... which is why Priss, despite misgivings, has decided to go on tour, with performances planned in Atlas Park, Talos Island, Founder's Falls (if they can get the permits), and Ancient Cimerora*.

(* dates not yet fixed, check your history books and plan to have purchased your tickets before yesterday)



(reference image:  )

*********

Illusion/Sonic controller, because I have incurable altitis and also because I don't feel like I have enough support characters yet, and also also because "Priss And Her Replicants" is too long a hero name, so "The Replicants" has to do instead.  It's just a shame that Phantom Army doesn't come until so late in the leveling curve.

So, I recently criticized a Beware of Chicken fanfic (this one) for problems relating to the "Unicorn in the Garden" rule as applied to fanfic.

I later elaborated (on another site, so I'm quoting here), when the author started adding entire multi-paragraph author's notes on the things he was changing in the background. Disregarding some story-specific stuff:

Aleh Wrote:I'm just going to paraphrase what I said over in SB: Why?
 
The "unicorn in the garden rule" is a thing for a reason. You have your premise: Jin attracts Su Ge's attention and stays in the Cloudy Sword Sect as a result.
 
Making the rot worse than it was in canon, changing the backstory with Shen Bu, altering the base cultivation system... just... why? They don't aid the story: they detract from it. You don't need to do any of those things to tell this story. It's just... pointless.

Aleh Wrote:The point is that you're not making your canvas, as you put it. You're borrowing an unused section of Casual's, and that's part of the premise of the story.

Jin, at the start of canon -- and this AU -- is disillusioned with the idea of "seeking the heavens," as you put it. Him coming around to that sort of position isn't the premise -- it's the planned outcome of a character or story arc. It's a destination, not the beginning.

By changing things in the background to contradict canon, you're changing the starting point. You're adding an extra unicorn to the garden, as it were.

This is a problem.

Aleh Wrote:Look to the other AU timelines -- Casualfarmer's, in other words -- to see what I mean. The Dark Meiling timeline changes when Jin never shows up, and thus things start going spectacularly wrong for Meimei, sending her on a vengeance quest. The unicorn there isn't Meimei as a vengeful wandering cultivator -- it's Jin never showing up. Everything else flows from that.

In the SHI timeline, Jin is sent to the SHI instead of the CSS. As a result, he has different experiences, meets different people, goes on different adventures, and eventually adopts a different dao. The unicorn there isn't Jin as a roaming skyship captain -- it's Jin being sent to a different sect. Everything else flows from that.
In the JSYR timeline, Jin decides against going to the Azure Hills and instead settles down somewhere else. This leads to him contracting with a different (and more intact) earth spirit and creating a different sort of "farm" (or ranch). The unicorn there isn't Jin as a rancher. It's Jin settling down somewhere else. Everything else flows from that.

In yours... Su Ge steps in to help Jin, leading to him not staying in the CSS. But then we find out that the situation in the CSS isn't what it was in canon. But then you change the background with Shen Yu and Shen Bu, as well as the overall political situation of the Empire. But then you change the cultivation system itself in ways that contradict canon. So Jin doesn't leave a different sect and situation from canon, leading to him facing problems whose existence contradicts canon, and facing heaven via a different system from the one he abandoned in canon.
Sooner or later, and I'd argue sooner between the two, this stops being a Beware of Chicken fic and simply becomes a fic that's vaguely inspired by Beware of Chicken and is held down by the elements of canon it retains. It's trying to be two different things at once and suffering for it.

Or, to put it a different way, it's chasing two rabbits at the same time, and that's a bad thing.

Quote:Great argument, now tell similar thing to EVERY SINGLE FANFICTION IN THIS EARTH.

Quote:The beautiful thing about fanfics is that they aren’t canon and don’t have to follow it 100%.

Quote:Cope. Seethe, even.

Maybe do some malding while you're at it.

Because this fanfiction that explores the side the verse that the original canon tosses to the wayside, to put frankly, fucks....

This one has been simmering for a while. I made a couple passes through it to proof it, and decided to post it finally.

Luna Night...

At about twenty after ten this morning, local time, we got hit with a magnitude 4.8 earthquake. The epicenter was about 18 miles northwest of us.

It took a minute or so -- about 30 seconds longer than the earthquake lasted -- for us to realize what had happened. We've had a lot of heavy winds the last few days, and we thought we were in some freak windstorm that was trying to tear off the roof, based on the sounds we were hearing. I still ran around the house just to make sure there had been nothing like a tree hitting the roof or anything.

At least this time I noticed the quake. The last time one hit, back in 2011, I utterly failed to notice it at all. I was in the break room of my job at the time, getting coffee, and when I got back to my desk a coworker asked, "did you feel the earthquake?" "What earthquake?" I asked, thinking I was being pranked. But no... Now I can be the one asking. <grin>

EDIT: Just had to add this:

A thread for all those things about fan fiction or particular fanfics, you only realized a while after the fact.

Here. Some good ideas here. And I literally laughed out loud at the caption on the last one.

J. Michael Straczynski has finally assembled all the stories and notes Ellison collected over the decades into the book they were meant to be.

Add 'em if you've got 'em...

A selection of genuine jokes from the 41st millenium

---

Do not think heretical thoughts.
If you think heretical thoughts, do not speak heretical words.
If you think heretical thoughts and speak heretical words, do not write heretical sermons.
If you think heretical thoughts and speak heretical worlds and write heretical sermons, do not make heretical signs. 
If you think heretical thoughts, speak heretical words, write heretical sermons and make heretical signs…. 

Do not be surprised.
 
---

Three men share a cell in a magistratum catechiser station.  The first asked the second why he’s been arrested. 

“Because I criticised Cardinal Gideon,” says the second. 

“What a coincidence,” says the first. “I spoke out in favour of Cardinal Gideon.” 

They turn to the third man, sitting quietly in his penitent’s vestments. 

“I’m Cardinal Gideon,” he says.
 
----

Four Guardsmen on leave share a hotel room. Amasec and Lho sticks are found. The night grows long and loud as, fuelled by alcoholic courage, three of the men start to tell Heretical jokes. The Fourth, aghast and fearful of his soul, hatches a plan to save himself .

Unnoticed, he quietly calls the room servitor, requesting tea in room Traxis-Minoris-Three.
He joins the trio once more, and leans in to a bowl of Sorlens Viridians sat in the centre of the table.

“Explicator, please arrange for tea in room Traxis-Minoris-Three”

The trio are amused by the joke, up until the door opens. A deathly silence falls, as a pale-skinned servitor delivers for cups of recaff tea.

Our pious Guardsman sleeps soundly and peacefully.

He awakens to silence. His three friends are gone. In a panic, he hurries to hotel reception. An Enforcer is waiting for him.

“Where’re the lads?” he asked.

“Your comrades have been arrested for Heresy.” Says the Enforcer, gravely

“But what about me?” he asks in the smallest voice.

The Enforcer smiled. “The Explicator was amused by your prank.”

----

Two Magistrati are taking a break:

"So, I hear you collect Heretical Jokes?"
"Yes, I do!"
"How many do you have?"
"Two Servitor Colony's worth"

---

Two Magistrati are taking a break from their duties:

What's so funny?
I just heard the funniest joke.
Can you tell me?
I can't. I condemned a heretic to the pyre for it.

---

A man stands condemned to the pyres for telling heretical jokes.
His hands are bound to the stave.
The staves is doused in fresh promethium.
The hour of his judgement before the Throne draws near.
Only the match remains to be struck
His eyes dart around, glancing at his fellow condemned. The lost, the damned, the despairing.
Suddenly he recognises the figure tied to stake beside him -  The very Magistrator who condemned him to pyre.
"Magistrator?" He says, surprised. "What are you doing here?"
The dim light of recognition sparks in the Magistrator's eyes.
"You know," he says sadly, "someone told me the funniest heretical joke once...."

---

Two Priests are discussing ecumenical matters.

I see you've condemned Carpenter Titus to Servitude Imperpetua?
I sent him to investigate a crack in the refectory timbers and he came back babbling heresies about how the entire rotten church needed to be torn down.

---

What's the difference between an Adept and a Servitor?
At least the servitor can claim to have once had an imagination.

---

Two condemned heretics share a cell in a Magistrati Oubliette.

"So, what are you in for?" Asks the first

"I was caught using bags of 'Blessed fragments of Cadia' as gravel to make rockrete," says the second with a sigh.

"What a coincidence," says the first with a smile. "I was caught passing off ordinary bags of rockrete gravel as Blessed fragments of Cadia."


----------------


--- In the Grim Darkness of the far Future - sometimes you have to laugh.

Old thread is here.