So, apologies if my criticims is wrong.

Negative: You did not expand on PPC world after the beep, and you did not explain some abbreviation. What's RC, anyway?. But I'm nitpicking here, and since this is a short story, not very big complaints.

Positive: You manage to leave enough questions in your story to make me want to know more about the mission.

Well, I did my requirement, now to consider writing a new submission.

"Oh, a question, I guess I'll reply to that - but wait, then she'll expect me to concrit as well - I guess I have to now..."

Anyway, yes, there will be another, although I'm not sure when. Actually-monthly might be a bit of overload... we'll see.

~

Your dream sequence was, er, extremely surreal, which I imagine was the point. So you achieved that very well. Charlie's taking of looks was pretty amusing, too.

In the non-dream section, I think you've got the agent-agent interaction pinned down: the 'Well, yeah, being gored by a unicorn generally--' exchange worked particularly well, I think.

I'm not sold on the third-person present tense. I think present tense works well for first and second person, and for 'pseudo-second person' - ie, things like this, where there's an unspoken 'You sit down and watch the following'. I think it also worked well for the dream section - it gave a sense of surreal immediacy to it. But I don't think it works all that well for the 'real' portion. Not entirely sure why, though.

You also filled the dream section with the word 'will', and I'm not sure how intentional it was.

"My name is Will. [...]"

"You--you will?" Charlie breathes. "Oh, Pip--Will, you'll be the hero of the entire PPC!"

"Of course I will," says the hobbit, and suddenly becomes Will Turner...

That's five in three paragraphs. Now, I think that could be used to heighten the surrealism - 'Of course I will - I am Will' - but it reads more like an accident here. I'd actually be really interested to see you take it overboard and create a couple of paragraphs full of Will (the name), Will (Turner, the character), will (the future tense word), will (strength of mind), a will (the legal document), to will (to wish something into happening), to will (to leave something in a will), and any other meanings you can think of, woven into something that makes sense, and can be understood on a reasonably casual readthrough, but is still disorienting.

"Of course I will," said Will. "I will, because I will it so - and my will is strong, and I will will a will into existence - and in that will, I will will to Will the will to do this thing!"

... I think I just made myself dizzy.

hS

I don't remember doing that. Did I do that?

No, Dafydd. It's just a story. Remember? You did read the rules...

Rules? Rules are for the... er... yes, all right. So it didn't actually happen, even though it says it did?

That's right. I know it's one of the tricky ones, but try to get your head round it

... I'd complain that you're embarassing me, Connie, but I sort of walked into it, didn't I?

Yes, dear, you did. Now, are you leaving a review, or what?

Oh. Right. That. Ahem:

I definitely liked the idea behind this story. Obviously in the real wo- sorry, in Arda, the idea of shopkeeping orcs is ludicrous, but this is the PPC; you can recruit anything you can find, and you can find anything in badfic. And it is a hilarious notion - as is the idea of Ungoliant's children acting as weavers.

(Although, as an aside, I don't think you should mention that to the Doriathrim. They tend to be very wary of spiders in general, and given the place weaving holds in their hearts...)

Dafydd. It's a story.

Sorry. (Also don't tell Vairë unless you're tired of life)

Get on with it, or when we get home I'll-

Um, anyway, so I also thought you had excellent pacing. My appearance at the door was well-written, and the general flow of the story was good. Things were revealed just when you planned them to be, but with subtle lead-up that made it work very well.

Ironically, given 'my' comment on arriving in the shop, I do have to highlight your grammar. You slip between the past and present tenses at random, and your punctuation sometimes gets away from you - ...at our hiding place." Answered... should be ...at our hiding place," answered...

Your overall word-choice is also somewhat strange; not exactly wrong most of the time, but you definitely remind me of one of those agents who hasn't quite learnt English. I suppose that may be inevitable with one who used to speak only the Black Speech, but it's-

Dafydd? It's a STORY. They don't have the Black Speech in the real world. He probably speaks Spanish or something.

Well, my point about the word choice still stands, even if my wife nitpicks everything I say.

Not everyth- oh, a pox on you.

The story in general reminded me of the short fiction we used to see on the network by the PPC General Story owner - Leto Haven, that was his name. So (yes, Connie, I know it's a story, but) it seems appropriate that it crops up again in another shopkeeper. Of course, someone once told me he was dyslexic, so it probably isn't the same issue, but in general terms.

That aside, I thought you had me characterised very well. You remembered about my hand (it's amazing how easy it is to forget), and most of my lines sound, well, pretty much like me. The one I object to is my explosive reaction to the Dark One's accident. I'd be far more likely to greet the sight with a raised eyebrow and a smirk, but not actually comment on it. Still and all, though, for someone I don't believe I've met, a good job.

Of course you haven't met him, it's a story and he's not in the PPC, so... oh, I give up. See you at home, don't stay out too long.

As if I would. I'm done here, anyway. Thank you, 'real' writer person, for an entertaining read.

>Dafydd Illian

Wait, does this mean I have to write a story now? It is in the rules...

Only if you desperately want to. But you can do it at home.

Yes, dear...

That was... pretty scary, to understate things somewhat. The style reminds me somewhat of my own After Midnight - the idea of a reasonably normal situation slowly dissolving into nightmare-madness. I don't know how well my version worked, but yours was very good. You hit the pacing very well, and I really liked the way you introduced the new elements. For instance:

She landed on her back, staring up at Paul, blinking away the raindrops every time they fell too close to her eyes.

You hadn't mentioned the raindrops before - but that's what makes it dreamlike. You have impossible things happen without anyone (ie, the narrator or Vania) commenting on them. It works particularly well here, because we don't (well, I don't) know anything about Paul - I just assumed vines was his thing, until it all got too surreal/scary even for that.

You also hit the description very well throughout - 'Paul's' eyes in particular stood out to me.

There are a few things that bother me - but they are very minor things. You have a typo for the 'think vines' (although that gives me delightful mental images), and I think you missed a great opportunity around 'bleen bag chair'.

I'm also a little puzzled by 'Vania tilted her head upwards to see the rest of RC251 upside-down'. She was apparently looking at a TV(?) when she 'woke up', then leant back into the bleenbag chair... and then tilted her head upwards, and the RC was upside-down? I guess you're meaning for her to be practically horizontal on a bleenbag in the middle of the room, but that doesn't really come across.

I don't particularly the random Lux interjection. I know why you did it, and it's a moderately funny line - but it a) puts Lux into Vania's dream (now there's a terrifying thought), and b) breaks the flow completely. Also c) assumed audibility through walls, but that's neither here nor there.

I'm also a little unsure what Vania's main emotion is during this scene. I mean, no, obviously it's terror - unless it's obviously guilt. I got that Vania (thinks she) killed Paul - but some things ('how is he here what did I do') imply he was about as monstrous as this version, and therefore probably deserved it, while others ("Are you going to kill Doc, too?") suggest she didn't mean to kill him.

Making my own story out of whole cloth, I'd guess there was something about Vania which either caused her to go out of control and kill Paul, or caused Paul to go out of control and try to kill her, with her killing him in self-defence. Either of those would hit the 'terror&guilt' emotion. I'm not sure she'd hit quite that note if, for instance, Paul got possessed by an evil ghost and she had to kill him - because unless she's in the habit of meeting evil ghosts, that wouldn't make her worry about killing Doc.

On the other hand, given how much I've just thought and written about it, I guess it's actually a good way of writing it. ;) You've pulled off the 'tease' thing, I think.

hS

This is a pretty cool set up for a new, antagonistic character. You've given us Arthur's world(s) view, and sent him running off, leaving our imaginations to fester over what kind of damage he could potentially do. I'm looking forward to seeing where his plot progresses, and how Nathan reacts to future behavior.

The set up to Arthur's intro is also good, though brief. Bringing up Ellipsia's expected long absence, and the console's silence, are good ways to ready a PPC reader for something unusual to come. I do think that first paragraph could have been stretched out a bit more, though, to draw out the reader's feeling of suspense.

Arthur's dialogue is also a bit inconsistent. His first few responses to Nathan are evasive lists of nonsense ("Here, there," "this, that," etc.) Then, Arthur switches to complete, detailed sentences. It's maybe supposed to feel like Arthur is toying with Nathan in the beginning, but the sudden change is still a little jarring. It might be worth it to look at the dialogue there and pace out the progression of Arthur's speech a bit more.

First for your story. I like the interplay between the two characters. There is a very "Darth Vader v Luke Skywalker" thing going on here which works really well. The building tension between them is wonderful.

Also, this, "Wait. Are you trying to friendship speech me?" Awesome.

Something I thought needed work was Arthur's exit. It doesn't quite work for me. Nathan pounces. Arthur portals. Nathan ends up on the floor in front of the portal as it closes. I just think, if he were going for a tackle (which seems evident from him ending up on the floor) that his momentum should have taken him past where Arthur was, and into the portal. I know that is something you don't want to happen in this story, so there should be some reason he doesn't. Maybe he tripped on the polystyrene balls, I don't know.

I think the reason that stands out is that this scene is rooted in the mental and emotional, so the one bit that is fairly physical needs to be strong to stand up with the rest.

Overall, well done. I can tell that we haven't seen the last of Arthur, and I am looking forward to finding out what he's up to and unraveling his mystery.



Now to reply to your concrit for my story. I'm glad the potted fern comes across well. The end of innocence is not something that I went in thinking about, but it is definitely there, now you mention it. And I'm glad those three words had the impact I was hoping for. That section got rewritten at the last minute to put those words at the end of the paragraph, which I think made a big difference.

I apologize for teasing too hard. I was aiming for mystery and I guess I overshot. I am going to try to rewrite it to add in some more information about what all went wrong. I want to keep some of the WHAM!s for the larger story, though. So it's a balancing act.

-Phobos

Thank you to hS and EF for their feedback. I have, I hope, made things a little more clear. Further comments are, as always, appreciated.

Catastrophe Theory: Bound and Gagged

-Phobos

I must say, I really enjoyed this - possibly because I'm a sucker for a good catastrophe timeline.

I thought you did a very good job of portraying a Legal functionary - there haven't exactly been many of them (actually, are there any named anywhere besides Chiaroscuro?), but you've pinned down what looks like the essence of Legal - unremarkable, but with the wicked sort of dry humour that can also be read as not understanding there's such a thing as humour. That 'I would be in violation' line is perfect.

I also think you pulled off the Potted Fern's speech/thoughts very well. It's got the right mix of anger, resentment and, ah, resigned dedication. You also made excellent use of Flower-type idioms, which is always a plus.

My main concern... well, no, I have two. The first is your insistence on lowercasing the Potted Fern. As far as I'm aware, every single Plant in the PPC's history has been referred to in capitals. One might occasionally see a lowercase used to describe the species of a named Flower - but even then, you'd usually get 'Captain Dandy was, of course, a Dandelion'. I think this derives ultimately from the Narnian habit of capitalising the species of talking animals - it shows up in the Wicked books, as well.

Of course, you've also worked this into the narrative with the 'Potted Fern Official' section - but I don't know that it really fits. I'd be tempted to drop the whole minefield, capitalise it throughout, and tweak the two sentences that needs it from 'It wasn't long before the capital letters started sneaking in...' to something more like 'It wasn't long before the additional title had started sneaking in when agents had addressed the lead Flower. The Potted Fern hadn't done anything to stop it, but it couldn't bring itself...'. It's actually sort of a shame, since that section is well-written and works, but...

That was my 'parenthetical aside' concern. The main concern is that I'm left kind of in the mist as to what's going on in the backstory. The lines like 'that meant having a Plant running the show' and 'So it had been chosen for the Council of Nine' sound like the PFO is part of the leadership of the PPC, though possibly as a figurehead. The stuff about Operation Sweeper and the Department of Resistance sound like it's part of the (duh) resistance against the leadership of the PPC, which could fit with the figurehead idea. But near the end, the PFO is going to tell the Council about the visit... which means they're in on things... which means they can't be who's being rebelled against... which either means they're not running the PPC, even though the opening implied they were, or they are, and the PPC has effectively renamed itself the Department of Resistance under some occupying force. You mention 'the invasion' in passing, but nothing clear.

Obviously, there's no need to spell out everything - it would be a very bad method of storytelling, actually. If, as I'm coming to suspect after repeated readings, the PPC and Council of Nine are under occupation, but secretly working against the occupier - some mention of 'Them' or some other non-specific term would make things a little clearer. Perhaps something as simple as, in the PFO's 'papers' rant, adding The invasion? The hell we've gone through under the Occupation? would clear things up.

If, of course, there is an Occupation. The fact that I can't tell is the basic point of this long ramble.

But that is a very minor point, in the scheme of things. It was a fun story to read, and well written to boot.

And now, I'm going to do some more chemistry (because work is, er, fun?), and then try to rework my own entry...

hS

I have to admit it might be a silly question as I don't follow social networks at all, but it sounds like another Circle of Lemmings...

Steve Dimond frowned at the door. “Tango?” he called. “Is that you? You really don’t have to knock.”

“But I might if I’m not Tango,” a muffled voice pointed out, and Steve jerked upright, practically falling out of his chair. He knew that voice!

As the door swung open, bounced, half closed again, and hit Steve’s elbow before finally coming to a stop, Constance Illian-Sims watched with a huge grin, stroking the miniature golden dragon on her shoulder. Steve stared at her in bewilderment, unable to persuade his mouth to form any words.

“Well, hello to you, too.” Constance peered into the Response Centre. “Oh, I see you’ve redecorated. Tango’s influence?”

Steve looked around at the red-painted walls, the soft white carpet, the children’s paintings in their frames. “How could you tell?”

Constance snorted. “You haven’t changed a bit. Can I come in? Good.” She brushed past him and perched on the arm of the sofa, her pet fluttering its wings for balance. “Your son not around?”

“Sons,” Steve corrected, and smiled at Constance’s raised eyebrow. “Luden’s four now, and Jason’s two. And no, they’re in the Nursery. I think my sister’s taking care of them, actually.”

“Oh, yes, the blonde with the not-quite-dead thing going on.” Constance thought for a moment, then shrugged. “I guess I can’t really pick, considering… but I’m not here to gossip. This is serious.”

“I figured that,” Steve agreed, closing the door and leaning back against the console. “Otherwise you’d have shown up sooner than three years after last time.”

“Well, I’ve been busy,” Constance pointed out. “Tanfin’s pretty self-sufficient by now, but Jasmine’s still incredibly needy, and as for Bella and Daphne – well, you know how babies are, I’m sure.” She touched her stomach, which Steve now noticed was slightly rounded. “I just hope this one’s better behaved than some of his sisters.”

Steve nodded seriously. “I can tell this is an incredibly important conversation,” he said. “It’s a good thing you’re not getting distracted by gossip.”

“Oh, hush, you. Don’t you know it’s mean to pick on pregnant women?”

“So I’ve been told. Then I think Ontic told Tango that was sexist, and Elanor - who’s also pregnant now – suggested that maybe it should be ‘never pick on someone who can probably cripple you for life’, and the conversation moved on to maiming.” Steve shrugged, waving an arm to indicate the console, the RC, the whole of HQ. “Life in the PPC, you know?”

“Well, I have a fire lizard, and I’m not afraid to use her, so you’d best be cautious either way.” The tiny dragon in question lifted her head and let out a noise halfway between a purr and a chirp. Constance laughed softly and reached up to stroke her pet’s chin. “No, you can stay put for now, Hera,” she said. “I think he’s learnt his lesson.”

“Definitely,” Steve assured her, trying surreptitiously to back away from his visitors. “I’m very good at learning lessons from Constance - I've had lots of practice.” Hera chirped again with what sounded like amusement, and settled down to watch him.

Constance chuckled, still idly rubbing Hera’s chin, but her smile quickly faded. “No, but really. Things out in the Multiverse have been getting… tense. Do you know anything about that?”

“Things are always tense,” Steve pointed out. “There’s an infinite host of Mary-Sues sweeping through the Word Worlds, remember?”

Constance scowled at him, and even Hera gave him a distinct Look. “I meant tenser than normal. Agents have always left us alone before – you know who I mean, all the retirees living in the ‘Verse – but you’ve started stopping us, questioning us. It’s like you think we’re a threat of some sort.”

Steve frowned, leant forwards, then realised what he was doing and straightened up again. “You personally? I mean, I know you’re a dangerous person, but…”

“Me, Dafydd, some of our friends – heck, Tanfin got interrogated a few days ago, and he’s only seven! It’s ridiculous.”

“Um. I think I might know what that’s about.” Steve ran a hand through his sandy-brown hair, spent a second trying to work out a tangle and failing miserably. “Do you remember Kayleigh Leonard? She’s in Bad Slash.”

“The really weird one?” Constance nodded. “I remember you sneaking off with her at Jay’s leaving do, at any rate.”

Steve blushed. “Yes, well. Um, she’s got some sort of theory about there being an organisation out in the Worlds trying to destroy canon – sort of an anti-PPC, I think. She’s been spreading rumours and making waves – you know how she is.”

“Well, I knew about the ‘spreading’ part,” Constance agreed, and Steve’s face grew even redder.

“Well, anyway, people have been getting a bit twitchy about strangers in the Worlds. That’s probably why they’re bothering you.”

“Hmm.” Constance drummed her fingers on the back of the sofa. “Any truth in the rumours?”

Steve shrugged. “I haven’t seen anything, and I haven’t heard of anyone who has. “ He nodded backwards at the console. “Everything on the network seems to stem from Kayleigh... but on the other hand, she usually has some foundation for her theories.”

“Hmmmm.” Constance’s gaze stayed defocussed in thought for a moment, and then she stood up abruptly, almost dislodging Hera. “Right. Thank you, Steve, you’ve been… well, moderately helpful. I’ll try not to leave it three years this time.” She crossed the room in a few steps, pulled the door open, and strode off into HQ.

Steve shook his head. She hadn’t changed a bit, apparently – same old Constance. She-

“One more thing!” Steve jumped as Constance’s head reappeared around the doorframe. “What did you say this anti-PPC was called?”

“Um, something about plates?” Steve offered. “No, peace… oh, that was it: Ispace.”

“Thank you! See you eventually!” And she was gone.

Positive: I enjoy the flow of the dialogue. You do a good job making it seem like normal people talking in real time, which I personally find to be kind of tricky occasionally.

Negative: This could be just me, but I think you need a little more description. Just a little bit. For example, the dragon on Constance's shoulder, what was it doing during all of this?