The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

Honestly. I hope the pair of you learn some decorum soon. Or at the very least get yourselves some wipe clean furniture.

Keep in mind that this is a man with very high standards for himself and others. And by high, I mean "There are only three qualities of writing – amazing, spork-worthy, and not worth reading" high.

This... didn't really draw me in on the first read. The prose felt very beige. The characters didn't feel bright and vibrant. Their interactions lacked the energy they should have. They didn't react to the fic's shenanigans as often or as violently as they should. Part of that was probably yesterday's mood, but upon reading it again now, it still lingers. It's just not funny.

So, here are some tips for improvement.

• Spice up your characters' dialogue more. Add some exclamation marks when O'Ryan says, "Ow!" Have them do more than just go, "Oh, that's not how that works."
• Try to increase your characters' reactions to the fic's atrocities. For example, Cody turning into a T-shirt. That's pretty bad, and your agents' reactions to it should span more than two sentences that aren't even dialogue. Try to do some more with this scene, like showing how incredulous Kitty or O'Ryan are. As another example, you could have O'Ryan freak out more when his C-CAD is destroyed, or just have him complain about what that means.
• Wherever there is a chance to make a joke, make it. A good place to start would be when the Sue says, "this planet is nothing but organic life matter?" The planet would then become nothing but generic organic life matter – no bricks, no concrete, no stone, no molten-iron core, not even water. You could then proceed to show just how much this screws everything up – the loss of the Earth's iron core, for example, would eliminate its magnetic field with the ensuing consequences, and the low density of Generic Organic Matter compared to what the Earth is made out of would either cause gravity to decrease drastically or the planet to swell dramatically, causing pain for our agents.

With that out of the way, here are some smaller things that could improve it a bit more.

• Kitty giggled. The Words had interpreted "sweety" as "sweaty," and Blades was sweating very heavily. The period after "giggled" could be replaced by an m-dash – this would improve the flow because it would more clearly establish the connection between Kitty's giggling and Blades's sweating.
• She tightened her grip on his jacket, making O'Ryan realize that she was scared. This sentence is the opposite. The second clause should be split off into "O'Ryan realized that she was scared." Again, this would improve the flow of the scene by putting more emphasis on it. The simple sentences can draw the reader's attention to O'Ryan's realization about Kitty's emotional state.
• The team was giving Lunareclipse a tour of the firehouse. Looking at the Words, Kitty figured out that the Sue thought Boulder was the brains of the team while Blades... The "While Blades.." part doesn't work, because it's supposed to be in the part where Kitty is reading the Words. What follows it, however, is something Kitty supposedly witnesses in the fic-world. The unmarked transition is jarring. I would suggest reworking this part.

While Tomash's comment on AO3 is correct - this is pretty solid and doesn't overquote the fic – it could use some work before it becomes truly good in my eyes. Don't worry, though – as long as you take criticism, I'm sure you'll get the hang of this.

But hey, that's just a-

Damian Thorne was shot by ???

even though that's kind of dumb because clean and beautiful light is better than grimy, smoky candles and torches

What about radiation? Or magnetism? And the various units derived from those?

I like to talk about stuff I've read and seen, and since I'm a bit of a film and literature nerd, sometimes I like to go for the lesser-known side of the spectrum. I'm a pretty on-and-off writer overall, but lately reading the fantastic, thoughtful and smart horror literature blog Too Much Horror Fiction (which I very much recommend to horror fans!) has really renewed my interest in blogging, so... yeah. New blog.

You can find it here, if you wish to take a look; so far I've reviewed Lovecraft and claymation, a very rare collector's item of a movie novelization, and a Gothic novel that... er... I had some opinions about. I know the title is lackluster, but this is a pretty new blog (it's about two weeks old, give or take), and I've always been bad at titles. Here's to hoping I'll find a better one in the future.

Enjoy, I guess?

Well, it worked well last month, so have three more Prompts to write to. If you want to continue using last months prompts or a reminder on the "rules" you can find them here. Regardless, have fun and write stuff!

The three Prompts for this month are:

1) Man walks into a bar. Ouch!

2) One of your characters tells a really bad joke

3) "How many people does it take to change a lightbulb?"

Nova

And here it is, complete with the revelation that a food calorie should actually be written as 62 377 milin.lár²/lúmë².

EDIT: If anyone has any other units or values that they want converting, let me know and I'll add them to the list!

Hmm... what's the derivation of 'bit'? 'Binary digit'... well, there's notessë for 'numeral', but binary? Oh, wait:

Notesset, or '(natural) pair of numerals'. That's a nonsense statement in Quenya, as numerals don't form a natural pair (such as 'pair of hands') - there's ten of the blighters! The only way you can form a natural pair is to work in binary, where there's only two. Hence, a notesset is a single bit. (A quick delve into computer science reveals that a byte - a joke which wouldn't work too well in Quenya - is also known as an octet, so perhaps simply toldo, 'an eight', would work there. Thoughts most welcome.)

hS

How utterly unexpected!

This is going on Netilardo, right? Because it should.

~Neshomeh

(( Because I looked up the original word [one smoot, many smoots, btw] and found some more in the same vein. ^_^

~Neshomeh ))

I'm bad at basic English? I thought I at least had that down pat!

"This was a good introduction mission! It gives a simple first impression of the agents and their dynamic together, and also highlighted very clearly how the fanfiction didn’t work with canon."

Thanks! I was afraid that it wasn't going to be good, which is why I tried to wait for another beta. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

" I liked the unique idea of O’Ryan needing to read the words through a spinning yo-yo string."

Like I said to hS, I figured O'Ryan wouldn't get off too easily with reading the words because of his curse.

"One thing that wasn’t clear to me was why O’Ryan kept getting affected by the narration of the fic, but not Kitty. Is that a problem that’s unique to him, or is Kitty’s nature as a Mii blocking the fic’s ability to control her?"

It's a problem unique to O'Ryan. He has an IO curse of sorts which makes the narration affect him more than Kitty.

"Congratulations on your very first doctorlit typo report"

Yes!

"I look forward to hearing more from you!"

Thanks!

"Oh, also, I would like to adopt Cyberteonian."

scribbles that down

"Since you created the mini type, are there any notes you’d like to share about how mini-Vehicons look and behave?"

They tend to be loyal to their owner, a carryover from the Vehicons being loyal to Megatron minor Prime spoilers. You could probably command them to do something and they would do it. They are shorter in height than Kitty (who is 3 foot 2) and they adopted their canon counterparts' "speak only when it's funny to do so" behavior. Their canon counterparts could speak in full, grammatically correct sentences. Most of them are purple, although TFwiki said they could come in other colors as well (I need to check which). They have two forms: their not form and one vehicle form. Said vehicle form can be a car, airplane/jet, a tank, or a helicopter. Their vehicle form is about the size of a model car/jet/helicopter/tank.

Here's an image from Prime

Note that these transform into cars, notable with the car wheels. Airplane versions don't have that.

Since your mini is a species name, you get to decide what it transforms into.

Kittyauthor, who had to edit this post a few times because the image wasn't showing up.

"Your writing style sends me right back to the early days of the PPC - back before we all stumbled into mile-long missions which were only complete when somebody died."

I don't like killing off my characters. And mile long? As in, 10k words and over? I saw quite a few of them, but I also saw 2k-3k word fics as well, so I'm not the only one who writes short missions. Either way, I'm glad I remind you of the early days.

"Things that stuck out were the yoyo (which amused me)"

Thanks! I thought I was going to make people mad by breaking that mold a little bit. Every mission I saw had characters that could just stare at a space and see the words or look off into space and see them. I wanted to be a bit different with O'Ryan, and I figured that his curse wouldn't allow him to get off too easily with the words, you know?

"and the maths discussion (which charmed me)."

They love math. I love math. It's easy to talk about for me. I'm glad you liked it so much!

I'll get to the SPaG. Doc pointed that one out too.

"Welcome to Team Mission Writing. Hope you have fun!"

Thanks! Hope you have fun reading my stuff!

Kittyauthor, who is glad that their first mission wasn't a flop.

This was a good introduction mission! It gives a simple first impression of the agents and their dynamic together, and also highlighted very clearly how the fanfiction didn’t work with canon. I liked the unique idea of O’Ryan needing to read the words through a spinning yo-yo string.

One thing that wasn’t clear to me was why O’Ryan kept getting affected by the narration of the fic, but not Kitty. Is that a problem that’s unique to him, or is Kitty’s nature as a Mii blocking the fic’s ability to control her?

Congratulations on your very first doctorlit typo report:

“It probably had to do with the fact that they both loved math and loved to explain to each other on how they solved math problems.”
The “on” is redundant. The phrase, “explain to each other how they solved” sounds just fine as it is!

“He snagged the objects that they would need for the mission: a C-CAD, crash dummy, a backpack to put these things in, a neuralizer, D.O.R.K.S, and, of course, an RA.”
“neuralyzer”

“‘O’Ryan?’ she repeated, putting her shaking hand onto O'Ryan shoulder.”
“O’Ryan’s”

“‘It isn't canon for him to just go and throw a book at someone. He set the C-CAD down.”
The quotation mark after “someone” is missing.

“‘What a first mission,’ O'Ryan said, dropping the backpack full of stuff and the newly acquired scythe onto the ground and flopping into this rolling chair.”
I assume “this” was supposed to be either “his” or “the”?

I look forward to hearing more from you!

Oh, also, I would like to adopt Cyberteonian. Since you created the mini type, are there any notes you’d like to share about how mini-Vehicons look and behave?

—doctorlit, reviewing

Your writing style sends me right back to the early days of the PPC - back before we all stumbled into mile-long missions which were only complete when somebody died. (I blame... uh, me for that.) It's really nice. :)

Things that stuck out were the yoyo (which amused me) and the maths discussion (which charmed me). The only SPG error that I noticed was the missing closing quote in this paragraph: "It isn't canon for him to just go and throw a book at someone. He set the C-CAD down. Could he have looked ahead in the Words, he wouldn't have placed it on the floor.

Welcome to Team Mission Writing. Hope you have fun!

hS

I only read your mission, not the original fic. I'm horrified, yet entirely unsurprised, to learn that the rest of the story is worse . . .

:(

—doctorlit, horrified, yet entirely unsurprised

Length

Base unit: ranga = 38 inches ('Numenorean Yard').

5000 rangar = 1 lár ('league', approx. 3 miles)

Time

Base unit: lúmë = 1 hour

24 lúmi = 1 ré (day) 365 ri + 5.81 lúmi = 1 coronar (solar year, defined precisely by Tolkien as 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds) 144 coronari = 1 yén (Great Year)

Weight

Base unit: Mírim = 1 pennyweight (0.055 oz). Quite pleased to find this is an actual British unit, and does actually mean the weight of a silver penny.

1/24 mírimi = 1 milin ('grain'; the English pennyweight = 24 grains, so why not?)

Power

Technically unnecessary, but it makes things easier when working with energy:

Base unit: *Poldore rocco = 1 horsepower ('strength of a horse') = 745.7 watts. (We're using the imperial horsepower here; I don't think Tolkien liked metric.)

Temperature

This one was a struggle, until I remembered the original definition of a degree Celcius:

Base unit: *Niculallo welelanna = 100 C ('from freezing to boiling')

'wele' is actually an early, Qenya verb, but it seems to still be of a valid form, and... well, there's nothing better.

Quantity

Purely for entertainment value:

Base unit: *Noldare = 1 mol ('mole' in early Qenya. You know... the animal. ^_^)

Luminous intensity

I assumed this one would be impossible, but if I'm allowed pennyweight, then:

Base unit: Lícuma = 1 candlepower = 0.981 candela ('candle'). :D

Electricity can go hang; there's no way to get there within Tolkien's vocabulary. Other than that, we now have 6 of the 7 SI base units covered, so we can calculate anything we like. The speed of light? 1.12 x 10¹² rangar/lúmë. A McDonald's Happy Meal? 4.3 x 10^-8 poldore rocco-lúmi.

Tell your friends.

hS

...the wiki page!

Reading a lot on the wiki and as wide a variety of other missions as possible (including older ones, and by that I mean from the early 2000s as well as just 2014 or something, which is admittedly now six years ago) might help with gaining that understanding of the setting, including the early setting, that we're looking for, by the way. And I do understand not wanting to read missions into canons you don't know, but if you can stomach it it would probably be a good idea to at least skim TOS, or read the ones where Legolas isn't a focus/isn't present, given that it's what started this whole thing (which is a main reason why reading it is so prevalent here).

~Z, hopefully not editing into confusion. Also, how was 2014 six years ago. In two and a half years, I'll have been a Boarder for ten. What is this. Someone please explain. Ack.

But sadly this is not that mission. I'm sorry for there being so many. I've fixed them all. As for Luxury, I'm glad you liked her appearance, as I was a bit worried that I'd gotten her character wrong. I was also worried I'd made my agents succeed too easily in getting the canons together and handling them in HQ.

Are you yeeshing at the parts of the fic in the mission, or the fic on the pit? Because the parts of the fic I didn't cover are even worse, and I skipped plenty of awful even in the chapters I did cover.

What the heck is SPaG?

I hate a lot of fanfiction story devices and I use the wiki to complain.