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... Which, as I've been forced to explain several times already, isn't actually an "essay", but that's the only phrase under eight syllables that explains it. Not argumentative - informative. Not highly formal - comfortably polite.

I'm really, really sorry to be using you guys for this project yet again, but I'm tired, and stuck, and... I love you people. *looks pathetic*

So, if you'd like to try...

It's due tomorrow. Everything's done - the prose is written, the appendix arranged, the citations recorded, the bibliography (mostly) complete - but I still don't have a decent TITLE. Ideas I've had so far are a bit dull:

* Fanfiction: An Insider's Guide

* Fans, Fiction, and Fact: An Insider's Guide to the World of Fanfiction

* The World of Fanfiction: An Insider's Guide

See how it gets a wee bit repetative? They're all useable, but they're really not good.

So please; help me.

Some necessaries:

- "Fanfiction" must be THE prominent word. Duh. Preferably the first word, too.

- This paper is arranged to guide complete outsiders into the concept of fanfic and walk them through its conventions and problems, so "guide" would be a useful word - or something like it.
- I've made no secret of the fact that I'm part of this world, so "insider's guide" type things would be appropriate.

- This is mainly about the stories, not the writers, but I like to say "the WORLD OF" fanfiction, or something all-encompassing like that.

- it doesn't have to have a subtitle

- it can be two words if you think that's enough; preferably not more than eight. Simple is effective

- it doesn't have to be flashy or catchy, but that would be nice

- clever puns are great so long as they're understandable to an oblivious outsider (think academics - english professors)

- alliteration (and other such devices) is/are welcome so long as it's not over-done


Examples from my teacher (from existing books and popular styles for this sort of writing) are:

~ The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness, and the Oxford English Dictionary - yes, that's a real book. Apparently it's okay. Title makes it sound even better, though *hint*

~ Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the World's Greatest Scientific Problem - another a real book, which I have read. Quite good.

~ Nathaniel's Nutmeg - also a real book.

~ Tolkien's Nightmare: The Fans Who Changed The Story - a not-useable title I made up in class as part of a work-up-to-the-final project assignment.

Apparently "So-and-So's Mundane Item" is a fairly common style, as is "The Blank Which Changed the Blank". Both of which are irrelevant in this context, and just goes to show that I'm up too late.

... Yeah. As you can tell by my babbling, I have NO idea what to do. I'm really, really tired and about to fall into bed. I need a good title tomorrow.

ANY and ALL ideas are welcome. Here's some brain-fuel: *hands out chocolate in advance*

*HUGS* I swear I'll do you all some sort of favour in return.

1) And there's nothing wrong with that; it's just something you need to sort out in your own mind (even if you never tell anyone about it in detail).

2) And that's fine. Given that there's at least a few Agent pairs consisting of an author and a character she's made, we can't say non-canon'd Agents aren't allowed, can we?

3) Well... my point here is that people usually (poss. read: exclusively?) start by writing one series of missions. Those of us who have several lines of Agents -- myself, I think Artemis did, Laburnum, a few others -- all started with one team and then introduced others. Given the general drop-off rate when it comes to missions (very few PPC authors have gotten past three stories posted), starting off with Agents who don't work together is a bit, well, dubious.

Not to say they can't be from different Departments and still work together. Gunny and Wayne started out separate, just off the top of my head.

Anyway. Waiting until you figure out how to handle this before granting permission.

hS

... but the god and not-the-god were both Kit, not Kip.

hS

Well, my cursive back then was quite loopy...

It still shows a lack of brain cells. Honestly. If I was named "Jennipen" I would probably tell my teachers to call me something else.

And seventh grade is around...11-13 years old.

How the heck do you get 'Jennipen' from 'Jennifer'? Surely common sense would kick in and you'd stop and go 'hey, that ain't right'.

How old is seventh grade again?

However, given the huge collection of portal devices, universes with time machines, and so on that we have access to, I would be inclined to say that you could land in World One at basically any time you wanted, like it was any other fic.

*hates the athletic Sue's like only an artsy, bookworm of a stick figure girl can.*

It would be easy to set a remote activator to a time just after the agent left. Depending on how time in HQ has treated them, there may or may not be noticeable age differences to worry about, but that's another issue, and it could probably be solved with the disguise generator or a world with a reverse time flow. The possibilities are endless, really.

~Neshomeh

This isn't really important in the grand scheme of things, but I think your Kip will make the fourth of that name in this organization, the first two being Kip the pirate, Kip the god, and Kip not-the-god. Not to mention Kippur the Boarder, who somewhat-ironically is responsible for an Agent Alec.

I could be wrong about the number of previous Kips, but there are at least two others for sure.

I'm not saying change it, but I am saying be aware. {= )

~Neshomeh

But the MS could stand for many bad things, I suppose. He's a real nice guy too, it's a shame.

I have a vampire agent too, for whenever I get my nerve up to asking Permission (mostly I've just been too tired to write a sample lately). She's from Nyeusigrube, and she'd probably go a bit psychotic (foaming at the month) at Twilight. Come to think about it, maybe I should just keep her away from those books. Far away.

...right. What I *meant* to say was, whenever I get around to asking and, hopefully, receiving Permission I'd have an agent to come on the joint-vampires mission.

Means I'm not the first one with an Agent of confusing origin.

He was a Sue's pet fox and a badfic glitch turned him humanoid.

You never know how much time will pass between worlds.

One kid back in seventh grade couldn't read my handwriting. He was correcting my paper and put "Jennipen" down as my name instead of "Jennifer". I was so mad at him...
I forgive, but I'll never forget.

Some guys on this volleyball team at my school started rejoicing before the game was done, and I tried not to tell them to beware the Ironic Overpower. Instead...I said to not jinx it.

They didn't listen, but the IO did. The team lost.

I remember seeing someone say that if, when you're in HQ, you stop and think "Hey, time should be passing," it does. Otherwise it tends to drift. Me, I was just clumsily trying to work out an actual timeline for my stuff on a couple occasions and I was more-or-less winging it, so don't take anything I did timewise as undiluted PPC-canon.

On a related note, I have to say I hope they have a way to slow it down, otherwise S&S and the M-kids would age at four times the rate of a human. Eh, there's probably some drug in some continuum which would slow the aging rate ...

...they could go for a vampire fic. As long as it is not Twilight, of course. Kip would take great offense at the notion of Sparkle!vampires and would attempt to remove such abominations from the Multiverse.

1) It's not canonically possible, however it could logically be a badfic glitch. Though I personally enjoy the idea of Yuki having been a normal Froslass at one point and, by means of a complex series of events that included a few plotholes and a gerbil, she wound up humanized with little recollection of how it happened.

2) Ah, Kip. He's been a character that has existed in my imagination for some time, so I'd have to say my own creation. I think he first came into being about a year and a half ago, but I'm aware that the characteristics are unusual. It's not because I laugh at the idea that a vampire who attacks a human with a high blood-alcohol content would become similarly drunk, honest.

3) Hm, well I wasn't actually planning on having them work together as normal, at least not all the time. I couldn't find anything against having my first two Agents in different areas, but if this is a problem, I could work it out somehow.

...I've assumed that time in HQ is kind of like the geography. By which I mean that it doesn't stay in place and sort of moves all over depending on the individual. So while time is generally in tune with World One, it might also depend on how much time an Agent thinks has elapsed.

HST is tuned to World One most of the time; New Caledonia is occupied /now/, the AD 2004 Oxford Gathering caused problems in HQ in 2004 HST, there's Laburnum's interlude, etc etc. But not all cases fit. Agent Vemi, for instance, returned home "only a few days after she'd originally left". In general, however, HQ is synched to World One. We hope.

hS

Right. So how does time spent in HQ compare to the time elapsed in an Agent's home continuum (in this case, World One)?

Is it like an OFU, where if the Agent returns they arrive at the exact second they left, or does an equal amount of time pass in their home world? (I know Laburnum used the latter theory in an interlude...)

1) I'm very curious as to how an anthropomorphic Froslass could come to exist. I'm not too familiar with Pokemon canon, so is this something canonically possible, a badfic glitch, or something else?

2) Is Kip a vampire from any particular continuum? He seems to have a rather strange set of characteristics, so is this a canon type of vampire, a world you're working on, an invention for the PPC, or what?

3) I see you have one Floater, one Assassin. Generally Agents have partners in their own Departments, except for single-mission transfer duty. This being HQ, "tossed together by fate/random whim of Upstairs/plothole" is fairly common, but it does deserve commenting on; if you were just planning on them working together as if it were normal, you might want to rethink that.

Obviously you know the answers to these, but they're my immediate concerns when it comes to Permission.

hS

I keep on thinking (but not actually saying so far) 'stop making Mini-mes' every time someone misspells my name. My surname is pretty rare and even the college library has managed to get it wrong (even though I write it down for them) and my given name has two common spellings and people tend to go for the shorter (by one whole letter) one. It's a good thing that Minis don't exist, or I'd have a whole pack of them.

There's a teacher at one middle school my friend went to who, when using random student names for examples, likes to use the name Mary Sue.

I also spot misspelling of random names everywhere and wonder what the minis would look like. :)

Seriously, they need to all get together sometime.... although that might not be such a good idea.... *ponderponderponder*