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... I think you two were the ones who were concerned about being shipped with nonhumans. So I picture you watching Badger and Cicada, bonding over your mutual relief that they're only named Badger and Cicada, and then turning to each other as the music swells... ^_~
hS
What is there about us that suggests animals, or am I missing the joke?
But that begs the question... how large is Phobos' electronic device?
Oh, and also "who really is the tallest PPCer," but that's less important.
Huinesoron paced backwards and forwards in front of the small group, tapping a marker pen on his palm. "Good morning. As you know, I've gathered you here to answer an important question."
Ki no Shirayuki raised a hand. "Is it 'how many shipfics can Yuki be in'?"
"Good guess, but no." Huinesoron turned and wrote a word on the whiteboard behind him. "It is this: who in the PPC is the�" He gestured to the group.
"'Tallest'," Phobos read out, and looked sidelong at Novastorme. "I mean⊠it's pretty obvious."
"Ah, you'd think that, but no!" Huinesoron pointed his pen at Nova. "You're 6.6 meters tall, right?"
"Er." Nova fought the urge to raise his hand. "That's six foot six."
"Same thing," Huinesoron said with a flick of his hand. "People overcomplicate the conversion."
"Even if that were true," Phobos said, "why am I here? I never even gave my height, but it's definitely not six meters plus."
"Oh, Phobos," Huinesoron said gently. "It's okay; you don't have to hide any more."
"ErâŠ" Phobos turned to look behind him, as if he might somehow be crouched behind himself. "I'm not?"
"I know," Huinesoron said, sketching on the whiteboard. "I know you're actually seven miles in diameter."
Phobos stared at him, then slowly looked up at the board. "That's a potato," he said.
"That's you," Huinesoron said. "Phobos - moon of Mars."
"I'm not-" Phobos shut his eyes and shook his head. "Okay, sure." He flicked a finger at Ki no Shirayuki. "And I suppose she's secretly the Milky Way or something?"
"Don't be silly," Huinesoron said sternly. He twirled his pen and pointed it at Yuki. "I just wanted to show Nova you don't have to be an astronomical object to be taller than him. You're one hundred and fifty meters tall, right."
Yuki looked up at hS, then further up at Novastorme. "You mean centimeters?"
"Oh!" Huinesoron turned and stared at the board. "Centimeters� Centi, of course, means a hundred, so you're... let's see, multiply it out, ten to the four⊠15 000 meters, or fifteen kilometers."
Phobos coughed. "Aren't you supposed to be a scientist?"
"I am a scientist." Huinesoron pulled a pair of lab goggles from his pocket and slipped them on. "See? That's how you know I'm right."
"I don't think..." Nova gestured at the much shorter Ki no Shirayuki. "So she's the tallest PPCer?"
"Scientifically speaking, yes." Huinesoron blinked. "Wait, hang on, how large is Helsinki? If you stood them up on their side? And what about SunAndMoon? They must be pushing 700 000 kilometersâŠ"
Novastorme bent down almost double until he was at eye level with Ki no Shirayuki. "He's going to be at this a while," he murmured. "Want to go try and answer that shipfic question you had?"
Yuki looked at Huinesoron, who was muttering to himself and drawing lines on the board, and then at Phobos, who had found a chair and settled in to watch. "You know what? Sure."
((Originally there was going to be a 'little short for a Novastorme' joke in here somewhere, but it never made it to the table. ~hS))
This just means you can jump right in with the shipfics too. ^_^
I'm gonna show my age with this one, but I can't not ship Badger/Badger/Badger/Badger/mushroom/mushroom.
Also, Badger/Cicada, the Animal Ship. With bonus Ki no Shirayuki/eatpraylove, the 'I'm so glad they're not actually animals' ship.
hS
Due to shenanigans in the Discord a while back, I've been shipped with the Russian language. I don't speak Russian, but ÂŻ_(ă)_/ÂŻ it's the Shipfest
Yes, the Alliance destroyed the Death Star II, but for one thing it wasn't just those plucky little starfighter (and the Falcon), they had a whole fleet to draw the fire of the larger ships. Ace pilot or no, you don't want to take chances when there's a few hundred turbolasers pointed at you and you're their only target, not to mention swarms of TIEs. More to the point, however, they were only able to access DS2's reactor because it had a giant hole in the superstructure. To pull off the same trick on DS1 you'd have to walk through miles of corridors and catwalks, most of which have easily sealable blast doors. Even the Empire isn't quite incompetent enough for that.
I'll grant you the knockoffs are basically worthless, though. Frankly recycling the idea once was silly in-universe and out, and it only got worse from there.
Now, as for the idea of infiltrating the station, it's certainly a more feasible attack strategy than engaging it ship to ship, but I think you're being a tad harsh on the ol' murder machine. Yes, Leia escaped, but only because Vader let her. He knew from the moment the Falcon landed that something was wrong, and it didn't take him long to figure out what. Think back to the detention level, how long does it take for things to devolve into a shootout? The plan doesn't last fifteen seconds before they have to kill everybody, and after Han's attempt at covering their tracks fails Tarkin himself is notified. Obviously they wouldn't have been allowed to even make it that far on a truly competently run station, but the security force doesn't even need to catch any intruders on the first try.
The beauty of having everything important buried under miles of durasteel is that it doesn't matter if your clever ruse fools the first set of guards, or you're fast enough to gun down the second, there would have to be scores of similar checkpoints on the way to the core or the navigation systems or the firing controls, with security getting tighter and your alibi wearing thinner at every single one. And once you're discovered, it's over. Even if you had a lightsaber you couldn't cut through every blast door between you and your target in time. Sure, you can muck about for a while on the surface in some of the less important areas like the hangar bay or the detention levelâremember the Death Star isn't meant to be a prison, the Empire has whole planets for thatâbut the biggest points of failure have the least reason for a bunch of strangers to be.
As for your point about defection, I think you have more trust in individuals than the Empire does. On something so massive why would they ever trust just one person to do, well, anything? Navigation? The thing's so big and dense it probably generates it's own gravity, would you trust one person to run the hyperspace navigation? Maintenance? There's got to be hundreds of minor points of failure in every system, you'd need people checking them around the clock.
Even if some of your ideas would work at first, they might not even accomplish anything. Consider the cannon technician. Even if you managed to somehow sabotage an emitter, and you did it at the last minute so there was no chance anyone else would fix it, and none of the other operators who know exactly how the procedure is done notice that you're deviating from protocol, you've still only damaged one of six beams of the actual laser! You might have slightly better luck with the navigator if you got really lucky and you were actually close enough to something dangerous to fly the station into it before your shift ended, but we know from TCW that onboard navicomputers alert the crew when they detect hazards. Is everyone you work with going to ignore that? Do you know how to sabotage that specific alert? Can you trust that tampering with the system won't trip some other alarm, or that there are no redundancies in the navicomputer? I wouldn't bet on it.
Of course all of this is rather redundant if you're right about it not working, which... yeah, no, you're totally right. I am tempted to argue that the Death Star might have been a bit less of a rallying cry if it hadn't, y'know, exploded, but the point remains that the Empire paid for Alderaan over and over and over again. Even if it were the only example in Star Wars the pattern would remain.
However, I didn't say the Death Star was the right csll, I said it made sense. :p Semantics, maybe, but the point is that the Death Star wasn't so daft as much of the internet (myself included) have made it out to be over the years.
I am going to be a teeeeeny tiny bit petty and contest the bit about ol' Sheevy. True, in later canon he was basically a god, but when the Death Star was actually written all Palpatine could actually do was see the future and shoot lightning from his fingers. Legends and RoS gave him a huge power boost, but from the perspective of the original Lucasian canon (films 1-6 + TCW) he wasn't really capable of soloing a galaxy, so it seems a touch unfair to judge the Death Star based on his later appearances. After all it's hardly its fault if later canon took out its logical framework at the knees.
Huinesoron / diacritical marks.
In all seriousness, I hate that scenes like the one you wrote are common enough that I just accepted the scene, even for an instant. Yeah, it's totally normal for someone wearing a name badge to sweep someone off their feet to dance to an invisible band in an empty auditorium. One of them uses French articles! It was inevitable!
Great job on this. I'll have to draw inspiration from it when I finally write something; I need to make up for lost time in the Badfic Games. >:-)
He/Him, 5'11", blue eyes, half blind, waging perpetual war with a mane of brown hair. Clothes outside of jeans, t-shirts, and jackets do not exist in my reality with the possible exception of the noble kilt at weddings. If I have limits re: shipping, I haven't found them yet.
Fun Facts About Badger: I'm a proud Washingtonian, Cascadian revolutionary, and aspirant to the title of Biggest Procrastinator in the PPC. I'm also the #2 flag expert and #5 sword enthusiast in the PPC Discord.
Special bonus fun fact, were I less socially conscious I could practically justify wearing both an eyepatch and a monocle.
Haven't got any particularly creative ship ideas this year I'm afraid, will update if I think of anything. Although... it seems the topic of dragons has come up an awful lot in the Discord chat the last few days, make of that what you will.
Either you're saying everything must be physical description or nothing should. There are no shades of grey here! Probably because Acy threw that pillow.
But yeah, it's a balance. If you swing too far to the physical, you end up with Insert Tab A Into Slot B; but if you go too far the other way, you wind up not even with Talking Heads Syndrome - just Internally-Monologuing Heads instead.
hS
Physical description is necessary in a scene of any length or substance. It's just that it barely matters.
To paraphrase John Carmack... It's expected to be there, but it's not that important.
That... was... awesome. ^_^ And absolutely hilarious; I was grinning the whole way through.
I really love how you've characterised both the Brothers Finwe, even if that Nameless Stranger is a bit... familiar with the High King's heir. ^_~ And I love the idea of Fingolfin Holmes rooting out Melkor as the cause of the troubles.
My best guess is that Melkor would still escape south and meet with Ungoliant, and quite possibly still kill the Trees; but Finwe and Feanor would still be in Tirion, so the Silmarils and Finwe would be safe. Without that personal stake, the Noldor wouldn't rebel - they'd wait until the Valar could organise a proper response.
Except possibly Galadriel; she might run off on her own vengeance quest. She's like that.
As to names: 'Huinesoron' is (slightly dodgy) Quenya, not Sindarin (the e would be an ë if it were still the end of a word). Kaitlyn I think I've called Anairë before - it translates her real name - but, uh, that's also the name of Fingolfin's wife, so maybe not the best to use. ;) She uses Celebestel a lot, which is Sindarin, but in Quenya would be Telpestel/Tyelpestel (estel is the same in both languages; the y version is formal Quenya, but they generally used the Telerin form without it, see Telperion).
Amused though I am, there will still be vengeance wreaked; just give me time to find the right way to do it... >:D
hS
PS: 'Zingenmir'... that would be LĂralwĂ« (literally 'We are singing') or LirilwĂ« ('we sing'), but it might be funnier to use the word for 'singer': Linda. ~hS
Also: ...I love how you've got the nametag saying...le Mattman, but then not making it "Mattman le Comet" :D Because, of course, that would make sense!
~la Zing de Mir
Yes, I'm serious (to a point).
Quick name key, because I've used Quenya names for a pair of Elves better known by Sindarin equivalents:
Curufinwë Fëanåro = Fëanor
Nolofinwë = Fingolfin
--
âOoh, you have such lovely ears,â the stranger cooed.
CurufinwĂ« FĂ«anĂĄro, heir to FinwĂ« (who was High King of the Noldor), renowned inventor of Tengwar and palantĂri and, recently, three Silmarils and actual weapons, father of seven sons, hand still on the hilt of his sword where heâd begun to draw it against his half-brother NolofinwĂ« (!)...blushed.
It was even odds, NolofinwĂ« thought, whether the stranger hadnât noticed or simply took the blush as encouragement. Either way, he went on.
âSo very, very lovely, all pointed and leaf-shapedâŠâ
Much of the crowd appeared to have...not quite frozen, exactly, but certainly halted in place, watching this new turn of events with interest. FĂ«anĂĄro had already drawn their attention, entering with a sword at his hip and harsh accusations against his half-brother on his lips. To see this terrible scene curtailed was a blessing, but the confusion that had taken its placeâŠ(and how long, really, could it last?)
The stranger was, indeed, a stranger; or at least, NolofinwĂ« did not recognize him, and he had yet to hear anyone in the crowd of his fatherâs lords voice a name. He appeared to be a Noldorin Elf, with the typical dark hair and grey eyes.
Typical Noldorin Elves, however, were not often inclined towardsâŠ
Well. NolofinwĂ« could hardly claim Noldorin Elves were not bold, particularly not while standing in his fatherâs court and (previously, at least) seemingly only seconds away from his older half-brother drawing a sword on himâbut this?
His brother was still blushing. His married brother with seven sons. Bold, haughty, shameless Curufinwë Fëanåro.
Blushing, becauseâŠ
Well, to be fair, the stranger was practically wrapped around him by now, still cooing compliments about his ears. Nolofinwë covered a smile and glanced at his father.
FinwĂ« leaned back in his throne, a bemused expression on his face. He seemed unwilling to interrupt, which was, perhaps, fair given the previous sequence of events had very much appeared to be going the way of his beloved oldest son publicly threatening his second son immediately after said second son had been trying to convince FinwĂ« to rein in his oldestâŠ
â...go somewhere more private?â NolofinwĂ« caught the stranger murmuring.
FĂ«anĂĄro hesitated, and motioned to NolofinwĂ«. âYes, but I was about toââ
The stranger pressed scandalously close. A particularly gossip-minded lord looked delighted, and nudged his long-suffering neighbor excitedly. âSurely that will keep. Maybe forever. Hopefully forever, actually, since youâre mistrusting the wrong personâbut certainly at least for as long as it takes to properly admire your beautiful earsâŠâ
As Nolofinwë watched in mild disbelief, Fëanåro blushed again.
âWe will resume this later,â he said, pointing at NolofinwĂ«. As heâd done the pointing with a finger rather than his sword (which was by now fully sheathed again), NolofinwĂ« couldnât quite bring himself to object. (And what exactly had the stranger meant by âmistrusting the wrong personâ? The more he thought about it, the less it sounded like it was only an endorsement of Nolofinwe himselfâŠ) âMuch later,â he added, and let the stranger draw him away, still blushing, as NolofinwĂ« obligingly gave him a shallow bow of acknowledgement. He was hardly unsupportive of his brotherâs position as their fatherâs heir, no matter what the man himself might think.
The stranger grinned at the assembled court and waved jauntily before wrapping that arm back around FĂ«anĂĄro as well. âSee you around! Eventually!â
Three of the lords waved back. Finwë inclined his head.
The assembly as a whole began to murmur, some rather cheerfully, as FĂ«anĂĄro and the stranger strode out of the hall. A good number of them seemed relieved.
NolofinwĂ« hid another smile. Perhaps matters would resolve themselves. After all, Nerdanel had been looking more relaxed since the recent appearance of...yet another stranger, come to think of it, an Elf maid whoâd seemed quite at home helping her corral NolofinwĂ«âs many nephews. FĂ«anĂĄro certainly hadnât seemed to object to her presence; or at least, heâd been seen to greet her in as friendly a manner as he typically used for anyone. Presumably this new stranger would obtain similar approval from Nerdanel, particularly if the blushing remained in effect.
...and on that note, NolofinwĂ« was going to cease ruminating on his half-brotherâs personal life and simply feel grateful that the Elfâs temper had been defused before he could truly begin to threaten (! It still seemed incredible that such a thing could come to pass. Had their relationshipâor FĂ«anĂĄroâs mindâtruly deteriorated so completely?
Perhaps he should pursue the train of thought the stranger had prompted with his comment on FĂ«anĂĄroâs distrust of the wrong personâŠ)
--
Huinesoron/FĂ«anor, implied background Kaitlyn/Nerdanel and some sort of open marriage type thing? Or possibly just âopen for flirtingâ? Who knows. Take it as either FĂ«anor breaking some more rules of Elven society or just Shipfest silliness. Or even a veil of âmore innocent than it looksâ: itâs entirely possible Nerdanel is more relaxed because sheâs gained a (very close) friend (who perhaps gives her some missing emotional support as well as a hand with her big family with its many talented and occasionally arrogant people), and FĂ«anorâs going to sit down somewhere with hS and be read sonnets to his ears until the blushing wears off!
...actually, Iâm very amused by that concept. No matter what your reading, more or less innocent, I move that both of those things should at least be part of it.
As to how thorough a fix-it this is: who knows? Maybe Fingolfin looks into Melkor and, together with hS, manages to open FĂ«anorâs eyes to the fact heâs being influenced. Maybe some other people start watching Melkor, and perhaps even manage to prevent him from damaging the Two Trees. Mayyyybe the whole Melkor-killing-FinwĂ«-and-taking-the-Silmarils-followed-by-Oath-swearing-and-Kinslaying-and-doom plot gets averted! Maybe it just gets delayed! Maybe it still happens in some form, but some of the worst parts get softened by virtue of Kaitlyn talking sense and hS distracting FĂ«anor when heâs about to do something stupid and thus keeping him from making bad decisions while worked up! Maybe it becomes a war against Morgoth without the Oath and the Kinslaying. Who knows. Certainly not me. I doubt Iâll write it.
Someone else is quite welcome to, though ;)
PS: Written without easy access to the Silmarillion itself; I relied on my memory and wiki articles from Tolkien Gateway. Hopefully the (interrupted) confrontation details aren't too far off, and the same with the non-FĂ«anor characterization, to a point (although, even if they are...shipfest).
PPS: Why does fic!hS never bother to give his name? First of all, no one seems to have asked. Second, while I'm pretty sure hS has posted something with a Quenya version of his screen name, I wasn't in a mood to go try to dig it up. (Why not just use "Huinesoron"? Wrong language to the point where it wasn't in use in Valinor at the time and I'm not even completely sure it existed yet in Middle-earth. Either way, it wouldn't be there.)
Why doesn't Kaitlyn get named? Because I didn't feel up to trying to figure out a Quenya name with the same meaning (or a similar one) to "Kaitlyn", that's why :D Very simple, really.
And on that note...enough notes!
~Z
"DesireeâŠ"
Desiree paused halfway across the deserted stage. The thickly-accented voice had come from the wings, the speaker hidden in the shadow of the curtain. "Yes?"
"Is that⊠la Frrrrench?"
"Um." She could make out a figure now - a man, she thought, solidly built, with some sort of hat atop a wild head of hair. "No?"
"Are you la sure?" The man stepped out, and Desiree recognised him at last: Mattman the Comet. She'd never actually seen him before, being very new, but he was wearing an oversized namebadge saying Bonsoir! Mon name is le Mattman the Comet, so she felt safe in her conclusions.
"It sounds la Frrrrench," Mattman continued, reaching up and tugging his beret down more firmly onto his head. "Desiree⊠DesirĂ©e⊠DĂȘçirrrrĂ©ĂšâŠ"
"That's really not how it's pronounced," Desiree said, but her heart fluttered - as all women's will, along with most men's - at the sound of her name being spoken in a French accent. "Are you here to-?"
"Oui." Mattman stepped forward and took her hands. From the empty auditorium, music struck up, and Desiree felt her skirts swirl in a mysterious breeze. "Je am here to⊠le dance."
"Isn't this a tango?"
"... maybe?"
"I didn't think the tango was French."
"La shh. It is le Shipfest."
My only apology is to the French language. I ran across my 2015 forays into it and felt a burning need to revisit.
hS
Neshomeh was sad.
Thoth was happy.
Neshomeh got sadder.
Thoth felt bad.
Neshomeh felt guilty.
Thoth felt guiltier.
Neshomeh got a bit better.
Thoth got a lot better.
Neshomeh was delighted.
So was Thoth.
And then they were both very tired.
I think you'll agree this version is much better. ^_~
Feel free to pilfer any lines you want (that one was rewritten A LOT to remove any trace of physicality); they are not precious to me.
"Detail-oriented, focused, and competent" - this, along with 'owlish', has been my go-to description of you ever since the Archivist.
hS
I wonder what else you agree on. [Waggles eyebrows]
More seriously: I had to put in the effort! The point isn't that nonphysical description doesn't work at all - it's that having no physical grounding leads to incoherency even when some of the lines are well-written. You could pull almost any paragraph out of this story and use it as a 'fade to black', but stringing them together to make a 'scene' gives... well, shipfic. ^_~
hS
Your suggested spell check is not working try this spell check
I just know the memes from hanging around people who do.
What in the name of the Traveler did you DO???
Seriously, though, this is hilarious. I'm sure that if you got far enough to joke about "Vex milk," then you know you got the wrong description... and then the other meme comes in.
Bravo, Tomash. I stand in awe of your disjointed plot ideas.
Hello, am Cal, opting in
personhood is Vague at this moment and thinking about my appearance is hugely dissociative so
have fun thinking about how I look
feel free to either reference the actual photographs of me I've given to the Discord, either to get it as right as possible or as wrong as possible, or to just... use energy
whatever you want
--???
(edit from Cal Proper: I use they/them pronouns, I'd prefer to be stuck in obviously comical ships (cargo ships seem to be a trend and I'm pretty Here For It), and much like Moons down below, I'd prefer we not be shipped together, for the same reasons.
If you need ideas, I'm all about yarn - they didn't nickname me the Yarn Goddex for no reason - and currently appear as the Pied Piper of Dragons. Dragon-riding yarn deity descending from on high to get into mortal shenanigans? Deity stuck in human form, by will or by force, naturally gravitating towards their own domains and possibly getting seduced by cute craft store employees? Just a random person with enough yarn to trip over one's own shopping bags? Who knows! Not me! And I have certainly never done that before.)
Some of the descriptive language here is actually remarkably solid by the standards of shipfest, as Nesh noted.
However, I am in the process of cringing/laughing out of existence. So well done.
GMA laid in bed, happily cuddling his partner, who was running all six of their limbs over GMA's naked body, making him moan with pleasure as they hit the spots they knew he liked being touched on best. The couple had been having a nice evening, including a romantic dinner, and were now relaxing together.
Soon, however, GMA could tell his partner wanted more from their insect-like chittering. However, as he got ready to receive some Vex milk (especially since his own pulse rifle was charging up, if you know what I mean), a dragon burst into the room!
"Geema," she cried, "How could you? I thought we had a connection! I thought you were all about that LIZARD SECKS?!"
GMA hastily set up and untangled himself from his new snuggle-buddy. "My tastes have expanded," he said, "and I thought we'd talked about this."
"Yes, but aren't I your closest love?"
"You still are, but I wanted to get back to Destiny. It's been a while."
The dragon harumphed, letting loose a bit of steam.
"You could join in?" GMA suggested. "Destiny has dragons too."
The dragon, deciding to leave this sort of thing for badfic, stormed out, and GMA returned to snuggles and other things that happen after a fade to black.
(( I'm not apologizing for this idea I randomly had ))