The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

Kittyauthor's, here. It's still on the front page, but I dunno if you're in the habit of scrolling down. {= )

~Neshomeh

Melina Darby's Transformation: Vore Story: NSFW/B!

(Transformers) What if Mel hated being human ? What if a groundbridge incident gave her an opportunity to become more?

My comment: This is wrong on so many levels.

This one.

The best part is that I got there from "Is that ship still stuck?" and the article mentions the site at the end. It's the ciiiircle of meeeemes... ^_^

~Neshomeh

The question of how much localization is desirable/acceptable in a translated work is one of those eternal debates that has no one satisfying answer for all situations. It has to be judged on a case-by-case basis. In my opinion, when it comes to entertainment media, preserving the spirit of the original is usually more important than preserving every little detail, so I have no problem with the examples you gave. In the case of the play, it might be good to have an accurate translation for historical reference somewhere, but if someone actually wants to produce the play for entertainment, it had better do the job of entertaining.

As for fan works based on translated works, whatever is canon in the translation is the canon a fan work should generally follow, but of course, it's always fine to change things for the purpose of an AU or whatever as long as the change is supported with reason and good storytelling. Heck, it's even fine to ignore or change something "just because" if it doesn't substantially damage the quality of the story. It's only a problem if it makes a reasonably (not overly) attentive reader lose immersion because they stop and go WTF.

For example, the canonicity of fanfic based on Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings can only be judged on how well it fits with Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings. Even if it makes us want to tear out our hair. {= ) If it introduces elements from the original Tolkien to make a better story, no one is likely to mind, but if it starts pulling unicorns and crud out of nowhere for no good reason, that's just as bad as doing so in a Tolkien-based fic.

... Though now I'm vaguely imagining what a crossover between the Bakshi and Rankin/Bass' The Last Unicorn would be like, and wondering if it wouldn't actually work based solely on the art style. Hmm.

~Neshomeh

The answer is that it doesn't matter as far as the PPC's concerned. The Harry Potter movies could be the worst trash in history to disgrace a silver screen, or heck, they could even change everything about the original and lose its appeal, but they're still valid adaptations of the original novels, and therefore, the PPC cannot mission them no matter what. That's the rule about published adaptations. The same goes for translations, I assume, especially if the changes are reasonably justified.

Always remember that the PPC's mission is to eliminate bad fanfiction, not bad writing. Otherwise, Bella Swan would have been six feet under by now.

In the French translation of "Casey at the Bat", the score for each team is bumped up a run for the sake of the rhyme: «Ça n’aillait pas fort pour les joueurs de Mudville ce jour là/Juste une dernière manche à jouer, sur un compte de cinq à trois...» ("It was not going strongly for Mudville's players that day/Just one last inning to play, on a score of five to three..."). This is a change demanded by the poetry style.

Also, some translations of Aristophanes, Menander†, Plautus, and Terence alter jokes so that puns (sometimes including the double entendres) work in the local language and/or so that gags regarded in the local culture as dude-not-funny become less offensive; and the translators sometimes replace dated references with references (often anachronistic) that a contemporary audience could get. Here the changes are to ensure that the jokes still elicit laughter.

How does the PPC regard such alterations? Fan works to be judged on quality of adaptation?

† Over the last century, substantial finds of his work were discovered in Egypt, including his Δύσκολος ("Peevish Man" or "Grouch") virtually complete, a majority of his Σαμία ("Girl from Samos"), and substantial fragments of other plays.

istheshipstillstuck, I mean. I shouldn't be laughing so hard, but honestly there's something just so absurd about the whole situation.

21, in fact, including a Percy Jackson crossover and a riff on the infamous William McGonagall's The Tay Bridge Disaster.

But none, to my utter dismay, feature the only proper 'ship: Big Boat / smol digger.

hS

PS: For more breaking news, visit istheshipstillstuck.com. Current status: "Yes." ^_^

I've stumbled across "XXX-TRA WIDE CARGO STUFFS MAJOR SHIPPING LANE --- DELIVERS HUGE PAYLOAD!!" (contains strong language, but is otherwise safe work work, if your work doesn't mind you looking at crackfic about the Suez Canal being blocked) thanks to Helsinki, and thought I'd post it here since it has shipfest vibes and even reads a bit Culture-y.

My gods 🤤🤤🤤

The mission in question was "Your Unhappy Elladan" feat. Agents Mara and Isaiah and, since I knew more about LotR than she did, she thought I'd enjoy it and then promptly forgot about it all. I, on the other hand, did not. One thing led to another and I fell down the rabbit hole, dragging Umbre in after me.

I have had time-zone conversations with distant friends before, albeit without the declarations of love. I love the framing, and the wording, and the way it slips from night in one place to morning in another. It's really soft and beautiful.

That's a one letter difference from CPP

Maybe I'll rename solely in my head the mirror verse of CPP (the Anti-CPP) to CCP.

Tanner's is actually incorporated into his character arc – ur wbvarq gur CCP gb uryc uvf snzvyl znxr raqf zrrg, ohg ur bayl gbyq uvf cneragf gung vg jnf na "vzcbegnag wbo sbe vagreangvbany frphevgl," naq yngre ba, uvf njxjneqarff nobhg pbasebagvat gurz nsgre... pregnva guvatf ur qvq naq gur nohaqnapr bs rkphfrf gunaxf gb genqvgvbany CCP birejbexvat yrq uvz gb whfg... abg pnyy be ivfvg gurz. Ur unfa'g frra gurz sbe gjb lrnef (spoilers for future arc). Also, PPC in rot13 is CCP. Interesting.

Kiruko and Kuro hail from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, but since they actually have well-defined family and backstory there, I think they're close enough. In their case, whenever they want to pay their parents a visit they just punch in the time period they think their parents should be at, use the D.O.R.K.S. to age themselves up or down appropriately, and hop through. Their parents have no idea what they're really doing, though, for... reasons.

Anyway, dunno if I'd use 8-bit in this case. More likely, the corniest acoustic stuff I can find.

~Neshomeh

I forget sometimes how small and new we are... you would probably have given your sample to the Department of Mary Sue Experiments and Research, but a few years back they merged with the Division of Applied-and-theoretical Multiversal Physics to form DAS - the Department of Analytical Science. We have chemists - four of them, if you count the Materials scientists. I don't really understand what they get up to myself; rocks and artefacts are my limit.

I will be sure to check with Dr. Niamh and Agent Penny to see if either of them can locate your sample; if not, it may have been passed to the Medical Research Division. I'm very interested to see what we can learn from it.

-Agent hS

'Much easier to have them fall through a plothole' indeed... I know some early agents had a whole 'time doesn't pass back home' thing going on, but it's always seemed kind of unwieldy... with Agent Kaitlyn, I think I pulled the "Tell mom it's a school" trick, whereas Constance's dad knew full well what he was sending her into. I think they miiight be the only young World One teens on my books? In general, my teen-recruit agents either come from highly dysfunctional families (Steve, Dassie), have absolutely nothing to tie them to their home (Nyx), or simply can't get back (Blue, Tango, Imbolc, Narto). But mostly the first two - where being in HQ is unequivocally better for them.

hS

I lack in skill, but I do have the tools and more or less know how to use them.

Well, that's not worrisome. And completely realistic as a goal. Uh. Maybe I'll just...

Right! Yes! Backing away seems to have been successful for now! We didn't exactly science the thing, and wow, this was so long ago, it's, what, 2021 now? ...how is it 2021 now? Anyway, I'm pretty sure we got that sample back in 2014 or 2015. Probably 2014, actually. So that's seven years ago.

...setting that aside, too: like I said, we didn't really science the thing, but I'm pretty sure we did deliver a sample to someone. Maybe. Probably. Look it up, it's sure to be floating around somewhere in some department. Possibly literally! Unless it's been destroyed by now, or something. I wouldn't know. I never joined either of those departments.

Also, hey, wait, back to the Elf--we have chemists? What chemists? Where? Can I meet them? What do they do? (Apart from trying to trace things, apparently.) Chemists?

HQ, man. Live here for, what is it now--fourteen years? That can't be accurate; my mental math must be off--and you can still learn something new every day if you look hard enough or stumble over the right stone at the right time. Incredible.

-Dawn

--

I didn't go check her page for the exact date, but I think she might really be at fourteen years or so now?? Counting from 2007, since I remember the date being late 2006 and also (headcanon at this point) picture her probably having to go back and finish the school year before she joins properly in 2007, so it's likely (hypothetically, at this stage, but eh) 2007 is more accurate anyway. Unless I'm mistaken and should be thinking of 2008? I'm going to check.

Okay, yeah, her recruitment date is December 2006, and I should probably move the 2007 timeline listings to later in the year, to fit with the potentially-not-just-headcanon backstory details of her first stint in the DMS happening over winter break and the requested transfer being granted after she finishes the school year and joins properly. (And then something, something, she probably has to do homeschooling as a condition of being allowed to do all this?? I'm pretty sure her absence is explained to the people in her hometown as "international boarding school she got too excited about attending to say no to", but even without that I can't imagine her parents just going, oh, sure, your formal education can end here unless you decide you want to pick it up again. It's already stretching disbelief a bit that she gets to go be an agent to begin with, but that's the kind of classic suspension of disbelief we end up using for half the World One agents, isn't it? Quite honestly, it's taken me since early 2013 to slowly work out a version of this piece of her backstory that makes even this much sense, and I'm still not completely sure whether her parents knew from the start what the PPC was or if they actually thought it was a school for a bit (ETA: I think I prefer the former, for honesty and good family communication and also possibly better understanding of why this is so exciting and why she's so firmly set on joining). Maybe they knew, but agreed in part because Dawn was so set on it and in part because it was pitched to them in a way that emphasized that she'd learn a lot about writing? I don't know. Still murky. I absolutely would not let my teenage daughter go do this, but to be fair, people that age do go to boarding schools sometimes, and possibly apprenticeships and so on, so I suppose it's not out of the reason of possibility? Especially when you factor in portals, which could be really great--there's that assurance that a visit, whether pre-planned or emergency, will cost nothing and take seconds to arrive for. So...still a bit murky, but with the bit of suspended disbelief, I think it kind of works for now? It's definitely the most sense I've been able to make of it so far.)

And that's more than enough rambling about trying to make World One agent backstory make sense, especially when you've followed the earlier trend of having agents join as young teenagers and then tried to apply some kind of real world-ish logic to it. Much simpler to have someone just fall through a plothole or get recruited from a badfic, isn't it?

~Z, who did, in fact, intend this post script to be a whole lot shorter. Whoops.

It was never posted, which is probably for the best given we realized it needed a somewhat serious rewrite not too long after finishing it (lots of fun, but there was accidentally characterization that showed the exact opposite of what was intended for one of the agents in particular and possibly for a second as well; I don't quite remember anymore), but Lily Winterwood and I once wrote a mission that included exactly that! There was a Spock replacement, and a whole lot of...well, it was a Bad Parody mission, so a bunch of the literal interpretations were really quite something.

Anyway, the point: I did a search for "glitter" in that doc, and came up with "[...] Stupock seemed to be bleeding green glitter" and two instances of "glittering green blood" after that. So, well, there you have it. It's unposted, and I don't know if Lily (or anyone else) ever specified the detail in something that is posted, but at minimum you have two PPC authors who intended to roll with the idea that a Vulcan replacement (well, actually, a Vulcan Stu; if the replacement wasn't particularly S(t)u(e)ish I'd expect their blood not to glitter or to glitter only very slightly) would in fact have glittery blood.

~Z

Well, saving your fingers, I did come up with an alternative to presenting the scene faithfully. BlizzCon happened recently, and they had Metallica on to play... but on the Twitch stream of the event, Twitch cut away from their audio and instead played some silly 8-bit folk music over them due to copyright concerns.

Seems to me it would be a pretty good joke, quite in keeping with the spirit of TOS, to play a few chords of LZ, then cut in something ridiculous and have the agents go:

JAY: Huh. Guess they can't do that in an unlicensed audio play.

ACACIA: What?

JAY: Good thing, too; Led Zeppelin just wasn't meant for the harp.

ACACIA: ... You're strange. Ugh, why didn't I bring anything to drown this out?

And so forth. Seamless, no? {= D

~Neshomeh

... baby steps? I can't actually /play/ the harp, you know... :D I'll see what I can track down; I don't know how much LZ guitar chording there is out there!

(I only go along because a) I sort of badgered you into it and b) it's hilarious!)

hS

How about one of their harder-rock pieces that no one in their right mind would attempt on a harp? And then I can add myself singing poorly over it as Laurel; it'll be great!

Okay, no, it won't. But that's the idea!

In any case, you are a generous and lovely man for going along with this madness.

~Neshomeh

... to suggest I'd have to /intentionally/ mangle it.

I'll track down some music for "Stairway to Heaven" and see what I can produce for it. It'll be... an experience.

hS