The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

Not a rhetorical question. What about this fic makes you want to spork out your eyes, beat your head against a wall, and/or pull out your hair? What about it simply must be seen to be believed? The fun of badfic is in the possibly hyperbolic but never author-bashing discussion of it. {= )

~Neshomeh

checks which tube train to get

See you guys at the Science Museum! :)

"Wait! How did she manage to fall off the tree and off Alex at the same time? Or was that consecutive? She fell off the tree on Alex’s head, and then fell off him?"

"Actually, there is a note in the comments, saying that actually Ce’rana is meant to fall off the tree and Alex is meant to fall in the dirt, both apparently caused by the rocking world."

"Why isn’t this in the text, then? If somebody wants to use their words economically, shouldn’t they try to avoid having to add explanations after the fact?"

Agent Hieronymus, you are daydreaming again. PPCing the PPC is not your job.

---

Yeah, sorry about that (and for being late). Using some more words, like "... promptly fell off the tree while Alex fell to the dirt ..." might work better there.

Also, I feel like there is a word missing in Ce’rana stared after him for a moment, then the tool in her hands .... ("at the tool"? Certainly not "after the tool", which might be implied by leaving it out.)

Aira pulled back from Herobrine, then punched him in the stomach.
Is that a mini-Sue?

Herobrine Melody, you here hereby charged with being a demigod within a system having no mechanics to facilitate such a thing,
Should be "are".

I don’t know anything about Minecraft, or The Belgariad, or the Fate series (titles should be italicized, BTW, or de-italicized in an italicized disclaimer), so I don’t really have anything to say other than: I could mostly follow the events in this mission, and I may like to see how these agents develop further.

HG

I dreamt I got loads of concrit! Dreams being dreams, I can't remember what any of it was, sadly. If I could it would probably be irrelevant to anything I've written.

but Ix got there first. I definitely like the sound of some of these things, though.

Food: everything delicious from every canon: lembas, Every-Flavour Beans... *stomach rumbles*

Fish fingers makes sense, although it seems a bit obvious... my brain’s asleep right now so I can’t think of anything else.

Glad you liked the prompt!

It's obviously not PPC, but I don't mind. In fact like that a lot. While I don't know who any of the characters are per se I can follow the prompt really easily and I congratulate you for that.

In a roundabout sense, Salmon is a type of fish, what do hands have (fingers), and angry is in their as a personal reference only 5 other people would get and I'm the only one of them in the PPC. But can you think of anything that relates to fish, fingers and custard?

The best idea I got is a "Hall of Agents" where all the great agents of the past are honored like Jay and Acacia (natch)... does anyone else have any suggestions?

American at Hogwarts, who is also Hermione’s cousin.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3174333/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Secrets-Revealed

Yeah, I gotta say everything here is completely fair. It was never really my interest to explain *how* Nic and Summer met, so I mighta... kinda skimped on that part. As for the mission, wow. I can't believe I totally overlooked all that stuff. Shame on me for not getting more opinions, I guess! As for all the business of Nic, yeah, I can kinda see how he would stress the reader, but *sighs* his chaotic personality is near and dear to my heart. I honestly felt like he would work *way better* in the context of a mission... I'm not really sure how to chill him out over normal activities, but I suppose that's my problem.

Thanks a lot for the feedback! Due in part to my own impatience, I have kinda been flying blind on the whole reception front and it's really good to get another pair of eyes. I'll keep what you said in mind as I make my revisions.

EPL had volunteered to help, but hadn't actually done anything until, like, the night of me posting the Request, and I wasn't sure they were done yet and I just didn't want to credit them until I knew for sure it counted. No disrespect to EPL, of course - I appreciate your help a bunch. So yeah that's why I hadn't credited them yet. *shrug*

Starts off fun, turns funny (especially at the Severitus bit, from what I remember--been holding onto this comment for a few days), and ends gorgeous. Very nicely done.

~Z

I went off to try catching up a little (I've been...not hugely active on the Board for the past few weeks or so, given that I've been really busy), and there's a post down-Board with EPL volunteering as a beta? If she did beta your permission request, she ought to be credited as well :) Probably just an oversight, but something to bear in mind for the future--if someone's been your beta, it's only polite to credit them (unless they specifically request you don't. Doesn't happen often, to my knowledge, but once in a while there's a reason. The most frequent reason I've heard was 'I don't feel I really did enough to be credited as a beta reader').

~Z

Ah. So.

I've read through this, and I thought I'd give a few comments. Namely...well.

I do like Summer. I liked him a little better from his bio, funnily enough, but he's still fine in an actual scene. Your writing is also pretty good, from my reading; I didn't go trying to pick it apart, but nothing really jumped out at me when it came to SPaG, etc. Your descriptive writing is also nice. So that's great already.

Thing is, Nic...I really do not get Nic. He's, ah--well, look, I could see someone like him being interesting to read about, but as it is? He's too much for me in the bio, and he's too much in the story. He's confusing to read; he careens around the room, he changes every other second and it's unclear whether he does or doesn't have control over it (he seems not to right up until the bit where he looks like Nico and then it suddenly gets more ambiguous)...for me, he's just really, really too much. I think he'd need to be toned down quite a bit for me to even just not feel exhausted trying to keep up with him. The main thing I did like about him, beyond that he seems to mean well and like Summer, is the bit with the mac and cheese--the little detail about somehow changing cheese powder to actual cheese was amusing and *did* feel like something I'd want to read about both in general and I think in PPC writing, too. I think Nic at the heart of him is a nice sort of character; I just think his current window dressing, so to speak, is far too busy to really get along with as a reader.

A few more technical things:

-Had Nic and Summer already met? In the first piece it sounds very much like they know each other, and not at all just superficially (they seem to have a grasp of each other's names, personalities, powers...they read like they're already good friends)--yet Nic's only been there a week, there's no clarification regarding previous meetings, and it kind of seems like they're moving into a new RC (rather than Nic moving in with Summer? Moving into a new RC would be perfectly fine, it just...really isn't clear what's going on and why). It's never explained if and where they've met before, or even if it's a new RC (unless I just missed a mention)...I think we need more information, preferably in the text. We're very much lacking context.

-The destroying the RC piece: I...really wouldn't mind a little more context there, as well. Why did Nic already go in? Or did he not go on the mission? Did Summer even *finish* the mission? Where he was on a mission *to* is less important, since it's not the focus (though I *am* curious), but the other questions...again, we're missing just enough context to have a few too many niggling questions while reading.

-The writing just feels...it's very *busy*. I think a lot of that is due to writing Nic--who might work a little better as a cartoon character, honestly, except that even there he'd be very hard to keep track of. It doesn't really help me picture the scenes as more than exhausting shenanigans, at times.

The badfic: I don't know much about the canon, so I'll take your word for it. Personally, I don't often go for fics that *warn* they'll be OOC, but that's my personal preference. You're probably good on this front.

(Do I recognize you? Of course I recognize you. I'd say you're pretty well integrated into the community, by this point.)

And one last thing: I know this has gone through at least one other iteration. Good for you for putting so much work into it! I'm guessing Thoth is the only one who betaed this particular version, as no one else is listed?

Personally, at this point I'd say Permission Denied (but able to be obtained by remembering to give a touch more context and also toning down Nic--where is he *from*, by the way?), but I really wouldn't mind a second opinion.

~Z

PS: ;lakjsdf never, ever fail to repeatedly copy what you're typing in here and keep an eye on your keyboard. I'm using a different one than usual, and hit the back button when I went for where the tilde key normally is. Thank *everything* that when I went forward to the page everything I'd written was still there. Wow.

Tiger wasn’t exactly in the best of moods, to put it mildly. This was because of his left hand, which was chalk-white and lifeless. He couldn’t move it at all, but at least it was no longer causing him pain.

So, when the butler unveiled a platter of perfectly cooked salmon, he was extremely angry.

“Salmon?” he said incredulously. “Did it have to be today?”

“And custard for dessert,” responded Holly, with her smuggest expression.

Tiger only just managed to stop himself from groaning audibly.

“Holly won,” Francis remarked mildly, “so she gets to choose the meal.”

Under his breath, Tiger muttered, “And of course she chose salmon and custard because she likes it and it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she knows I hate it…”

As if placing a potentially deadly spell on his hand, then “killing” him in a training battle, wasn’t enough, she just had to add insult to injury by ensuring that his least favourite food was served.

The other problem was that he was left-handed, so he wouldn’t be able to cut the salmon the normal way. He stared at the slice of orange fish which had just been placed on his plate and wondered how hungry he really was and whether it was worth the effort of trying to cut it up for something he didn’t even like.

That was when he came up with the idea of using magic: a basic Cutting Spell shouldn’t tax his abilities too much and would get the job done without having to try and use the wrong hand.

Carefully, he began chanting the same few words again and again, watching as the salmon was scored with lines. When he was done he felt a little tired, but at least that ordeal was over. Now all he had to do was actually eat the disgusting thing.



Was there some kind of reference in that one as well? If so, I missed it.

In the words of Macbeth: "Oh horror, horror, horror!"

With the title of this post, I was hoping I wasn't going to have to point this out, but for future reference:

It would have been better to add this to your previous thread about badfic. Actually, all three of your new-thread posts could probably have been made as replies to the WBWL post.

The Board isn't moving so quickly that it's a really big deal right now, but there are a limited number of threads that display on the first page, and each new thread pushes an older one off. That's why we discourage posting more than one new thread in a row, especially if they're on the same topic. In this case, adding to existing badfic threads is even mentioned in the Constitution (article 21.5), so please give that another gander, and check out the FAQ: The Board, too.

Also, protip: Avoid typing in all-caps. Nobody likes being shouted at. {= )

Thanks!

~Neshomeh

Right, so the second link is actually a cover for the actual fic. There’s a link to the fic and it’s author in there, though.