all in the planning stages for years at this point.
"Because We Like You"
The chronologically next story of my spin-off, this takes place immediately after "Pick Your Poison" and shows my little Sue kid recruits being officially inducted to the PPC. It's actually a fairly complex interlude, with a handful of cameos and, I think, the first really detailed description of the nursery we've had yet? If anyone knows of an existing one I may have missed, let me know. But yeah, this one kicked my butt for literally years, and I'm glad it's in the beta stage and close to release. Just waiting for feedback from one more beta, Nesh! :)
* * *
"A Fistful of Hs"
My Thirty Hs mission, now into its second draft. I'm trying to make this mission fairly unique and different, and not to turn it into "oh no the badness is so bad," out of respect to the folks who find it legitimately entertaining. I'm trying to keep it pretty silly, but still have a plot surrounding it. I had quite a lot of fun drafting it, actually. There's also going to be a mini-mission side story of my Cafeteria agents going into Thirty Hs in search of edible substances.
This one will take a while to release, as there's another interlude I need to write for Doc and Vania that takes place between "Because We Like You" and this one, covering the 2013 Blackout.
An unbetad excerpt?
Vania nodded to Doc and started forward. “Let’s do this.”
“Wait. But.” Doc glanced from his partner to the scientist. “Disguises?”
“Do not bother,” said Minutia. “None of this story actually takes place on the surface of the Wizarding World.”
“Okay, that was some very suspicious phrasing you just chose, there.” Doc continued talking even as Vania dragged him towards the portal. “Nobody said this was a crossover, and I don't see where a Harry Potter story could take place other than oh my God we’re in outer space.”
Indeed, they were. The Potterverse version of Earth, geographically indistinguishable from World One’s, stretched out below the agents for a seemingly endless distance (with the British Isles facing them, appropriately enough). The moon loomed huge ahead of them, and the sun, still too far away to look any bigger, was somewhere behind them, allowing the agents vision.
Doc began to scream for a split second, but then clamped his mouth shut with his cheeks puffed out. He pressed his back to Vania and moved around her in a circle, flailing his arms. As his cheeks began to darken, he sank down at Vania’s feet, grasping at her hand briefly until the hand fell and he went still.
“Doc, please stand up. You're embarrassing me in front of all the celestial bodies.”
* * *
"The Garden Spells Trouble"
This is going to be a weird interlude, even by PPC standards. It appeared in my head fully formed after I read Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen, an obscure little romance with a very light dash of urban fantasy. It's somewhere in between an interlude and a mission, and will finally reveal the Cafeteria Division's head after all these years. And will also connect to Phobos's Catastrophe Series, somehow. I doubt anyone was clamoring for Yoof and Séverine to get their own big episode, but uh. It's coming.
This story is actually ready for a third draft before betaing, but I've been putting it off since it takes place so far in the future from my current writing. I wanted to bang the whole thing out right after reading GS, so I didn't lose the idea.
Another unbetad excerpt:
Meanwhile, Yoof had been checking out what food was available. Uneaten food that required reheating had been carted back into the kitchens by the previous shift. (Nonperishable food was left out in the Cafeteria to keep agents occupied while new food was prepared. Less popular foods of this variety tended to sit out for weeks before either getting eaten by a desperate agent or managing to escape on its own.) The kitchens also featured massive walk-in pantries, refrigerators and freezers, containing various raw ingredients and unprepared food acquired from various fics and canons.
"What are our options today, Yoof? Sound off leftovers."
Yoof stood rigid and saluted. "From the leftovers! Slowpoke tail! Frosted guano! Meatloaf!"
Séverine rolled her eyes. Even all this time after the Blackout, the meatloaf was hardly getting touched. Didn't agents understand that not eating the meatloaf was what had caused Slorp in the first place? "And what other ingredients can we use?"
"From the freezer! Belgian fries! Sea salt ice cream! Maui's dolphin steak! Ants! Meatloaf!
"From the fridge! Spinning leek! Rukh eggs! Ham and jam and spam!"
"A lot?"
"Yes! Also, Superfast Jellyfish! A few good taters! Armored goat milk! Meatloaf!
"From the pantry! Dehydrated dextro-amino foods! Kupo Nuts and Deku Nuts! Beebles! Monkey biscuits! Some DHARMA supplies! Meatloaf!"
"Excellént, excellént." Séverine rubbed her hands together, mentally combining ingredients. She moved each of the mixing bowls to a separate counter. "We will put the guano and meatloaf back in the fridge. We need the food to be eaten this time." She paused again, glancing between the doors. "Okay. Yoof, I am going to begin mixing Kupo Nuts into dough. Please go knock some Beebles unconscious."
"Yes!" Yoof grabbed a large metal mallet from a corner and dragged it into the pantry, which was filled with tittering laughter. Unnervingly, the sound only increased with each loud thwack, but Séverine was too focused on mixing to notice.
—doctorlit, the slowest writer