herself so as to be distracted enough to get there.

I’ve heard of the work of an original fiction writer who has behaved worse, but that’s neither here nor there.

he said. “Let us go find this friend of yours.”

I'm friends with Hyacinth, captain of The Floating Lily, and I think she could be convinced to take us to Weab."

A bit of clarification though: a concertmaster is the leader of first violin section (a.k.a. a musician), while the person waving a baton is a conductor.

So we have weapons. How do we get to Kwotef?”

So, this is why the Tolkien Estate and creators in general are pretty much obligated to state that fanworks are not officially authorized: so that if a fanwriter does try to claim the IP belongs to them, the IP's actual copyright-holder is empowered to take legal action. They probably would still choose not to in this case, since it doesn't sound like there's much chance of this person actually convincing anyone they own whatever canon and profiting from it, but if that ever became the case, that person would rightly earn a Cease & Desist.

You're right not to draw attention to them. It sounds like they're living in a delusion, not actually trying to steal and profit from an IP. Best to leave them alone.

~Neshomeh

She read it. "Huh. It says 'Musicians and concertmaster/mistresses wanted. Must be able to read music or otherwise be able to learn by ear.' I can read music, and I was in an orchestra for a few years."

((more soon))

And it bugs the bejeezus out of me when I see uncapitalized words at the beginning of a sentence and uncapitalized proper nouns anywhere forced on a PPC work just because someone else made a mistake. Why should we let someone else's error induce us to create additional errors, beyond misspelling, in our own works? Argh.

I'm also convinced that taking initial capitalization errors as minis is a relatively new phenomenon. This may mean "arising in the last ten years," so not actually new-new at this point, but I'd swear it wasn't a thing to begin with. Has anyone checked?

~Neshomeh

I'll also bring my fiddle, which is my main weapon, and a dagger to - ah, finish the business."