Subject: That was quite a ride!
Author:
Posted on: 2021-10-03 23:01:28 UTC
Brain's still fried so I can't offer much in the way of thoughts other than "read it, loved it, thank you for sharing it with us". The sheer amount of effort you put into it is staggering.
(Also, how did you draw the comic, if I might ask? It's very well done!)
Introducing the PPCCUU: the Protectors of the Plot Continuum Cinematic Universe U (the final 'U' is silent). Built firmly in the MCU mold, this is the world's introduction to the fantastic multiverse(s) of the PPC.
Phase 1
Dafydd Illian and Selene Windflower. The film takes place entirely in a single mission, opening with them stepping into the Word World. The mission is essentially "Woodsprite of the North", but rewritten to serve as an introduction to the PPC. Along the way, it works in concepts like the D.O.R.K.S. (here the only form of disguise, and only used when specifically required), portals (obviously), exorcisms, and DOGA's pyro tendencies.
The finale is the Alumia exorcism, in which the audience sees for the first time that Dafydd and Selene aren't lone assassins, but part of a huge organisation. Many characters from future movies cameo here. Once Alumia is out, the agents charge her - and then burn her, because Pyro Department.
Post-credits: a party, loosely based on DOGA's "Interlude 2". Dafydd meets a certain Constance Sims, though whether they're hiding under a table at the time is still up in the air.
Rina Dives and Zeb. We open with them successfully completing a mission, and returning to HQ in their battered red TARDIS. They spend the first half of the film in HQ, where it is established that Rina is a Rogue and Zeb is Strait-Laced. Then they're sent into their next mission.
The mission is based in equal parts on "Rose Potter" and "Little Miss Mary". The finale involves Rina being fatally wounded, and Zeb breaking his rule-abiding role to use the D.O.R.K.S. and transform her into a Time Lord. As she regenerates, the TARDIS cloister bell sounds and there is a bright flash of blue light; when it fades, Zeb is alone in the fic. Rina, and the TARDIS, are gone.
Zeb returns to HQ and does his best to make his report. It's only a couple of hours later that he's wandering a hallway when suddenly he hears the sound of keys on piano wire. He looks up as the TARDIS materialises, fully repainted, and Rina - in full Aviator garb - staggers out.
"Hi, Zeb," she says, "been a long time", and then collapses.
(She has spent a couple of centuries on Gallifrey in the meantime, and is fresh from the Time War. The details on that will be saved up for the later "Continuity Council" movie, which is a murder mystery with half the clues in their shared Gallifreyan past.)
Post-credits: something vague and ominous establishing that a mysterious Somebody was behind the terrible mission.
Gaspard de Grasse. The story is something of a hybrid, mixing (Un)Intelligence with Gaspard's "Thunder Run" report, with the opening of "The Reorganisation". Essentially, Gaspard is a quirky Spy with self-esteem issues a mile high, whose latest mission goes badly wrong. He winds up in a Factory - not the one from the fic, but a Mary Sue Factory.
One possible frame for this is that Gaspode is attending counselling in FicPsych (hi, Jenni!), and that the mission sequences are split up as a flashback. Perhaps he either has memory loss, or has literally had his memory blocked by the denizens of the Factory? Either way, he ends the movie knowing that there's a major threat the PPC didn't even know was out there.
Post-credits: the mysterious Somebody from Aviator visits the Factory.
A love story, focussed on the triangle of Dafydd, Selene, and Constance. We start off in a mission, with Dafydd and Constance flirting outrageously and Selene fuming in the corner (pulling in pieces of my Agentshipping stories around those three). Then we return to HQ... to find that Suvians have populated the place, and they're out for Dafydd's body.
Essentially the ending is the rescue of Dafydd from "Agent Dafydd + The Gurl", with Constance taking Vemi's saviour role; but along the way we can pull in the best portions of two decades of Badfic Games. Jaycacia Thornbyrd makes an appearance, but is not killed, and we never see her purported parents.
Post-credits: Jaycacia reports back to the mysterious Somebody to say that the PPC is weak and the time is right. The Somebody points out that there are certain agents who are causing problems - but that they have a solution to that...
A new Legendary Badfic has arisen. The Flowers have deemed it too dangerous for agents to take on, but Agent Gaspard has gotten himself stuck in there, and they've assembled their best team to get him out. Dafydd and the Aviator form the core of the team, perhaps with some of their supporting characters, and perhaps with other agents who deserve a starring role but don't have a cohesive plot to make their own movie out of.
I'm not sure what the mission consists of - something like Rose Potter or My Immortal, with a Suvian who can take an active role against the agents (as opposed to a Celebrian or Laura). But in the ending, Dafydd pulls off his sacrifice play, and managed to kill both the Suvian and himself.
-- only it's not the ending, because Constance is as stubborn as a mile of bricks, and she marches into the Halls of Waiting to pull him back out. Then they retire, and Dafydd informs the Flowers that he's never coming back ever for anything (pfffffft).
Mid-credits: Jaycacia is worried the big plan has been derailed, but the mysterious Somebody is entirely happy with how it went.
Post-credits: Ancient Rome. A tall red-haired woman sits down at a table across from a shorter brunette. "Acy."
"Jay."
"Things are getting out of hand. I think we need to step in."
From that point on, it gets a lot more vague. If anyone else wants to work up a Phase 2, go for it! My thoughts are below, but not really well formed. Equally, we've done a bit of fantasy casting before but it's a few years old now; if people can come up with newer and better options, the possibility of mock screenshots exists...
Who is the mysterious Somebody? I dunno! There's lots of options, but I think my favourite is that they are actually plural-they: the Legendaries, Suvians and other badfic-creatures who managed to defeat the PPC in their own stories. Jaycacia wants to join their ranks, but hasn't had a big enough role to manage it.
Phase 2 includes the OFUM movie (I reckon you could do Lina in 2-3 hours if you really tried; the Harry Potter movies managed a full year in that time!), Aviator 2 and Intelligence 2, and... can we pull the Key to Canon arc and give it to the Agent and Dis rather than Tawaki? I quite like the idea of them as the "techie Time Lords", and assembling a Key would work well for that. The phase ends with the Macrovirus/Suvian invasion from 2008 as the Big Plan by the Somebody. New Cal is introduced, and of course Dafydd comes back to fight in the ending.
Phase 3 goes a little bit quirky. Agent and Dis do the Mirror Multiverse arc, spending a couple of hours dealing with the EPC before maybe getting a hand from the TCDA. There's a Continuity Council movie, as discussed in Aviator; the Council isn't established to watch over Gallifrey, but to watch out for other multiverses impinging on the PPC. There's... other stuff, I dunno: new agents, probably, going on missions or having other adventures. The phase ends with the Blackout, in which HQ's defences come down - and the other multiverses begin to collide as the mysterious Somebody launches their final attack.
I'm almost tempted to say that Phase 4 is just a number of different PPC Apocalypses (the Sundering, Catastrophe Theory, the World Without Authors) as standalone films, and then they all time-travel back together to prevent the multiversal collision. But maybe that's a bit over the top. ^_~ Definitely by this time Jay and Acacia have to be playing a significant role, because, well, this is the PPC.
hS
I'm working on getting everything into a Google Doc, and along the way I've wound up expanding all the plot descriptions into full summaries. I've also integrated the TV shows and redone the poster for PPC. Nothing but the best for you lot!
We open on an idyllic rural landscape: forest in the foreground, towering mountains in the distance. We linger on this vision for several long seconds - and then a blue doorway swipes itself into existence, and two black-clad figures step out. They are Dafydd Illian and Selene Windflower.
Over the course of the movie, Dafydd and Selene introduce the audience to the PPC: they stalk a Suvian, Alumia the Woodsprite, and record charges against her. When they need to get closer to listen, they use the D.O.R.K.S. to give themselves temporary disguises. When Alumia joins the Fellowship as a Tenth Walker, they carry out a quick exorcism on Arwen, who has been possessed into a minor secondary Suvian. They are forced to use a portal to jump from the end of Moria to the outskirts of Lorien, where they watch Alumia merge herself with a tree to hide from Gollum.
By the end of the movie, both agents are distinctly on edge. Selene has even threatened to use her lightning to set Dafydd on fire. When they go to kill Alumia, they bicker so much that she has a chance to dive for cover - and then the earth shakes as she merges herself with the whole of Middle-earth. Colour begins to drain out of the movie as the Suvian's influence desaturates reality.
Dafydd and Selene stare at each other. "I don't think we can exorcise a whole planet by ourselves," says Selene.
Dafydd smiles and pulls out a communicator. "Fortunately, we're not by ourselves."
Dozens of portals open, and dozens of PPC agents pour through. They're dressed in many different ways, but each of them has brought a copy of some piece of the LotR canon. Very quickly, they're directed to different areas of Middle-earth for the exorcism.
Get out… get out… the power of Tolkien compels you!
With another earthquake, Alumia is cast back out of the ground at Dafydd's feet. He charges her, and then Selene's eyes glow red as she summons the lightning and burns the Suvian to a crisp. They watch as the colour flows back into the world, then open a portal and step back through, leaving Middle-earth empty once more.
Post-credits: A party, and our first glimpse of PPC HQ. Selene is out in the thick of things, apparently really enjoying herself. Many of the agents from the exorcism are there too. Dafydd is lurking against the wall, huddling with a drink and clearly not comfortable.
Someone else is lurking too, and she sidles over to introduce herself: Constance Sims.
A series of missions by Agent Rhus Radicans, mostly with her partner Shada. The missions air in reverse chronological order, and constantly reference things that happened 'earlier' - ie, in later episodes.
Season 1 airs over the course of Phase 1. Season 2 begins after Protectors of the Plot Continuum is released, and ends right before Agent comes out. In its final episodes, it shows Radicans' handful of missions with Jay Thorntree - and in the finale, it shows the retirement of Acacia Byrd.
We open in a hallway in PPC HQ. There is a thrumming noise, and then a rather battered red TARDIS materialises in a niche. The doors open, and Rina Dives steps out, followed by the Luxray Zeb. They've just completed a mission, and are quite happy to be back in HQ for some downtime.
They spend the first chunk of the movie in HQ - returning books to the Canon Library, handing in their reports to the yet-unseen Officials, grabbing a bite to eat in the Cafeteria before heading to Rudi's. The audience comes to understand that Rina is something of a maverick, while Zeb is thoroughly strait-laced. Eventually Rina gets a [beeep] on her communicator, and they return to their TARDIS for a mission.
The mission is a Bad Slash story, with a wildly OOC Harry Potter and Severus Snape, loosely based on "Little Miss Mary". Naturally there is nothing explicit in this family film, but it is definitely a slashfic, not a Sue. We re-establish the D.O.R.K.S., having Rina use it to become a wizard and use a wand - because, as she points out, this thing doesn't just disguise you, it actually turns you into what you set it to.
In the finale, Rina and Zeb exorcise Snape - only for Harry to absolutely flip out and hit them with a massive blast of fire. Rina shoves Zeb to safety and takes the full force of the blast herself. Zeb retaliates with enough lightning to knock the Wraith right out of Harry's body, then rushes to his partner. She is dying, and she says she's only glad she could save him from the same fate.
But Zeb doesn't let her go. Taking the D.O.R.K.S., he carefully programs it, then points it at Rina. She shimmers, but doesn't change, and as she falls still the audience think Zeb failed - until Rina practically explodes with massive flares of golden light.
The TARDIS doors open, and from inside comes the ominous peal of the cloister bell. Rina's regeneration glow begins to fade, and we catch our first glimpse of her new form - and then there is a bright flash of light, and both she and the TARDIS are gone, leaving Zeb alone as the badfic fades out.
Zeb returns to HQ. He delivers his report Upstairs in a listless fashion, then stumbles blindly down the corridors towards Rudi's. As he passes the Fountain of Bleepka, he hears the rising sound of a TARDIS materialising. Right in front of him, the freshly-repainted red TARDIS materialises. The doors open, and out stumbles Rina, in a black bomber jacket and aviator goggles.
"Hi, Zeb," she says, staggering. "Been a long time." And she passes out.
Post-credits: Somewhere else - a fractured space with pieces of several Word Worlds in it - a figure in a shrouding white robe holds a tetrahedron of black crystal. In it, they watch a replay of Harry's outburst and Rina's regeneration.
"That didn't go so well," they say, in a voice that's impossible to define as male or female. "I'll have to go back to more traditional methods."
In the credits, the unknown figure is listed as Mysterious Somebody.
Gaspard de Grasse sits in a waiting room, fidgeting uncomfortably. A door opens, and Jenni Robinson beckons him into her office.
Through a mix of Jenni's counselling session and flashbacks, the audience learns that Gaspard is a member of the Department of Intelligence. He has serious self-esteem issues, and often runs into issues at work because of them. The story of the DoI Starcraft Club is particularly poignant.
The reason for the counselling session is that Gaspard failed to file a report after his last mission. This is very OOC for him - and as Jenni discovers, the issue goes deeper. Gaspard barely even remembers the mission.
They work through it together. Via out-of-order flashbacks, the audience builds up the picture: a strange Factory filled with tall glass cylinders, some kind of enemies coming after him, important information that he has to get to HQ, and then a blue-black flash that throws him backwards through his exit portal.
The last piece of information Gaspard is able to recover is a single memory: of the liquid in one of the cylinders swirling, and a stunningly beautiful woman floating into view inside it. "She was a Suvian," he realises aloud. "I could practically smell the glitter." The agents realise that there is an enemy out there that the PPC knew nothing about - and that it clearly has plans for them.
Post-credits: The Mysterious Somebody walks through the Factory, stopping to examine the cylinder from Gaspard's memory. Turning, they address one of the pale figures who chased Gaspard around. "That was careless," they say. "You need to mount a tighter guard - and to step up production."
A semi-anthology show, with Makes-Things and assorted other technicians providing a framing device in each episode's prologue and episode. With the newly-discovered Factory threat, DoSAT are trying to upgrade the PPC's tech. Episodes are split between present upgrades and historical tech development, with different agent teams cameoing to test the upgrades in the field.
The show responds to developments in the movies, particularly in Pyro II and Agent. The finale crosses over with PPC 2: Lockdown, which introduces its core cast to the big screen.
Dafydd, Selene, and Constance are on a mission to the Discworld - Dafydd and Selene as the primary team, with Constance along for her canon knowledge. The mission, involving a Suvian named Al who inexplicably attaches herself to DEATH, goes fairly smoothly, but the agents have tension. Constance is flirting hard with Dafydd, who is responding almost as strongly. Selene is fuming, her own attempts at flirting being ignored.
The bickering continues as they take out Al - only to discover her popping up again in a second location. "This is like Alumia all over again!" Dafydd complains. "Oh, it's much worse," Selene says, glaring daggers at Constance.
By manipulating Death into helping, the agents manage to take out the infinitely-respawning Al and head back to HQ. At first, everything seems fine - but as they enter the Cafeteria, they realise that everyone seems very giggly - and there's talk of the "best PPC Agent ever" going about the place.
Fairly quickly, the ladies realise that the PPC has been infested by Suvians, who are turning the agents into their mindless slaves. They argue about what to do about it - and don't notice until it's too late the girl who comes up to Dafydd, slips a large ring onto his finger, and leads him away.
Constance and Selene have to work together to try and rescue Dafydd and drive out the Suvians. Along the way, they encounter Jaycacia Thornbyrd, the aforementioned Best Agent; she talks about her parents, but the audience don't meet them.
Eventually, Constance rescues Dafydd, while Selene teams up with a renegade Suvian named Eithriel to lure the rest into the Cafeteria and hit them with a lightning storm. Jaycacia escapes, Eithriel is recruited to the PPC, and Dafydd and Constance kiss while Selene grudgingly steps aside. The ring, unnoticed, is still on Dafydd's finger.
Post-credits: Jaycacia enters the Mysterious Somebody's fractured lair and reports that the PPC is weak, and the time is right. The Somebody points out that there are "some few agents" who pose a threat - but that they already have a solution to that in mind…
Dafydd and Constance are just settling down for a nice meal at Rudi's when Dafydd's communicator goes [BEEP!]. He is being summoned Upstairs - the Officials have a mission for him.
Constance tags along as he heads up. They reach a nondescript door and head inside - and the audience is treated to their first view of the Board of Flowers. Surprise - the PPC is really weird.
Dafydd has been summoned, along with the Aviator and Jenni, because Gaspard has gone missing while investigating a badfic. From the message he managed to send before contact was lost, the Flowers are afraid this is something that hasn't been seen for a long time: a Legendary Badfic.
Jenni gasps, but will say no more.
Dafydd and the Aviator are given the mission; Constance and Zeb refuse to let them go alone. Jenni is sent along because she knows Gaspard, and will be helpful in rescuing him. They step through the portal together - and find themselves in the world of Rose Potter, the Girl Who Lived.
As the agents carry out their duty and hunt for Gaspard, it becomes clear that Rose is aware of them: that she knows who the PPC are and what they're here for. She has control of Gaspard, making him a minor villain she repeatedly forces into humiliating duels. She doesn't act openly against them, but she sets as many obstacles in their path as she can - and then, when Ave snaps under the tension and tries to take her out early, she reveals her full power.
The mission becomes a game of high-stakes hide and seek around Hogwarts. The agents manage to rescue Gaspard, but they wind up trapped in the Great Hall while Rose breaks down the doors. "Now you will duel me, evildoers!" she declares.
The Aviator rolls her eyes. "Sure we will. Like anyone but another Suvian could beat her in a duel."
Dafydd gasps and looks down at his hand, which still bears the chunky ring from his last movie. He turns and kisses Constance, then steps out of cover and walks towards Rose.
"What are you doing?" the Aviator demands. "I literally just said you'd need a Suvian to-"
Dafydd holds up his hand, and the ring glitters. "Exactly. Now duck."
It isn't a duel. Rose showers Dafydd with spells, injuring him more and more, as he just lowers his head and walks doggedly towards her, the ring beginning to glow on his hand. Constance tries to go after him, but Jenni drags her back down. As Dafydd reaches her, Rose gasps, "You should be dead!"
"I'm an elf," Dafydd retorts, "and I don't mean one of your gremlins. Avada kevada, already." And he punches her in the face with the fiercely glowing ring.
There is a massive explosion. When it fades, both Dafydd and Rose are gone.
-- but the movie isn't quite over. Constance shakes off Jenni, staring out at the ruin with a distraught look. Then her face hardens, and she yanks out a Remote Activator and punches in a new set of coordinates.
The scene cuts to Dafydd, pale and ghostly, sitting in a grey hall that looks nothing like HQ - the Halls of Mandos, where elves go after they die. He hears something - a familiar voice, perhaps - stands, and starts to drift down the corridor.
A hand grabs his arm. "No," says Constance firmly. "You are coming with me."
Mandos, the judge of the Dead, fades out of the shadows behind them. "Only once have I answered any plea to release a woman's beloved," he says, "and you, mortal child, are no Luthien."
Constance grins and pulls out her knife. "No," she agrees. "I don't sing."
The Board of Flowers is debriefing the remainder of the mission team when a portal opens and Dafydd and Constance fall through as if they'd been pushed. As soon as they've brushed themselves off, Dafydd announces that they're retiring - and that the Flowers shouldn't even think about asking them to come back.
Mid-credits: Jaycacia and the Mysterious Somebody are watching the end of the mission in the Somebody's dark crystal. Jaycacia is worried that their plan has failed - but the Mysterious Somebody says they're entirely happy with how it went.
Post-credits: Ancient Rome. A woman with brown hair is sitting at a table on the street, carefully slicing a loaf of bread with a wicked-looking knife. Another woman, taller with red hair, sits down across from her and nods. "Acacia."
"Jay."
Jay Thorntree smiles at Acacia Byrd. "Things are getting a bit out of hand back home. I think we need to step in."
Acacia scowls down at her knife. "We can't leave them alone for five minutes, can we? Typical."
I'm working on giving the other three phases the same treatment, but figured I'd give you something now to keep you interested. :)
hS
We open in a barely-recognisable canon location, with a blonde Suvian and a very pretty man strolling along arm in arm as various unrealistic badfic effects occur around them. The Suvian points at a crack in the wall through which white crystals are spilling, and says that "they" will definitely want to know about it.
The man kneels by the growing pile of crystals and touches it with one finger. He identifies it as Bleeprin, the PPC's wonder-drug that helps keep agents sane and canon characters oblivious. It's only found in certain super-unrealistic badfics.
The Suvian looks offended at the implication her story is unrealistic. She starts to object, but the man smiles, stands up, and shoots her through the heart.
"This is Agent Jacques Bonnefoy," he says into a communicator as the Suvian dies. "I've got the goods; I need a pickup."
Jacques returns to HQ, passing a DoSAT team on their way to mine the Bleeprin. He is greeted by Gaspard, who has a new mission for him: he needs to infiltrate the Sue Factory and steal the urpleprints of their plans. This is somewhat off the books, because while the Flowers know about the Factory, they refuse to believe Gaspard's claim that Rose Potter was connected, and that she let slip that there is a bigger plan at play.
Jacques accepts the mission. Taking a small team with him, he attempts to infiltrate the Factory. Hijinks and excitement occur, and tragically one of the team is shot down and presumed dead, but they do manage to complete the mission. Gaspard takes the urpleprints and promises to take them directly to the Flowers.
Post-credits: The Sunflower Official talks to a shadowy figure. So you think you can manage it? A Factory of our own that will actually manufacture Bleeprin?
The figure steps forward into the light, and Miss Cam smiles. "I think I can manage rather more than that."
Lina Holling is a fanfic writer. She's quite a bad fanfic writer - bad enough, in fact, that she gets a visit from a certain Lord Elrond, asking her to fill out some forms.
By next morning, Lina has been dragged off into the multiverse and "voluntarily" enrolled at the Official Fanfiction University of Middle-earth. Pros: the staff includes the incredibly hott Legolas. Cons: the staff's protectors are tiny flying demons with burning whips and weird names.
Over the course of her year at OFUM, Lina slowly learns more about this strange university. She learns to avoid Gandalf's cooking, except for the parts she adopts. She takes interesting and painful classes with her friends, such as Dot and Lilith. She finds love in the arms of Gimli, the not so hott but exceptionally cuddly dwarf who hangs around with Legolas. She tries to help Gimli and Legolas divert fangirl attention from the elf by matchmaking - her biggest success is getting her fellow students Christianne and Eledhwen to fall for each other. She learns that OFUM is theoretically not an educational facility, but a source of terrible stories to be farmed for Bleeprin - but that Miss Cam has rebelled against this and is actually trying to teach her charges.
The less-reformed students get more and more restless as the year progresses, until at last they erupt into an outright riot. As the staff try to fight this, Christianne and Eledhwen reveal to Lina that they're actually undercover agents of the PPC - and that Eledhwen was once a Suvian named Eithriel (her appearance has changed enough since Pyro II that the audience wouldn't easily recognise her). They're in OFUM to track a Suvian infiltrator, who they thought for a while might be Lina, but now they've figured it out - it's her friend, Lilith Wydenbrooke!
While Christianne and Eledhwen go after Lilith, Lina has to rescue Legolas and Gimli from the students with the help of an army of mini-Balrogs. Then together they go and help out the PPC agents, who are finding Lilith impossible to kill. Lina manages to talk Lilith down because of their friendship, and gets the agents to agree to let her stay in OFUM as a prisoner.
In the end, Lina is given a job offer by the PPC, but chooses to accept the one from Miss Cam instead: to stay on at OFUM as a student liaison, and (not coincidentally) to stay with Gimli.
Post-credits: The Mysterious Somebody is in the Factory, rather annoyed that their infiltrator has been lost to "that renegade". They turn to a console and yank on a suitably dramatic lever, and on the screen a map lights up showing not just this Factory but others, too - many others. Windows appear showing the leaders of the various Factories as the Mysterious Somebody announces that the League has been activated.
"The Life and Times of Rhus Radicans" ends just before Agent is released, and "The Mary Sues That Weren't" steps into its place.
Sparklee is a town-like Factory, and one of the lesser members of the League. Over the course of the single season, we meet the Mary Sues That Weren't - failed Suvians who have been allowed to remain in the town while they're still useful.
The series keeps referencing a new project that Sparklee is working on, which will boost its standing in the League. Towards the end, non-lexical vocal music begins to be heard in the background - and the final episode ends with an unexpected song number. A special feature-length TV musical follows, airing right before PPC 2: Lockdown.
We meet Tawaki and the Disentangler, agents in the Department of Temporal Offences, shortly before they are called into a basement office by the Sunflower Official. He has a special mission for them - there is a device called the Key to Canon, which allows the wielder to rewrite the Word Worlds as they please. It was broken into four pieces by the PPC years ago and scattered, but with the rising threat of the Factory, they need it back.
Tawaki and the Disentangler take on four missions, finding the disguised fragments of the Key. The first one goes pretty smoothly, but in the second they realise someone is trying to interfere with them. Along the way, the Disentangler occasionally mentions her old partner, the Agent - she knew him from back home, but he's gone now.
In the third mission, they're about to recover the Key when someone swoops in and steals it from their grasp. Since each piece of the Key leads the way to the next, they have to fudge things with the two pieces they do have to try and catch the thief. They go through a final mission which is increasingly broken by Suvian influence, only to wind up captured at the very end by their enemy - Jaycacia Thornbyrd.
Jaycacia assembles the Key and uses it to create her own ideal reality: one where she is the PPC's Best Agent, living with her parents, the soppy Jay and evil Acacia. Her plan backfires, though, as Jay is so soppy that while Jaycacia is arguing with Acacia, Tawaki convinces her to free the agents.
After a certain level of hijinks, Tawaki manages to steal the Key to Canon back from Jaycacia. He uses it to restore reality to how it should be, but it had imprinted on Jaycacia, and lashes out at him. He falls to the ground, heavily wounded.
The Disentangler is in tears. "You made me promise," she says, "you made me promise never to give you this… but I can't let you die." And she pulls out a pocket-watch, glowing gold with temporal energy.
Tawaki opens the watch, and his chameleon-arch induced disguise falls away. As the Agent once more, he regenerates, and then forgives his weeping partner - "I was a bit silly back then, don't worry about it."
The agents suddenly realise that Jaycacia and the Key are nowhere to be seen, and begin to panic in earnest - but then Jay Thorntree walks over, wiping her hands clean. "Don't worry," she says, tossing the Key to the Agent, "we took care of her for you. I'm Jay Thorntree, by the way; you might have heard of me."
Post-credits: Gallifrey in the past. The Disentangler and Agent (in his Tawaki body) are sitting watching the sun set in a burnt orange sky. Suddenly, a battered red TARDIS plummets out of the sky and crashes in front of them. The doors swing open, and the Aviator, golden energy wreathed around her, falls from the wreck.
We open on the simplest mission imaginable: the protagonist in a cute children's show is moderately OOC. The Aviator and Zeb follow her around for a little while, then dose her with Bleeprin and head back to HQ. Zeb takes the report Upstairs, while the Aviator wanders off to Rudi's.
The Aviator has a lot of problems. Her partner is still spooked by her change in appearance and manner. Upstairs barely trust her - they're half-convinced she's a Suvian infiltrator like the one at OFUM (a marked contrast from their delighted welcome of Jay and Acacia, briefly glimpsed). The Department of Internal Affairs (who wear black sashes and no flashpatch) is watching her every move. She's got PTSD from the Time War, and from the Rose Potter mission she had to face right after it - watching someone else die to protect her, again, wasn't good for her. What she needs is a drink.
Actually, what she needs is a friend, and she finds one in the Detective. He's another Time Lord, but unlike the Agent and the Disentangler they never met on Gallifrey. He's a chance for her to start afresh, to spend some time being a Time Lord without the baggage of her early days.
As they spend time together between the Aviator's bland, unchallenging missions, the Detective helps her get over her anxiety and paranoia. She finally starts to relax, and feel that maybe nobody is actually out to get her.
She's wrong.
She doesn't even realise when it happens - it's just another silly, pointless mission, where the characters all get splashed with magic potions that make them pregnant. The Aviator and Zeb grouchily clear it all up and get rid of the magic pregnancies.
A few days later, the Aviator starts throwing up, so she visits the Medical department. "There's nothing to worry about," the doctor tells her. "It's just morning sickness."
The Aviator has to deal with a magically accelerated pregnancy. Zeb and the Detective are really worried about her: about the agonies she must be going through over whether to keep the unexpected child. To Zeb, she's still his young partner from before her transformation; to the Detective, she's the traumatised woman he helped to start healing.
When they finally talk to her, they discover that she's actually fine. Sure, it was a shock, but she's hundreds of years old, and wanted a child back on Gallifrey, before the Time War. Neither of her friends knew her during that time, so they didn't realise that she grew a lot between leaving and returning.
After a very short pregnancy, Elanorelisindrivar (Ellie) is born. The Aviator lets the Detective hold her. Everything is fine.
Post-credits: The agent who was shot down during Intelligence II stumbled through a portal into Medical, very sick. As medical staff rush to their side, they collapse to the floor.
TV Series #4. Children's Stories
With both "Sufficiently Advanced" and "The Mary Sues That Weren't" wrapping up, a new show launches.
The initial 3-episode miniseries introduces the Nursery, with its cast of carers and young children. We meet our main characters at about 5 years old. A couple are adopted during the miniseries. The Aviator also brings Ellie along.
The main series launches after PPC 2: Lockdown. It follows the kids as they advance from early childhood/adoption into the agent training of their mid-teens. It's all about learning to live with people of other cultures and biology, talking through problems, and the strong bonds of friendship that form between kids, and the love that develops between non-bio families... and maybe juuust a bit of rebellion against authority? It's totally slice-of-life, and nothing bad or dramatic happens.
Ellie continues to star, growing somewhat faster than her peers. The Aviator and Detective's romance is a side-plot. Dafydd and Constance's daughter Jasmine is also in the cast.
The macrovirus plague sweeps through HQ. We see all our starring characters again (with the notable exception of Dafydd and Constance), some trapped in their RCs, some out fighting the plague. The weird thing is, people who get thoroughly trapped keep vanishing - not killed, just... gone.
Eventually our last viewpoint characters - Selene and others - find themselves in a hopeless situation. The others literally vanish around Selene, whenever she looks away from them. A macrovirus comes towards her, and she closes her eyes-
-and a portal opens, and a hand drags her to safety. It's Dafydd. "I know I said I was gone, but I wasn't going to let you die, was I?"
Dafydd and Constance have been working with DoSAT to get everyone out to a spot high in the mountains of New Caledonia. There's an abandoned village there, and the agents are already working to build it into a new city. Some of them want to just stay there, but Gaspard is convinced the plague is the work of the Factory, and he's Putting Together A Team.
The Flowers utterly forbid them to go. Jay and Acacia are sent from the Board to talk them down, and appear to be sincere in their appeals to the agents to stay put. But as they walk away, Jay glances over her shoulder and gives a conspiratorial wink.
The core cast of the previous movies head into HQ. Constance has to stay behind because she is heavily pregnant - she tells the Aviator she's jealous of her quick pregnancy, and the Aviator rolls her eyes and says she wouldn't be if she'd experienced it. She works with Corolla of DoSAT (from the "Sufficiently Advanced" TV show) to act as home base and run interference. (Constance has a gold shoulder dragon; Corolla is six inches high. There will be tiny dragonriding.)
The core team go back into HQ, fighting the macroviruses with new tech until at last they have it all cleared. Then, juuuust as they finally get it under control: urple portals open, and the Suvian invasion begins.
The intervention turns into a hopeless running fight. The Aviator is killed, and regenerates in the Detective's arms into a blond male form - then kisses the surprised Detective on the mouth ("I never knew you felt that way." "I don't think I did, until now."). But even his post-regeneration energy isn't enough to recover the lost ground.
Corolla and Constance break secrecy and go to the Flowers, who inform them that there's nothing they can do. As they leave the Board's office, they are accosted by Jay and Acacia.
In HQ, the battle isn't going well. Most of the agents are injured. Dafydd starts asking if anyone has any really big explosives. Everyone is planning Last Stands.
Then the portals open, and Jay and Acacia lead the massed agents of the PPC in to the rescue.
The counter-offensive goes swiftly, and soon most of the Suvians are wiped out. A single column, led by the white-robed Mysterious Somebody, manages to push through the PPC portals into New Caledonia. As the Suvians push towards the Board's office, the core team rush to the rescue, and fight them off at the very door. The Mysterious Somebody's shrouding robe is torn aside, revealing that they are…
… a teenaged girl, apparently just another Suvian. Nobody really knows what to make of this, and she escapes in the confusion.
The invasion is defeated, the Flowers promise to take the threat of the League more seriously now, and Dafydd invites everyone back to their house for shawarma. "I'm told it's traditional."
Mid-credits: The core team sit around a table eating shawarma. Nobody speaks.
Post-credits: The Mysterious Somebody is back in her lair, fuming. "What is the point of killing people and giving them magical babies if they won't leave you alone?!" She pulls out her black crystal pyramid - which looks exactly like an evil Key to Canon - stares into it for a moment, then rears back and smashes it to the ground.
A nasty-looking black portal manifests in the air above it. The Mysterious Somebody narrows her eyes, then marches through and vanishes.
Lockdown marks the end of the relatively grounded half of the PPCCUU. Up until now, most of the films are based on PPC missions; after this point, the only two "mission" films go wildly off the rails in the first few minutes.
By this point, we've also introduced almost all of our major characters. The only protagonist-level movie characters yet to arrive are Sergio and Nikki; everyone else is supporting cast. Everyone's here, you know them, you love them - now it's time to start doing some seriously weird stuff to them.
(And for the entirety of Phase 3, the fanbase will be in a state of utter confusion over the Mysterious Somebody not being... y'know... the Mysterious Somebody. Accusations of ruining the canon will fly.)
hS
The Agent and the Disentangler are on a routine mission when they discover a strange mirror that isn't mentioned in the Words. The reflections in it don't quite match what's on their side. The Agent reaches out and touches it, and blue-black light surrounds the pair.
They recover consciousness to find themselves in DoSAT, but Makes-Things has a goatee. Other DoSAT agents are similarly off-looking - Corolla is dressed entirely in Evil Villain black leather, and riding around on a grumpy mini-Balrog.
"Be glad I let you off so lightly," Makes-Things sneers. "Next time, I'll send you down to Disturbing Acts of Violence. Now get out of here before I call the Cats."
The Agent and Disentangler hurry away, discussing in hushed tones that they're obviously in some kind of Star Trek mirror universe. "Actually," says Jaycacia Thornbyrd, stepping into view wearing a white sash with a silver cat pin, "it's more of a mirror multiverse. Welcome to the Enforcers of the Plot Continuum. Come with me if you want to live."
The agents are taken to the headquarters of the DIS, the mirror version of the DIA; most of its agents are DIA agents in mirror form. They get a crash-course in multiverse theory: there are many multiverses, each with its own version of the PPC. "Like that weird steampunk lot the Sunflower Emperor's so interested in," one of the Cats mutters, to general agreement.
Jaycacia explains that the Mysterious Somebody from the prime multiverse has been negotiating with the Sunflower Emperor. Makes-Things' device is one part of the plan - it was supposed to teleport the mirror Agent and Disentangler to the prime multiverse, but has instead dropped them into null-space and brought their counterparts across. The White Cats are the only department that doesn't want to invade the prime multiverse - Jaycacia joined them because she was so shocked to hear that her prime counterpart was dead.
The Agent and Disentangler, disguised as their mirror selves, have to destroy Makes-Things' prototypes. Their plan is to get the White Cats out when (or if) they escape, but the ending becomes too hectic for that. Jaycacia calls out to them as they're engulfed by blue-black light: "Don't worry! We'll do what we can from this end!"
They find themselves right back where they started. Abandoning the mission, they race back to HQ to report to the Board's lieutenants: Agents Jay and Acacia.
Post-credits: The Aviator is sitting at a bar. The Agent slips into the seat next to him. "There's trouble in the multiverse," he says. "The Flowers won't listen. I'm putting together a team."
The Aviator rolls his eyes. "Gaspard already did that quote once. Get some new material."
Alec Troven, his wife, Verra Rose, and his best friend, Lorac Seriph had lives as reasonably normal as anyone can in HQ . . . until one day Alec meets . . . Alec?
Turns out, the multiverse is filled with other Alecs, and they're all being affected by the others through a psychic bond. Things get even more complicated when Lorac's behavior makes an abrupt change, and he attempts to kill Verra. Can prime!Alec get the other universes neatly put away before Lorac can hurt anyone else? Jenni Robinson appears occasionally, showing surprising levels of expertise in this kind of thing.
Agents Sergio Turbo and Nikki Cherryflower, the PPC's Special Operations team, are assigned what seems like a perfectly ordinary mission to Card Captor Sakura. Before they set out, though, their friend Corolla (from DoSAT) sneaks onto the team, telling them that the Department of Intelligence detected what might be signs of the rumoured multiversal incursions.
The mission goes awry when canon character Sakura goes mysteriously missing. Before the agents can respond, the fic begins to change around them, and they find themselves in another location entirely. "Hang on," says Sergio, "this is a Witch's Barrier. That's not even the right canon!"
It should also be impossible, they discover when they meet canon character Homura, who explains that this is happening after Madoka ascended to godhood to prevent it. The only possibility is that Madoka, like Sakura, has been kidnapped.
The agents are faced with what seems to be a multiversal conspiracy: the kidnapping of magical girl characters amid a wild crossover. Their hunt for the girls culminates in a car chase - and an intervention by Strike Dove, a mercenary organisation from Sergio's past that as far as he's concerned, shouldn't exist any more (and certainly not in this crossover!).
Sergio comes to realise that his memories of the past are incomplete, or altered - or maybe from an alternate timeline which no longer exists. The merging of badfics continues to spiral, with the agents and Strike Dove fending off attacks from villainous minions drawn from multiple canons, all out to kidnap the girls they're protecting. Eventually, they are revealed to be working for Vera, a Suvian from Sergio's past who he had thought dead.
By the finale, Nikki has been captured, and Sergio realises that she is in fact the copy of Sakura he knew when he worked with Strike Dove in his past. Mounting a desperate rescue mission, he recovers Nikki and defeats Vera at last - but the damage to the colliding canons has been so severe that the rescued magical girls have to be taken to HQ for safety.
Post-credits: The Mysterious Somebody consults with one of her subordinates from the League. "The magical girls are a dead end," the subordinate said. "The PPC has them under guard now."
"They're all too pure and nice for our need anyway," the Mysterious Somebody says, then smiles and holds up a complicated piece of clockwork. "But don't worry - I've found something better."
The Agent, as he said to the Aviator back in Agent II, is putting together a team: a Continuity Council of Time Lords, to keep an eye on the multiverse issues that Upstairs don't want to hear about. He's got the Disentangler and Aviator, Morgan (a grump with a gun), the Notary (a grump with a clipboard), the Librarian (a grump with an ego), and the Reader and Fisherman (not noticeably grumps). At the Aviator's insistence, another slot is being held open for the Detective, but he shows no sign of wanting to take it up.
The plot is mixed in with flashbacks to Gallifrey during the lead-up to the Time War, where the members of the Council knew each other to greater or lesser degree. Their relationships are explored during these sections, including what led the Agent to give himself to the Chameleon Arch, and how the Aviator turned from a scared human-turned-Time Lord to the veteran he is today. (Since the present Aviator is a different actor from the past one, this is trickier to convey than it would otherwise be.)
In the present, the meeting quickly turns to bickering. The Agent mentions that Makes-Things is working to develop the Key to Canon into multiversal shielding for HQ. Morgan says that it would have been better for the Agent to keep hold of it, so they could use it directly rather than relying on the techies; the Reader argues that they should have destroyed it, because it's way too powerful to have on the loose.
The Aviator raises his hand. "Sorry, question: what is the 'Key to Canon'? Because it sounds a lot like the Key to Time that the Fourth Doctor had to track down."
The Time Lords look at each other, and eventually the Notary voices the question: is the PPC using Time Lord technology? And if so, who gave it to them?
The bickering continues, spiralling out into several minor multiversal incursions, as the Council try to answer the question and figure out what to do about it. They never manage to resolve the issue, but the flashback sections allow the audience to reconstruct the story: the Key was a knockoff of the Key to Time created during the Time War. Various Council members had encounters with it (though most didn't realise), but eventually it was taken by a white-robed figure recognisable as the Mysterious Somebody.
Ultimately, the Council adjourns without achieving much of anything. Nobody is all that surprised.
Post-credits: The Mysterious Somebody stands in a steampunk-themed room, recognisable as the TCDA Citadel, with EPC agents at her back. She picks up a complicated-looking device, about which black energy swirls, and smiles.
"Okay. Let's do this one more time. I'm Jacques Bonnefoy, a rougishly handsome Time Agent from the 51st century turned PPC Agent, and this is a story all about how my life got twist-turned upside down--no, hang on, let me start over.
"Yup, that's me, dangling by my ankles over a giant cup of tea while an evil wizard tries to make out with me. You're probably wondering how I got into this situation…"
Jacques Bonnefoy has a problem, and the problem is named Jacques Bonnefoy. Not himself, but the identical-looking French-Scottish wizard who insists that he's the only Jacques Bonnefoy in the PPC. Then there's J'aq, the dragon-rider who's quite put out that there are two Jacqueses pretending to be him, and - as the movie goes on - all the others as well.
As the number of Jacqueses keeps rising, the original version turns to Jenni Robinson for help. He knows she's been helping Alec Troven with his similar issue, though at least the other Alecs haven't been appearing in HQ. It turns out that Jenni has an inverted version of the same thing going on: instead of the many Jacqueses, there is one Jenni who has had many lives.
As Jenni and Jacques drink tea and try to deal with the chaos caused by increasingly bizarre Bonnefoys manifesting in HQ, they start to develop feelings for each other. Jacques is absolutely fine with this, but Jenni fights it all the way. Jacques tries to get her to open up, but she flatly refuses ("Stop trying to counsel me, Bonnefoy; that's my job."), and eventually storms out on him.
… which is when Liu Siyuan shows up and takes Jacques captive. He's an ex of Jacques, and refuses to accept their rather acrimonious breakup. He reveals that he's been magically manipulating the multiversal collisions to try and find a Jacques he can love - but that he's realised he only wants the original, "and that woman is trying to steal you from me!"
The giant teacup is Siyuan's trap for Jenni, but Jacques deliberately trips it himself. Siyuan makes one last attempt to win him back - and that's when Jenni shows up with a team of the more stable alternate Bonnefoys. Rather than treat Liu Siyuan as a villain, she, Jacques, and the alternates enact what might be called combat counselling, ultimately talking him down and getting him to report to FicPsych for help.
In the aftermath, Jenni reveals why she had been so hesitant about a relationship: she lost her first great love, Supernumerary, to the original Legendary Badfic, a monster known as "Subjugation". It was the most dangerous badfic the PPC ever encountered, and multiple agent teams were lost bringing it down. Jenni still had hope that Nume would one day return - "but if there's one thing this has shown me, it's that we can't go back. Only forwards."
Post-credits: A generator room, deep in HQ. The device the Mysterious Somebody found at the end of SpecOps rolls into view. Black cracks in the fabric of reality creep out from it and touch the generators. The lights flicker. And then go out.
We open in the blacked-out PPC HQ. The power is out, and with it any protection against the multiversal crisis. Other canons, other realities, other timelines and multiverses come pouring into HQ, and the agents are struggling to deal with it.
Our viewpoint characters through this half of the movie are Christianne and Eledhwen from OFUM. As they struggle through HQ, they gather up the PPCCUU's core characters - the Aviator and Zeb, the Agent and Disentangler, Sergio and Nikki, Jenni and Gaspard - and together they have to fight the monstrous meatloaf Slorp.
With Slorp destroyed, the various agents converge on DoSAT. They plan to try and restore the multiversal shields that Makes-Things was developing from the Key to Canon, but when they arrive in the department they find Makes-Things gone, and in his place the Mysterious Somebody.
"Wait," say the Aviator, "I know you - from Gallifrey."
Jenni gasps in horror. "No -- she's the Legendary!"
The Mysterious Somebody reveals that she is both: originally a Suvian from a minor Doctor Who badfic, she stole the Key to Canon and used it to flee into the multiverse. The Legendary Badfic "Subjugation" was her first attempt to build a reality that suited her needs, but the PPC caught wind of it and sent in their best teams. She was only just able to escape as the story collapsed - and she lost the Key as she did so.
She tried making her own Key, but could only manage a corrupted version, which opened the gates to the multiverses but didn't allow her to control them. Everything the PPC has gone through - the League, the various Suvians, the current crisis - has been her attempt to get the original Key to Canon back. And now, she reveals, pulling out the crystal pyramid, she has achieved that goal.
The agents are too late to stop her. The Mysterious Somebody activates the Key - and the whole of reality changes.
The agents find themselves scattered across a merged multiverse where there is only one form of relationship, and it is domination. Everyone who wasn't in DoSAT - canon or agent - when the Key was activated is utterly under the story's control - some of them as masters who will control and lightly torture anyone they get their hands on, but most as submissive slaves who not-so-secretly love it.
Each of the five unaffected pairs has to try and rescue someone from the story's clutches, but most of them only have partial success. Sergio and Nikki are driven from DoSAT before they can get black-leather Corolla away from her harem. The Aviator reluctantly stops dom!Constance from whipping sub!Dafydd too much, but they are all cornered by the Detective and an evil female copy of the Aviator. The Agent and Disentangler try to break Morgan out of her role as mistress of the Council but get nowhere. Christianne and Eledhwen rescue Jay and Acacia from the clutches of the Sunflower Official, but aren't able to escape from the Board's office before the Flower gets his tendrils on them.
The biggest emotional arc in this act falls to Jenni, with Gaspard supporting. She finds Jacques back with Liu Siyuan, and being incredibly abusive towards him. She does her best to break him out of it, but in the end it is Gaspard who succeeds, leading Jenni to doubt the depth of Jacques' feelings towards her.
Jenni and her team head for DoSAT, knowing that the only way to restore reality is to use the Key to Canon themselves. As they get closer, they each feel the story's influence growing stronger as they approach its epicentre. Once there, they are met with a shocking sight: the Mysterious Somebody, chained to a wall, bleeding and weeping. And standing over her, with a riding crop and a cruel smile: Agent Supernumerary.
Jenni realises that the agents who were lost in the collapsing "Subjugation" have been restored in this new and expanded version, and twisted to meet it's purposes. As she tries to process this, the rest of her team try to tackle Nume, but he and his slaves (not including the Mysterious Somebody, who stays chained in her corner) overpower them. As Nume prepares to gag them and lock them away, we suddenly hear the crack of a whip, and a voice: "Nume, Nume, Nume. You have been a naughty boy, haven't you?"
Jenni, now in black leather, has given herself over to the story. Because this world only accepts one form of relationship, she has allowed herself to become a dominant character - and by narrative logic, Nume falls into the submissive role. He meekly frees his captives, offering them up to Jenni.
She smiles cruelly, but then addresses Jacques in a low whisper: "Go. Run. Find help. I'll hold them here as long as I can--"
"No."
The Mysterious Somebody stands up, shaking off her chains like tissue paper. "This isn't your story," she says, "it's mine. And if you won't let me have the master I want - then I'll have to become mistress of everything."
She cracks a whip into existence, her torn white robes reforming into black. All the characters present are forced to their knees, and made to watch as she opens portals to have the other uncontrolled agents brought through. They are all driven down in front of her, totally defeated.
--and then Nume's eyes widen, and he turns his head away from the Mysterious Somebody. "Jenni?" he says. "What's happening?"
The story breaks down. The Mysterious Somebody was supposed to be its ultimate victim - the one whose eternal subjugation was the sole purpose of its existence. When she tried to take control, she broke the very foundation of the story.
As the agents break free, and Jenni struggles with her feelings for Nume and Jacques, the Mysterious Somebody pulls out the Key to Canon. "I fixed this once," she says, "I can fix it again - as many times as I need to!"
"No," says the Agent, stabbing her from behind. "You really can't."
The Mysterious Somebody dies. She's quite shocked by this - she wanted to be hurt, but not like this. And the Agent turns to Jay and Acacia. "You've been here longer than any of us," he says, holding it out. "If anyone should be the ones to restore the PPC, it's you."
Jay reaches for the Key, but Acacia gets there first. She takes it and looks at it with utter disgust. "This thing has caused all our problems," she says. "If we hadn't had this, the Flowers would have had to actually address the multiverse crisis, instead of thinking they could hide behind shields and tricks. It needs to be destroyed."
Jay's eyes widen, and she grabs her partner's arm. "Acy, no--!"
And Acacia hurls the Key to Canon to the floor. It smashes into splinters, and reality ruptures with it, shattering like a sheet of glass.
Mid-credits: The multiverse appears as a beautiful rose formed of blue light. It falls apart, the petals floating away, and the camera zooms in until we can see only one petal remaining.
Post-credits: Jay is sitting in a coffee-shop with a laptop in front of her. She blinks, shakes her head as if waking up from a bad dream, and reaches for her mug.
These plots needed more work than the previous 2 phases put together. The first two weren't too bad, but Continuity Council is probably the weakest of the entire PPCCUU: I have no idea how it would actually look!
FicPsych needed major tweaks at a late stage - the first expanded version had Liu Siyuan as a knowing minion of the Mysterious Somebody. After the changes, I think it's probably my favourite film of the lot. It's the giant cup of tea that does it. ^_^
Blackout... well, the first half is fine, but I still have doubts about the last act. The big-name Legendary Badfics - Subjugation, That Series, Agony in Pink, C_l_br__n itself - all have a strong torture/domination theme, so I've tried to turn that into a family-friendly plot. And it kind of works, but I worry about the connotations, and I regret chopping the Jenni/Nume plot back to almost nothing.
Phase 4 is still being written (I only have World Without Authors done so far), but I think it'll be less of a problem than Phase 3. We shall see.
hS
Sergio Turbo opens his eyes to find himself at the controls of a futuristic jet fighter. There is a forest below him, coming up fast. He has no fuel.
Strictly speaking, what follows is too gentle to be called a 'crash'.
Sergio struggles out of the near-wreck and stumbles off into the woods. Injured, he manages to find a half-ruined cabin for shelter, but when he pushes inside he finds someone already there: Sakura and Madoka, the canon characters who were taken in by the PPC after SpecOps. Neither of them know what's going on.
The following day, Corolla finds them, in company with Sergio's old Strike Dove team. But the team is different - it includes people who should be dead - including Sergio's sort-of ex, Ami - and others who never existed in the first place. Sergio says they need to let the PPC know that the multiversal crisis has gotten worse, and Corolla's expression turns grave.
"Sergio… the PPC is gone. World One is gone. There's no multiverse left."
Corolla explains that as far as she can tell, this is now the only world: a hybrid of all the canon worlds that existed before it, with only pieces of each having made it through. She was lucky enough to come out close enough to Strike Dove to pick up their signals and meet up with them at an old air base they'd commandeered. She's been trying to bring the abandoned planes back on line, but she's already detected armies on the move.
Sergio's face turns pale. "Corolla… what about Nikki? What's happened to Nikki?"
We cut away to Nikki, who is a prisoner of the Belkan Federation. Her captors are taking advantage of the hybrid world they find themselves in: they have superior air power to anyone else they can detect, and intend to use it to conquer as much of the world as they can. Nikki was arrested as a spy almost as soon as she appeared, and her protestations of innocence were ignored. The Belkans did, however, note down that she had some pilot training, and have conscripted her into Spare Squadron - their penal unit.
Corolla manages to get all of four planes at the Strike Dove base online, but it's enough that the Belkans notice their presence. They send up two squadrons to deal with the "minor irritant" on Sand Island: the elite Grabacr squadron, and the prisoners of Spare. Sergio is forced to take his tiny "Skystreaker Squadron" up to defend his team.
As Sergio is about to take on the Belkan planes, Corolla radios to tell him that Nikki is one of them. Unwilling to risk shooting down Nikki, Strike Dove's commander orders Skystreaker Squadron to land.
Sergio refuses, and single-handedly brings down the entire Grabacr squadron. His plane is heavily damaged, but he keeps it in the air just long enough to force Spare squadron's commander to surrender his charges to Strike Dove.
Sergio manages to land and is reunited with Nikki. As they get up to date, Corolla comes in with news. Firstly, Sergio's plane is a write-off. Secondly, she's recovered the plane he entered the new world in and repaired it - and, by the way, it wasn't so much a plane as a transforming mecha in plane mode. Thirdly, and most importantly: she's been working on a way to restore the multiverse.
Corolla has managed to detect the same energy that surrounded the Key to Canon, buried in the heart of a massive Belkan airship. She's built a device that could use this energy to return the multiverse to its previous existence - "or something like it," she says. "I don't know precisely what we'll get, but it can't be worse than this." If Strike Dove can get hold of whatever's generating that energy, they can plug it in and make things right.
"Oh, and one more thing," she says with a bright smile. "It's coming this way right now."
Skystreaker Squadron, bolstered by the refugees from Spare, launch again to face an overwhelming Belkan attack. The three PPC agents fly hard for the Belkan mothership, but when an enemy pilot gets Sergio in his sights, Nikki takes the hit for him and is shot down. Sergio is distraught, and tries to turn back to rescue or avenge her - but Corolla talks him down. "We have to get in there! We have to stay on mission! Once we've fixed reality, we'll find her again!"
Sergio and Corolla fly the mecha directly into the heart of the vast mothership. They find that the whole ship is powered by a crystalline splinter of the Key to Canon. They wrench it out, and the airship begins to fall from the sky. Before it can hit, they push the splinter into Corolla's device, and there is a massive flash of blue light.
Post-credits: Acacia is walking along the collonaded front of a shopping mall. She pauses, reaches out and touches one of the pillars, and frowns slightly.
We open on Morgan's speech to the High Council of Gallifrey: "The Multiverse is under our control." When she was elected Lady President, she told the Time Lords about the PPC and its technology, and now they have completed their conquest of it. "All of reality is protected under the watchful gaze of the Eye of Harmony; no-one will ever have to fear again."
Out in the Word Worlds, the situation at first seems as she's describing: the canons reshaped into benevolent paradises. We see the Aviator, living a blissful domestic life with the Detective and Ellie - right up until the moment the Reader stumbles in, bleeding from a staser wound. "The Fisherman's dead," she gasps. "Help me."
The Aviator and his family are pulled into Discontinuity Council: the Agent's resistance to Morgan's rule. The rest of the Continuity Council are there, including the Notary, who absolutely nobody trusts. They have a plan: they're going to reactivate one of the old Sue Factories and create an army. The Aviator's not overly keen on this, but as the Disentangler points out, they know how to deal with Suvians; they'll be able to clean things up.
The plan seems to be going well - up until the moment Morgan shows up. She has a splinter of the Key to Canon, and uses it to level the Factory to the ground around them. Everyone turns on the Notary for betraying them - but then the Librarian steps forward.
"I just want somewhere quiet to read," he says. "Lady President Morgan can offer that; you can't."
Most of the council are killed or captured. Only the Aviator, Agent, and Notary escape. The Agent and Aviator are in total despair - their partners, and the Aviator's daughter, are now prisoners - but the Notary, to their utter surprise, seems almost hopeful. "What?" she says when they challenge her. "There's no point me being a grump if you've both gotten there first."
The Notary has a plan: they need to get hold of the splinter of the Key to Canon and shove it into the Matrix on Gallifrey. That will give the splinter enough energy to rewrite reality: there's no way of knowing what will rise in its place, but as the Aviator says, "it can't be worse than what we've got." To do it, they need to assemble a team of the most chaotic, unpredictable, and just plain stubborn canon characters, to help them infiltrate the Citadel of the Time Lords.
They make it in, assisted by the likes of the Doctor (Doctor Who), Mal Reynolds (Firefly), Carmela Rodriguez (Young Wizards), and Granny Weatherwax (Discworld). They steal the splinter of the Key, and head down to the Matrix chamber... to find Morgan already there, and her Castellans lining the walls.
"Did you really think this was going to work?" she asks them. "Did you really think this was some kind of story, with you as the heroes, and me - the woman who has liberated the multiverse from fear and grief - somehow the villain?"
Morgan proceeds to verbally tear the team apart, alternately cajoling, deriding, and threatening each member (though she's unable to come up with anything to say to Granny Weatherwax). She reminds the Aviator of the wonderful life she had with her family, but as she does so it becomes clear that she doesn't know what their plan actually is - and doesn't know they have the splinter of the Key.
Morgan concludes by telling the Notary that she's the ultimate pragmatist: she should have known this was a doomed effort from the start. "Oh, I did," the Notary confirms. "I knew I was never getting out of this alive." And she pulls out a staser and starts shooting.
With Morgan and her Castellans in utter disarray over the Notary of all people effectively committing suicide, the Aviator and Agent sieze they chance. They charge for the podium, and Morgan has just enough time for an angry cry of realisation before they stab the splinter of the Key to Canon down into the Matrix and there is a massive flash of blue light.
Post-credits: Jay is writing hesitantly on a sheet of notepaper. Anyone able to read her crabbed handwriting might be able to make out familiar words: "It's happened again. Someone's mucking with the plot continuum."
She stops, stares at the page for a moment, then sighs and crumples it up.
We open on a battle: General Gaspard and his small force are being beaten back down a corridor in HQ by an army of Suvians. As they are driven past the smashed Fountain of Bleepka, Gaspard pulls out his communicator. "Jacques! Now!"
The corridor behind them explodes, trapping the fastest Suvians with the retreating PPCers. Gaspard turns on them, and his team cut them down, then flee as the rubble of the blockade starts to fall.
They make their way back to the remaining agents' base: the HQ Pool, which until the civil war was considered to be likely mythical. Jacques Bonnefoy meets Gaspard there, carrying the last remaining Flower: the Potted Fern Official.
The war is not going well: in fact the PPC has all but lost. What's left of DoSAT have come up with a plan: they've used the quasi-unreal environment of the Pool to build a time machine.
"We're going to go back and stop the war?" Gaspard asks, but Jacques shakes his head. "Time travel doesn't work like that: we can't change the past. But with the right trips - we can change the world."
DoSAT's theory is that when the Key to Canon was shattered, its essence permeated the fabric of HQ. By taking specifically-calibrated trips into the past, Gaspard and Jacques can create a temporal wake which should reform the Key and let them fix the world. The only problem is, for each trip they make, the pseudo-invisibility of the Pool will be weakened.
Nonetheless they go ahead with the plan. The pair take trips to significant events in their past, sometimes separately, sometimes together. Gaspard has to witness the fall of the Department of Intelligence; Jacques watches Jenni Robinson's failed attempt to re-weave reality. They both learn more about how the civil war came about, and the various betrayals that happened along the way.
Each time they return to the present, the news gets worse. Eventually, they come back to find the time machine almost unmanned: the Suvians have found them, and every agent is needed to hold them off.
Jacques and Gaspard look at each other, and then out at the Key to Canon forming in the time machine's energy matrix. "We've only got a splinter back," Jacques says. "We don't know what it will do - what reality it might create."
"It can't be worse than this one," Gaspard says. As the Suvians breach the Pool, the two agents reach into the energy field, grasp the splinter of the Key, and thrust it downwards into the centre of the temporal field.
There is a bright flash of blue light.
Post-credits: Acacia is standing in a kitchen, chopping vegetables. She begins to play with the knife, tossing it from hand to hand, then up and over, juggling it like, well, an expert assassin.
Realising what she's doing, she stops, stares at the blade - and then resumes chopping the veg.
Dafydd Illian is sitting in a house in New Caledonia, in a room which falls somewhere between library and trophy collection. He is fidgeting with a blue crystal, which we recognise as a splinter of the Key to Canon. Eventually, he leans back in his chair and peers out of the door. "Connie?" he calls. "What say we go and save the world?"
Constance wanders in, wearing an apron and covered in flour and dough. "Sounds good to me," she says. "What's the plan?"
"We'll work on that," Dafydd promises. "Come on, we'll start down in town."
As the couple wander through the PPC city, it becomes clear that things have changed. The different departments of the PPC have all gone their separate ways, spreading out across the multiverse: the paladins of the former Action departments, the rangers who used to be Intelligence, the great flying city haunted by the digital ghosts of DoSAT. The New Caledonia city acts as neutral territory - and in the centre is the monument to what was. The clock tower has been transformed into a memorial to the lost PPC HQ.
There is a rumour, though, that part of HQ still survives. Rumours call it the House of Rhodes, and say that when the Rhododendron sundered HQ to defeat the rogue departments, he survived along with the portal generators. "If they had power," Dafydd says, tossing the splinter of the Key to Canon from hand to hand, "we could bring it all back…"
Dafydd and Constance embark on a multiversal odyssey, trying to find a door back into what used to be HQ. Along the way, they encounter their own surviving children: Jasmine, a Demas Paladin (that is, Assassin); Tanfin, a Ranger living in Middle-earth; Belladonna, who has settled down to live her own life free of the PPC; and Oleander, a Pyron Paladin (that is, a Pyro). They discuss the death of their other daughter, Daphne, at the hands of the renegade Department of Author Correction; and they try to get their children to support their plan.
Belladonna doesn't care. Oleander is cautiously in favour. Tanfin is strongly opposed. And Jasmine leads the Demas school of Paladins in a concerted effort to stop them.
Ultimately, Dafydd and Constance find the door they need very close to home: the old entrance to HQ, a mile east of the New Caledonia city. They step through into the familiar, if battered, grey hallways.
The journey through the House of Rhodes is eerily silent: the Paladins don't follow them in, and nobody else treads the dusty corridors. Only when they reach the generator room at the heart of the House do they find any sign of life: a vast rhododendron forest, and living in its heart, Jenni Robinson.
Jenni explains that she was with the Rhododendron when he broke HQ. The energy feedback smashed his mind, turning him into nothing but an ordinary rhododendron bush; and she has been tending him ever since in the hopes that he will someday recover. "It's what I do," she says quietly. "I heal people."
Jenni initially doubts Dafydd's plan, which turns out to be little more than "stab the generators with the splinter until something happens", but ultimately she comes round. "After all," she says, reaching out to touch a branch of her forest, "whatever it does, it can't be worse than this."
The three agents take hold of the splinter, and together they stab it down into the largest portal generator. There is a bright flash of blue light.
Post-credits: Jay looks up as a blue light flashes outside the coffee shop window. It's a police car, racing past to some disturbance. She shrugs and goes back to her coffee.
Up until now, the natural reading of the Phase 4 movies has been that they happened in sequence: that each use of the splinter of the Key created the timeline of the next movie. That idea is broken as PPC 4 opens with a flash of blue light, and all nine of the Key users appear in a blue bubble, floating in the void: Sergio and Corolla, the Aviator and Agent, Gaspard and Jacques, and Dafydd, Constance, and Jenni.
There is one other person present: Makes-Things, sitting against the far side of the bubble reading from a data slate. He looks up, unimpressed. "You took your time."
"Makes-Things!" gasps Gaspard. "But -- you died when the Legendary attacked!"
Makes-Things sighs in exasperation. "Why does everyone always assume I'm dead?!"
Makes-Things explains that when the Legendary arrived to steal the Key to Canon, he hid himself in a null-space bubble. When the Key was destroyed, it splintered all of reality: the bubble was the only thing unaffected. Makes-Things has been waiting patiently for someone to come and find him, and now four teams come along at once.
The Aviator points out that they all have pieces of the Key with them: surely now they can combine them to rebuild reality as it should be? No, says Makes-Things, the splinters can't do that, but they can take them to where they need to be.
"When the Key was broken," he says, "there were two people touching it: Jay Thorntree and Acacia Byrd. They are the Key now. You have to bring them together."
Makes-Things' final advice is that the splinters will be drawn to the power of the Key. By combining the ones they have, they can find the world where Jay and Acacia ended up. "Be careful," he warns, "I don't know what you'll find there." The team press the splinters together, there is a flash of blue light...
... and they wind up in a perfectly ordinary, World One neighbourhood.
What they discover is that this is a universe with no contact with the multiverse. There are people they know here, but they're just... people, living ordinary lives. The only people with unusual powers - or any memory of the PPC - are the team who have just entered.
They split into teams: two using splinters of the Key to track Jay and Acacia, two setting up a home base. Each team faces its own challenges: Sergio and Dafydd (hunting Acacia) discover that Nikki Cherryflower is working as a waitress at the restaurant Acacia now works in; Gaspard and the Agent (hunting Jay) find that Jay is far too involved in her writing to even consider going to meet someone she doesn't know; Constance, Jacques, and Jenni (planning how to "bring them together") have an arc around Jacques and Jenni being from different realities, and each having lost the other in their own timeline; and Corolla and the Aviator (tech support) have to deal with a) the laws of physics not working how they ought to, and b) the Aviator discovering that the Detective is living in this reality with Ellie as his daughter, and a brightly-coloured dog he calls Zeb.
Through a lot of effort, the team manage to get Jay and Acacia to the same place and introduce them. They shake hands, and… nothing happens.
"I was afraid of this," Jenni says. "What else do you think 'bring them together' could mean?"
The team switch to straight-up matchmaking. They fail miserably and hilariously - but along the way, Jay and Acacia are so baffled by their antics that they end up laughing together about the whole thing, and bonding over it. They come together, not physically or as lovers, but as friends.
When the team have just about given up, Jay puts down her coffee mug and touches her notepad. "So you can say no," she says to Acacia, "but I was wondering… do you want to see some of my stories?"
"Sure," says Acacia, "I'd like that." And for the last time, there is a burst of blue light…
... and Jay leans back from her console, indicating a flashing red light.
"It's happened again. Someone's mucking with the plot continuum."
Acacia sighs. "Exactly what is so wrong with the canon that everyone wants to break it? Which world?"
"Lord of the Rings," Jay says, wincing. "The massacre of Tolkien continues. We have... a Mary Sue."
Mid-credits: Jay leans on a railing in Rivendell, snapping photos of passing elves. In the foreground, Acacia is gathering up burrs and pushing them into a pair of ridiculously glittery shoes. "Can't shoot you yet," she whispers, "but no-one said I can't make life difficult."
Post-credits: DoSAT. A young-looking Makes-Things is repairing a CAD when there is a fizzling sound. He looks up in alarm as a sphere of blue-black forms in the air and rapidly contracts; by the time it collapses to a point, he is hiding under a workbench.
The blue-black point vanishes, and the older Makes-Things from the beginning of the movie drops to the floor. He dusts himself off, looks around, and then peers under the bench.
"Oh dear," he murmurs, "was I really that bad?" Then he straightens up and picks up a Remote Activator. "Don't mind me," he says to his cowering younger self, "just passing through." And he opens a portal and vanishes.
Although Sergio Turbo is no longer a member of the Board, he's been really enthusiastic about the PPCCUU. He's helped me get the plots of SpecOps, World Without Authors, and PPC 4 sorted out, and he's also created a comic of part of the setting!
PPC 4: Rambling Band - The Comic
I love the fact that this comic makes no sense whatsoever outside the very specific context of a 20-movie series that doesn't actually exist. It's beautiful. ^_^
And that's it for the PPCCUU, at least from my pen! There's plenty of room for a continuation - there's loads of stories in the PPC that would work as movies, and loads of agents who deserve the spotlight - but after 20 movies I think my tenure as creative director is over. ^_~ (I have no idea what happens to Prime Makes-Things; I'm sure he'll find something to do.)
You can find the full final listing of the movies, with references and disclaimers tacked on the end, here. I hope you've had fun; it's been a wild ride from my side.
hS
Even though I don't quite know all the canons, the MCU-ness of it all makes it relatively easy to be familiar with the characters. The absolute weirdness of an adaptation is both funny and... quite lovely, with the reflection on Jay and Acacia's friendship as the foundation of canon rather than the macguffin. My head is mildly spinny. Just, wow. Thank you.
With this final version, I did my best not to directly reference too many things, precisely because saying "the story is just Woodsprite of the North/Little Miss Mary/Blank Sprite" is useless if people haven't read those. Also because it meant I could go into more detail on what I was changing. ^_^
I started off knowing I didn't want to try and do the usual thing: adapt TOS and the Histories. That gave me a lot of leeway with what I could play with, and one happy accident was that it meant Jay and Acacia could be kept back until they really meant something to the story. I was so pleased to come up with the concept for the final film, and I'm glad it worked for you.
hS
Brain's still fried so I can't offer much in the way of thoughts other than "read it, loved it, thank you for sharing it with us". The sheer amount of effort you put into it is staggering.
(Also, how did you draw the comic, if I might ask? It's very well done!)
I got a word count before adding the references, and it was over 12K - that's a quarter of a NaNo!
It was actually kind of weird to work on. Usually in the PPC we're either careful to get other people's stories exactly right, or deliberately mangling them (badfic games). "Inspired by" isn't something I'm used to! But, for instance, I looked up the story where Ave talks to her mother about her pregnancy, and used her emotions and reasons without actually including her mother. It was a surreal experience. (Alternately: I did /just enough/ research to get something vaguely like the original stories. I'm like a real movie studio!)
The comic was alllll Sergio; well, I contributed Dafydd's dialogue, but that's it. He referenced Koikatu a few times when discussing it; I'm a little unclear on whether that's the editor, or the game it's based on.
(My own comics trend more towards Lego or overly-hurried drawings, which is why I am doing my best /not/ to try and make chunks of the PPCCUU!)
hS
(Sorry, Sergio, I missed seeing the comic was your work—nicely done!)
As someone who's a big MCU fan and have dipped my toe into the comics more than a few times to be called casual, I think you did a fantastic job capturing the "inspired by" aspect you were going for. The characters were recognisable while fitting with the changes you made, at least in my own humble opinion—which considering the sheer volume of PPC writings there are to draw from... almost like a certain comic archive... well, you wouldn't be able to cram everything into a few movies and TV shows.
For this comic, and the illustrations in the chapters of The Worlds without Authors, I used a combination of several games and programs.These are: - Koikatu and its bundled Chara Studio (with mods. Lots of mods.) - Vector Thrust - OpenOffice Impress (basically a free, open source Powerpoint clone) - MS Paint - Paint.net
Let's go in sequence. For scenes featuring characters, I use Koikatu. It is technically a Japanese H-game, but it is has what is perhaps the most robust 3D anime character maker out there. Bundled with the game is the Chara Studio, which is basically a 3D sandbox where you can build your own static or somewhat animated scenes. While on its own it would be fairly limited in settings, I have installed a huge modpack for it which adds... welll, a bit of everything really. All the locations in the comic, for example, are mods, as are some of the clothes worn by the characters.
For aerial combat scenes, instead, the game I use is Vector Thrust. It is an Ace Combat clone with cel-shaded graphics (to keep with the anime look), and while its development has been abandoned it is more than useable for my ends. I do have mods installed for this as well, and I actually kind of made my own as I personally made several paint schemes featured in the illustrations.
The screenshots from either most of the times are used as-is as illustrations for TWWA, but sometimes I make a pass through MS Paint or Paint.net to get rid of some artifacts (like, for example, clothes glitching through other clothes) or make some effect that would be impossible or time-consuming to obtain in Chara Studio (overlaying a partially transparent version of a scene to one without one of the characters is perfect for making said character a ghost or spirit).
If I'm making a comic I then use OpenOffice Impress. Drag the screenshots in, resize and cut them accordingly, add some ballons and a few white lines to act as panel separation, and the job is pretty much done. A bit time consuming, but actually pretty easy!
Ah, my baby being an unhinged ex... wipes tear from eye
Anyway, re: not sure how Continuity Council would play out: why not take a page from Love Actually and deliberately make it a movie full of short but sort-of interconnected stories? Each of the Time Lords on the ConCoun has a short story that leads them ultimately to joining the ConCoun, including the backstory flashbacks you've already listed for the Agent and the Aviator. Then you have the Key to Canon/Mysterious Somebody thread in between all of them, and then ultimately we end on something like either the Notary or Morgan's story where they start questioning whether or not the PPC is appropriating Time Lord tech.
Each short in the film following the journey of one of the members means you also have space for interactions with other folks at the PPC that haven't been mentioned yet, depending on the trajectory of each member, and folks who have stories set in the present moment (rather than Gallifrey flashbacks) can be handling multiversal incursions in their little segments.
The Agent, as seen at the end of Agent II, is putting together a team. One by one, he talks to the Time Lords of HQ, and each time we hear a little more of his plan: he is trying to build a Continuity Council, which will keep an eye on the multiversal issues that Upstairs don't want to hear about. As he visits each Time Lord, we see a self-contained story from that Time Lord's past. The other Time Lords cameo in each other's stories to greater or lesser extent.
The first person the Agent visits is the Aviator. The flashback shows the Aviator's previous regeneration arriving on Gallifrey, and being looked after by the previous Agent and the Disentangler. They raise her almost like a child, and help her to gain entry to the Academy. In gratitude, the Aviator agrees to join the Council.
As the Agent goes to leave, he mentions that he's going to see the Detective next. The Aviator says that he definitely won't be interested, and the Agent asks how he knows. "I know him really, really well," the Aviator says. "He's not the joining kind."
Skipping the Detective, the Agent goes to find Morgan. Her flashback is of a recent incident where her TARDIS landed in a version of the PPC where everyone was a Time Lord, and all the Flowers were herbs; the whole story is a buildup to a big "Thyme Lords" pun. "I don't want to go through that again," she says. "I'm in."
The Agent goes to see the Reader next - the PPC's youngest Time Lord. We see her childhood, with the Aviator acting as his (at the time) babysitter, and end with the beginnings of the Time War just as he reached adulthood. She joins the Council for the Aviator's sake.
The Agent finds the Librarian next, and the flashback shows his struggles with the Riddle of the Osirians - a puzzle which consumed him and drove him from Gallifrey, across the galaxy, and into the PPC. It ends with the Aviator casually solving said riddle at a glance, leaving the Librarian utterly at loose ends. He joins up, effectively, for something to do.
The Agent tracks down the Fisherman in Medical. We see his attempts to clear a herd of multiversal creatures called Ypurs out of HQ, the rogue portal that dropped him into Aperture Science, and his struggles to escape both GLaDOS and the rampaging beasts. "After that," he says, "I could do with a job where I just have to sit down and bicker."
"I like to think we'll be more productive than that," the Agent says, but the Fisherman just quirks an eyebrow: "Have you met many Time Lords?"
Now the Agent goes back to his own RC, where the Disentangler is waiting for him. He has been putting off asking her to join the Council, and her flashback reveals why: it was a similar scheme, back during the Time War, which led to their flight from Gallifrey, and the Agent chosing to give up his memories to the Chameleon Arch after they reached the PPC. Back in the present, the Disentangler points out that she went along with it then, and that she's not going to let him do something this obviously crazy, pointless, and worthwhile without her.
The first meeting of the Continuity Council begins, with all seven Time Lords in attendence. They are just about to start discussing when the doors swing open and the Notary steps in.
"Did you forget about me, Agent?" she asks in an icy tone.
The Agent drops his head onto the table. "Believe me, if I could, I would."
We see the Notary's actions as a bureaucrat during the Time War, and her conflicts with all the other Time Lords at the time. We also finish up an uncommented-on background story: throughout the Gallifrey segments (which have happened in chronological order) there have been background events and throwaway sequences which establish that the Time Lords were working on a knockoff Key to Time as a weapon. In the Notary's story, we see that the prototype fake Key was a crystal tetrahedron, and that it was stolen by a white-robed Time Lord: the Mysterious Somebody.
None of this is commented on by the agents. Rather, as the Notary settles down at one end of the Council table, the Aviator looks over at the Agent. "I've been meaning to ask: this Key to Canon you've had so much trouble with. Is it any relation to the Key to Time the Fourth Doctor had to hunt down?"
The Time Lords look at each other, and then the Notary sniffs in disdain. "I don't know where this Key to Canon came from," she says, "but I'm certain it's nothing to do with the Time Lords. I assure you, I would have heard about that."
Post-credits scene is unchanged. I like this a lot more: it lets me reference actual stories rather than vaguely making stuff up. (The Reader, Morgan, Fish, and Librarian are all drawing on pre-existing stories, and I suspect there's material that could be adapted for Ave's as well.) Also, it means the Council literally never does anything. I love it.
As for Liu Siyuan: entirely your fault! ^_^ I think he's the character thrown furthest OOC by the PPCCUU, and it's all because you wanted him as Jacques' jealous ex. This is movies - you can't just be jealous, you have to be psychotically obsessed and willing to break the entire multiverse. Obvs.
hS
Let's backtrack a little: throughout Phase 3, Jay and Acacia have been acting as the SO's lieutenants. They have been Not Happy the whole time: initially Jay was upset that Upstairs didn't believe in the multiversal collisions, and later Acacia started to get royally ticked off that the Flowers were adopting technical 'solutions' that just hide the problem away and ignore it, rather than going to the source.
PPC 3: BLACKOUT was a huge "told you so" moment for both of them. Having been directly affected by Jaycacia's initial use of the Key to Canon, they are among the most desperate to get it back in the second half. When the team finally recover the Key, it's Acacia who picks it up--
-- and Jay has about half a second to realise what's about to happen, and to grab for her partner's arm, before Acacia hurls the Key to the floor and smashes it into splinters.
BLACKOUT's post-credits scene has nothing to do with the Legendary (the agents probably dealt with her right before getting the Key). It's Jay, sitting in a coffee shop, blinking as if she's just woken up from a dream.
The multiverse is gone, destroyed with Acacia's smash. Sergio Turbo is lost in a hybrid world. In a loose adaptation of the WWA so far, he finds Corolla and his old strike team, discovers Nikki has been pressganged into flying for the enemy, rescues her, and has to fend off a final huge attack from said enemy. There's lots of the usual character drama, and alternate versions of people he knows/knew floating around.
Right before the final battle, Corolla reveals she's been working on a way to restore the multiverse. She believes she can do it if she gets a splinter of the Key to Canon - and wouldn't you know it, there's a piece in the heart of the enemy mothership.
The finale is a air battle-slash-infiltration mission. In the end, Sergio and whoever else goes with him get the splinter, plug it into Corolla's machine - and there is a flash of blue light.
Post-credits: Acacia is walking through a collonade, perhaps in a museum. She pauses, reaches out to touch one of them, and frowns slightly.
The multiverse is under control. Morgan, a member of the Continuity Council, has been proclaimed Lady President of Gallifrey, and has given the Time Lords the PPC. Every timeline, every canon, every alternate is now ruled from the Citadel.
Morgan's former colleagues are mostly not happy with this. Some of them are on her Council, sure, but others - including our protagonists, Ave and the Agent - are in active rebellion. Evading her Castellans, they have to gather the most stubborn canon characters and ex-PPC agents to save the multiverse: they need to get hold of the splinter of the Key to Canon which Morgan has locked away, and merge it with the Gallifreyan Matrix.
Naturally, they succeed. Morgan tells them that they don't know what they're doing, that even if they change reality they could end up with something even worse, but they do it anyway. There is a flash of blue light.
Post-credits: Jay is writing hesitantly on a sheet of notepaper. Anyone able to read her crabbed handwriting might be able to make out familiar words: "It's happened again. Someone's mucking with the plot continuum."
She stops, stares at the page for a moment, then sighs and crumples it up.
The PPC is losing its civil war. The rogue departments and their Suvian allies (of convenience) have nearly overwhelmed the last defenders. General Gaspard and his team have to enact their most ludicriously reckless, last-ditch plan: they're going to time-travel back to various points in the war, using their own temporal wake and echoes to reconstruct a splinter of the Key to Canon. By running a time loop through the splinter itself, they hope to wipe everything inside the loop from potentiality, preventing their timeline from ever coming to pass.
Naturally, this doesn't come without risks. Even at the last moment, they're concerned about what shape the PPC will take instead. "But it can't be worse than this," Gaspard says as they activate the machine.
There is a flash of blue light.
Post-credits: Acacia is standing in a kitchen, chopping vegetables. She begins to play with the knife, tossing it from hand to hand, then up and over, juggling it like, well, an expert assassin.
Realising what she's doing, she stops, stares at the blade - and then resumes chopping the veg.
The PPC is sundered. They had a civil war, which dialogue establishes was just a relatively small contingent of disgruntled agents with no Suvian involvement, and at the end the plothole generators which held HQ together were smashed. The departments have all gone their separate ways, spreading out across the multiverse.
Dafydd and Constance don't like this one bit. With a team of similarly nostalgic agents, they're going to sneak back into the House of Rhodes, the remnants of the old HQ. Due to Dafydd's habit of collecting shinies, they have a splinter of the Key to Canon, and they're basically going to stab it into the generators in the hopes that it'll fix them.
They probably wind up fighting (symbolically) their own children on this, who are generally quite happy with the sundered PPC. But in the end, they make it to the generators and do the stabby thing - and, you guessed it, there is a flash of blue light.
Post-credits: Jay looks up as a blue light flashes outside the coffee shop window. It's a police car, racing past to some disturbance. She shrugs and goes back to her coffee.
(I'm sorry. I had to.)
Up until now, it's been implied - though not stated - that the Phase 4 films come in sequence. Corolla's machine caused Morgan's takeover timeline, the breaking of which caused the civil war, etc. That's wrong, though, as we find out immediately when there is a flash of blue light, and representatives from all the last 4 movies appear in a blue bubble floating in the void.
Dafydd, Ave, and Gaspard have to be there, as the protagonists from Phase 1. Sergio is as well, because although he's a latecomer, he headlined WWA. We'll want to bring in supporting characters too, but not overly many.
And there's one other person present, sitting against the side of the bubble and looking very unimpressed. "You took your time," he says.
"Makes-Things!" gasps Gaspard. "But -- you died when the Legendary attacked!"
Makes-Things sighs in exasperation. "Why does everyone always assume I'm dead?!"
Exposition time. When the Legendary took DoSAT and used the Key to Canon, Makes-Things hid himself in a null-space bubble. When the Key exploded, it splintered all of reality; the bubble was the only thing unaffected. Makes-Things has been waiting patiently for someone to come and find him, and now four teams come along at once.
Ave (or the Agent) points out that they all have pieces of the Key with them: surely now they can combine them to rebuild reality as it should be? No, says Makes-Things, the splinters can't do that, but they can take them to where they need to be.
"When the Key was broken," he says, "there were two people touching it: Jay Thorntree and Acacia Byrd. They are the Key now. You have to bring them together."
Combined, the splinters will be drawn to the bulk of the Key's power, in J&A. "Be careful," M-T says, "I don't know what you'll find there." The team press the pieces together, there is a flash of blue light...
... and they wind up in a perfectly ordinary, World One neighbourhood.
What they discover is that this is a universe with no contact with the multiverse. There are people they know here, but they're just... people, living ordinary lives. The only people with unusual powers are our team (which will make it hilarious if Zeb is one of them - "what a funny-looking dog").
Based on Makes-Things' explanation, they think they just have to get Jay and Acacia into physical contact. They find that Jay is a struggling author, and Acacia is... I don't know, something hilariously apt and bland. Through Hijinks, they finally get them to shake hands.
Nothing happens. Because as Jenni (who may be either a member of the team, or an 'ordinary' person who they've somehow drafted) points out, there are multiple meanings of 'together'.
Now the team switch to straight-up matchmaking. Naturally, they fail - but their failure is so comical that Jay and Acacia end up laughing together over it, and bonding over it. They do come together - not as lovers, but as friends.
One last time: there is a flash of blue light...
... and Jay leans back from her console, indicating a flashing red light.
"It's happened again. Someone's mucking with the plot continuum."
Acacia sighs. "Exactly what is so wrong with the canon that everyone wants to break it? Which world?"
"Lord of the Rings," Jay says, wincing. "The massacre of Tolkien continues. We have... a Mary Sue."
Post-credits: Probably just something funny from Rambling Band, I don't know. This is the last film, at least under my tenure as creative director. If the PPCCUU continues, it does so in different hands.
I didn't mean to do more than one set of posters... :-/ This is the sort of idea that really, really grabs me, apparently.
I hope my flurry of posts hasn't discouraged people from writing their own films in. There's space for more in all four phases, plus there's nothing preventing a Phase 5! Feel free to use the post-credits slot in "RAMBLING BAND" to set it up if you need the space.
I've had fun. ^_^ I hope you have too.
hS
Life's just been a bit hectic with the move back into the UK (hi, hS!) but I've been thoroughly tickled to see your ideas for a PPCCUU.
Also
"Makes-Things!" gasps Gaspard.
I started giggling very much at this line in particular.
Also, WRT needing more queer romances? Third Aviator might be female, but fourth is definitely not, and he and the Detective will be in a much healthier place at that point as an added bonus. :P Zeb was also involved with Jacques the last time I checked in, though admittedly it has been some time since Zing and I discussed where that was going, haha.
It's been lovely seeing these posts and I might have to make a contribution myself if I can find the headspace to do so.
It's good to hear from you - I was starting to worry I might be toe-stepping by making Ave such a big part of this. (But she kind of has to be, because she is one of the biggest names in the PPC, like it or not.)
I've actually just been working up a clearer/more detailed outline of AVIATOR (the first one), which you've given me a perfect opportunity to share here:
We open in a hallway in PPC HQ. There is a thrumming noise, and then a rather battered red TARDIS materialises in a niche. The doors open, and Rina Dives steps out, followed by the Luxray Zeb. They've just completed a mission, and are quite happy to be back in HQ for some downtime.
They spend the first chunk of the movie in HQ - returning books to the Canon Library, handing in their reports to the yet-unseen Officials, grabbing a bite to eat in the Cafeteria before heading to Rudi's. The audience comes to understand that Rina is something of a maverick, while Zeb is thoroughly strait-laced. Eventually Rina gets a [beeep] on her communicator, and they return to their TARDIS for a mission.
The mission is a Bad Slash story, with a wildly OOC Harry Potter and Severus Snape, loosely based on "Little Miss Mary". Naturally there is nothing explicit in this family film, but it is definitely a slashfic, not a Sue. We re-establish the D.O.R.K.S., having Rina use it to become a wizard and use a wand - because, as she points out, this thing doesn't just disguise you, it actually turns you into what you set it to.
In the finale, Rina and Zeb exorcise Snape - only for Harry to absolutely flip out and hit them with a massive blast of fire. Rina shoves Zeb to safety and takes the full force of the blast herself. Zeb retaliates with enough lightning to knock the Wraith right out of Harry's body, then rushes to his partner. She is dying, and she says she's only glad she could save him from the same fate.
But Zeb doesn't let her go. Taking the D.O.R.K.S., he carefully programs it, then points it at Rina. She shimmers, but doesn't change, and as she falls still the audience think Zeb failed - until Rina practically explodes with massive flares of golden light.
The TARDIS doors open, and from inside comes the ominous peal of the cloister bell. Rina's regeneration glow begins to fade, and we catch our first glimpse of her new form - and then there is a bright flash of light, and both she and the TARDIS are gone, leaving Zeb alone as the badfic fades out.
Zeb returns to HQ. He delivers his report Upstairs in a listless fashion, then stumbles blindly down the corridors towards Rudi's. As he passes the Fountain of Bleepka, he hears the rising sound of a TARDIS materialising. Right in front of him, the freshly-repainted red TARDIS materialises. The doors open, and out stumbles Rina, in a black bomber jacket and aviator goggles.
"Hi, Zeb," she says, staggering. "Been a long time." And she passes out.
Post-credits: Somewhere else - a fractured space with pieces of several Word Worlds in it - a figure in a shrouding white robe holds a tetrahedron of black crystal. In it, they watch a replay of Harry's outburst and Rina's regeneration.
"That didn't go so well," they say, in a voice that's impossible to define as male or female. "I'll have to go back to more traditional methods."
In the credits, the unknown figure is listed as Mysterious Somebody.
I still have no solid ideas for Aviator 2, however. In the interests of queerifying "Continuity Council", possibly combine Ellie being born with a regeneration into Male Ave, and the introduction of the Detective? I don't know, it's hard, it doesn't shape out into a coherent plot in my head. Any ideas you have for What Ave Did Next will be greatly appreciated - essentially it just has to slot in between her return from Gallifrey and... well, the discussion of what happened on Gallifrey, which comes in Phase 3.
I think I'm just going to assume everyone has had a thing with Jacques - it's probably his running joke. We're kind of turning Jacques into pseudo-Lux for the PPCCUU, aren't we? I'm fine with that. :D
(Current notes for PPC4: Rambling Band has her as one of the Nine Companions who make it through, working with Gaspard to locate Jay. Zeb doesn't make it through, but there is a distinct possibility that the Detective is raising Ellie with his particularly colourful dog somewhere in what I'm trying very hard not to refer to as Pleasantville. Knowing Ave, there will be angst when she finds this out.)
hS
(I'm always thinking, it don't stop.)
Aviator 2 would work well to introduce the Detective and Ellie, at the same time. Then for the Children's Stories TV series, D takes Ellie along to nursery and acts as a minor character (since Ave's actress is clearly too expensive to make more than one appearance). It let me do something fun in PPC 4: Rambling Band, too.
Question is, is Ave female or male? The ideal time to regenerate her would actually be PPC 2: Lockdown, so the film after Ellie first shows up. It lets the whole thing with D be a bait and switch - "You thought this was another straight romance, but SURPRISE, it's slash!"
But there's no particular reason to either do or not do that, so it's really a question for you: would you rather the Ave of Continuity Council, Gallifrey Imminent, and Rambling Band be female or male?
hS
"The ideal time to regenerate her would actually be PPC 2: Lockdown"
Then by all means, please do that! I like the idea you presented here. I mean, 'nearly-choked-on-my-sandwich-snorting liked it. :P
(And sorry for such a long time between responses, it's been a hectic time. I have been reading this, I promise!)
Hilariously, with the sheer number of people in the later films, I only had to change about four pronouns in the later descriptions. Even more hilariously, both Continuity Council and Blackout bring back Second Aviator's actress (as flashbacks and an evil alternate version); I guess she signed a long-term contract!
Even more hilariously, we're still Disneying it up: because of the way the films are plotted, most of the Ave/Dee relationship is in one of the TV shows (in which, since they're less expensive than Second Ave's actress, both men can appear semi-regularly). Gotta keep that gayness away from the lucrative movies!
(Phase 3 is quite problematic on that score, actually; luckily I think Phase 4 can make up for it.)
hS
They’re new, but eh, I guess you could do something with them. Or use them as comic relief/side characters. Anyway, they’re up for grabs (also Thalia is pansexual, so please keep that in mind if you choose to give her a romantic partner)
... all of, um, three days ago... I meant to make a first post and then let other people explore ideas. Only then I had more ideas, and they just sort of... spiralled, and now I'm putting together the posters to share Phase 4 this afternoon.
Which is a roundabout way of saying I've written myself out of a space to add any new agents; heck, I've unceremoniously dropped half the ones I had already! But if you've got ideas for a film based on what you've done with them (or plan to), please, please share it! I shouldn't be doing all the writing here. :D
(I wouldn't put anyone else's agent into a romantic relationship unless they suggested it, by the way. I haven't even gone for Agent/Dis, and in my head that's practically canon.)
hS
Agent and Dis are on a routine mission when they stumble through into the Mirror Multiverse. Pretty much playing Tawaki's Mirror Multiverse arc straight, including the various politicking with the White Cats. The TCDA gets mentioned as someone the EPC have encountered, but doesn't appear.
Post-credits: Agent meets up with Aviator. "I'm putting together a team." "Is that a quote or something?"
The Agent and Dis put together the Continuity Council: eight Time Lords, six for the rainbow colours plus white and black. They're probably the canonical set, but could be tweaked if any of the newer Time Lords are useful for storytelling reasons. The Council's job is to protect the PPC from multiversal incursions which, naturally, Upstairs don't want to know about.
The plot is a mystery - possibly a murder, maybe not - where half the clues are in their shared past on Gallifrey. Half the film is flashbacks to this, with the cast's relationships and encounters building over the course of the film. They're all on the same Gallifrey at the same time, though not all doing the same things. The plot has a bit of an Ave theme, because this is kind of halfway AVIATOR 3.
Given the rainbow theme of the show, I think it's also a very LGBTQ++ one. (And that's not just because I've realised that all of the romances mentioned so far have been straight!)
Post-credits: Reprise of Ave's arrival on Gallifrey from the end of AGENT 1, only this time, the mysterious Somebody steps out of a black portal in Gallifreyan robes and stops Agent and Dis from interfering. "Don't worry," she says, "I'll take it from here."
Blank Sprite, with Sergio, Nikki, and Corolla dealing with universes crossing wildly and alternate pasts impinging on their present. There are car chases. Given the number of magical girls involved, I think the Magical Girl PPC AU will make an appearance, as an accidental multiversal sideslip.
Post-credits: The mysterious Somebody in a location astute viewers will recognise as the TCDA Citadel. She picks up a complicated looking device about which black energy swirls, and smiles.
The Jenni Robinson movie. Basically Lily's "Into the Bonneverse", with added Jenni/Jacques per Nesh. Jenni needs to talk about her past, and the friends she lost to a Legendary Badfic (we might as well call it Subjugation; it's a nicely ominous title, though it won't necessarily bear any relationship to that story). The movie shows that the walls between the worlds are really breaking down.
Post-credits: A generator room, deep in HQ. The device from the end of SPECIAL OPS rolls into view. Black cracks in the fabric of reality creep out from it and touch the generators. The lights flicker. And then go out.
We start already in the Blackout. All our cast members so far have to deal with incursions from various canons, alternates, and timelines. There is Slorp.
At around the halfway point, they begin to converge on DoSAT (building off Doc's TV series). Agent has the idea to try and fix the Key to Canon, and maybe repair the damage... but the mysterious Somebody has is already there.
Jenni reveals that the Somebody is, in fact, the Legendary Suvian who all her old friends were lost in the attempt to bring down. The Legendary reveals that everything has been about the Key to Canon - she tricked the Agent into hunting for it, she sent Jaycacia to get it (but was foiled by Jaycacia's greed), she invaded HQ last time to try and claim it (but was driven off), and now she's broken the multiverse to get hold of it. She picks it up, fully repaired, and activates it.
The world is reshaped into a multiverse-spanning version of Subjugation - we're inspired here by the Tangled Web crisis. The second half of the film is everyone trying to get back to the Legendary. Jenni finds her old friends restored, and has an emotional arc with Nume and Jacques. Dafydd and so on are dragged in. Eventually they beat down/trick the Legendary and get the Key back...
... and someone, whoever is most plot-relevant to do so, smashes it open. Reality ruptures completely, like a broken sheet of glass.
Post-credits: I don't even know. Either something to tease the PPC Apocalypses theme of Phase 4, or a final end to the Legendary's story. Maybe she gets trapped in her own personal looping hellpocalypse, to cover both things.
Obviously there's a lot going unmentioned here. Jay and Acacia will still be bobbing around, and things like OFUM remain in play. I'm just doing this very quickly to stop the ideas clogging up my head.
This is very much leading to an apocalyptic Phase 4. WORLD WITHOUT AUTHORS is SPEC OPS 2, SUNDERING is PYRO 3, and CATASTROPHE THEORY is INTELLIGENCE 3 by way of General Gaspard (I think he was from that timeline? If not he is now, and it lets Jenni and Jacques get some future storyline in). For the fourth apocalypse... given the lack of Time Lords in Phase 4 so far, possibly an adaptation of Gallifrey Imminent, where the PPC turns into an oppressive force ruling the multiverse.
Each apocalypse deals in part with the agents in it trying to fix what they think is wrong. The WWA team look for something to rebuild the Multiverse; the CT ones want to time travel back and prevent the war. To avoid too heavily ripping off Avengers, the solution in the final teamup film probably needs to not be time travel. Perhaps... well, this is the PPC, so perhaps Jay and Acacia should be the key. Maybe they die somewhere in Phase 3, and the goal in the last movie is to pull together the shards of them from across the broken realities to try and reboot everything.
... I dunno, but it would be quite nice for the final scene of the movie to be a direct adaptation of the opening scene of Rambling Band. (I may be ripping off Stephen King's Dark Tower series a bit...)
Given the rainbow theme of the show, I think it's also a very LGBTQ++ one. (And that's not just because I've realised that all of the romances mentioned so far have been straight!)
That sounds almost like a call-out of Disney constantly saying "yes, this side character that you'll just blink and see for 2 seconds is our first openly LGBTQ+ character, aren't we great and progressive?" so, uh, the general foregrounding of M/F couples is a bit on-theme :P
So if the FicPsych film is "Into the Bonneverse" and Jenni's dealing with her Old Flame coming back and complicating things, Jacques can deal with a cross-dimensional Old Flame of his own in the form of Liu Siyuan. Who, by the sounds of it, would probably be that hot but slightly batshit and very easily jealous ex (might even be one of the antagonists of the Into the Bonneverse? He's destroying the walls of reality so he can get Jacques back and keeps landing in AU timelines?) that Jacques has to properly dump in order to be with Jenni, though most viewers are Tired of love quadrangles and would just rather Jenni and Jacques be their canon selves and set up a polycule ;P
ETA: I'd also like to direct your eyeballs to a now non-canon blurb I wrote a while back about Christianne getting Bad Wolfed into becoming a Time Lord. Maybe that could be of some use in phase 4, especially if you're looking for a Time Lord plot + E/C were already the background blink-and-you'll-miss-it gay rep in the Factory films ;P
(The fans are still whinging about character butchery. {; P )
Actually, since hS perhaps deliberately chose the words "emotional arc" rather than "romantic arc" to describe the situation between Nume, Jenni, and Jacques, that could simply mean Jenni is having Many Feelings about everyone being back and therefore is going "look, Jacques, I really like you, I really want this to be a thing, but I have to deal with this other stuff right now..."
This coming on top of whatever shenanigans take place with the Bonneverse, which could be anything and everything. {X D So, yeah, they're FitzSimmons. They want to be together; the audience wants them to be together; but events keep eventuating at them and making it Difficult. But there's still room for the various relationships to stabilize as a nice polycule eventually. ^_^
~Neshomeh
So cracky. I love it. It's like Hawkeye's sudden wife and child popping out of nowhere :'D
Now, see, a nice polycule would be ideal, but knowing what the PPCCUU is parodying, I don't think the hypothetical executive producers are very interested in pursuing that line of thought. They want, after all, these films to make it big in Mainland China! Catch the films getting banned anyway because someone in the cast made disparaging remarks about the gov't.
So it's quite possible Jenni/Jacques is endgame and Nume/LSY happens to pave the way for it to happen, and then everyone in fandom decided the studio are cowards and writing them as a big polycule anyway (see: Steve/Bucky/Tony).
... the first film costars a Chinese vampire? All about the PRC money, my friends.
I'd hope I'm not parodying too strongly, though. I've mostly avoided detail in the Jenni/Jacques/whoever parts because I can't follow what the two of you are thinking, and don't want to contradict either of you.
hS
Mostly though, the multiple M/F couples (Dafydd/Constance, Jenni/Jacques, Sergio/Nikki, and I bet I've forgotten some) are because I'm not adding films where the romance is the primary plot (Pyro 2 is the slight exception, because I'm allowed one moment of self-geekery) and I'm working purely from memory. The big F/F ships I can remember are E/C and Ixilottie, and for both of them, their relationship is /the thing/ I remember. Sure, E&C did all sorts of stuff, but "will they won't they" is the one in my head.
Actually rereading some prominent agents would give a very different PPCCUU, I know that. It would probably have Indemaat's agents in, for starters! But this whole thing has been shaped by, essentially, the first 3 ideas to pop into my head, and then what people have suggested since.
(Fun fact: INTELLIGENCE was going to star Architeuthis, because I thought a properly early Agent would be good to have. But I vaguely remembered the existence of (Un)Intelligence, found out it involved Gaspard, and saw a mention of him being spooked by a Factory... turned out it had nothing to do with the League, but the plot wrote itself from there.)
hS
Edit: also, I feel like I've cribbed from you /a lot/: Agent & Dis, the OFU infiltrator, Jacques, Phase 3 being heavily influenced by the colliding multiverses thing you had at one OFU. I'm doing my best to spread the spotlight, so E&C are in the same hole as most of my agents. I'm sure it's a very nice hole, however, and Kaitlyn has probably put some quirky cross-stitch on the wall.
because the will-they-won't-they thing was in canon a mild background joke to help sorta... highlight that they're handling BBC Sherlock Sues for a good portion of the missions that were published for them? I basically accidentally les yay'ed them into a couple :P
That being said, that does sorta suggest that where your memory is concerned, M/F fades more easily into the background while F/F stands out? Because for me, Jacques/Jenni is very relationship-focused, but that's possibly because I've only read interludes for them, and the interludes are very shippy ;P E/C are a lot more toned-down in comparison -- they didn't even have any on-screen kissing back in 2013. I don't want to imply anything -- just perhaps pointing out that it's easier for M/F couples to be stuck onscreen together and have people assume they're going to get together, and if a M/F couple is background radiation in a film/story that is otherwise non-romantic, it's a bit more accepted as-is whereas people have to get in-your-face confirmation for F/F and M/M because the default in our society is currently to assume they're just close friends first?
Hahaha I don't mind them in the hole; I'm sure Eledhwen is helping with the cross-stitching :'D And yeah, the colliding multiverses is a thing in IAHF2. I've backdoor resolved that in the E/C fixit thing I have on AO3 but since the relevant chapters haven't been released yet, feel free to poke me on Discord for the TL;DR of the resolution.
Well, not in this specific case. Sorry, I was writing at about midnight, my thoughts don't always come out well.
The key factor in which ships made it into my version of the PPCCUU is... who asked first. XD Dafydd/Constance was a given, and then Sergio suggested that his stuff would fit well, and Nesh brought up Jenni/Jacques and Jenni/Nume. That's the only reason they're in there. ^_^ E/C probably would have been if you'd brought it up before Jacques (or, well, you did, but mentioned it as an "off to the side" thing).
In the spirit of retcons... I'm wondering about the possibility of E&C being undercover PPC agents in OFUM. It's not too far off some of the things you've done with them, and it would help connect that film back to the rest of the PPCCUU. Given Lina and Gimli's matchmaking subplot in the story, maybe she tries to get them together, not knowing that they aren't ordinary students like her. :D
hS
They've got ties to OFUs and Factories so it would make sense, plus in the original heist joke E was also technically floated as part of the infiltration team.
And no worries; thoughts at midnight are not always the most coherent!
Love the idea of the story arcs of so many spin-offs being interconnected and temporally contiguous like this! Plus it would be a big, interconnected movie series headlining protagonists who aren't all conceited white men being rude to other people. I don't really pay attention to actor people, though, so I can't really help with the fantasy casting . . .
Say! You know what the best part of the MCU is? The tv series! They're the best part because you get hours and hours more time to get to know the characters and emotionally bond with them, unlike the movie protagonists who are stuck in twoish hour blocks that you see years apart from each other! Right? The MCU tv series being the best part is a perfectly popular and non-controversial take that most people would agree with? Right? Ri
So anyway, what tv series could we have playing in the background of all these big events?
The Life and Times of Rhus Radicans
I know we actually don't see much of Radicans ourselves, but a fun way to tease the eventual inclusion of Jay and Acacia might be to have Radicans talking about her previous partnership with Jay. This could either be a Lost-style show with flashbacks, or just do the entire show in reverse-chronological order, ending with the missions with Jay and showing Acacia's retirement in the finale. And set the finale to air just before Jay appears in Agent! (Might need to muck with the timeline to make Shada Radicans' post-Jay partner rather than pre-Jay, just so she has someone to, you know. Be partnered with.
The Mary Sues That Weren't
Once OFUM airs, and the audience knows there's more than one factory, we can introduce Sparklee as a sort of Suvian factory town, and show the lives of the MSTW as they try to survive the prejudice in their day-to-day lives here. there can be stirrings throughout the series of some mysterious new project being worked on, with maybe some non-lexical vocal music starting to be heard in the background towards the end, with the final episode having an unexpected song number at the very end. It all leads up to a special tv musical movie depicting the events of Ekwy's musical!
Sufficiently Advanced
A semi-anthology sort of how, with Makes-Things and other technicians serving as a constant in each episode's prologue and epilogue. It can show the developmet of different devices through DoSAT's history, with different agent pairs cameoing in each episode to test the upgrades to different equipment in the field. This allows us to get a lot more characters on-screen over time, and can show off just how very reliable PPC tech can be . . .
Alternates
This one should coincide with Phase 3 as the multiple universes start popping up. Alec Troven, his wife, Verra Rose, and his best friend, Lorac Seriph had lives as reasonably normal as anyone can in HQ . . . until one day Alec meets . . . Alec? Turns out, the multiverse is filled with other Alecs, and they're all being affected by the others through a psychic bond. Things get even more complicated when Lorac's behavior makes an abrupt change, and he attempts to kill Verra. Can prime!Alec get the other universes neatly put away before Lorac can hurt anyone else?
Children's Stories
This one is all about the Nursery. It can follow a group of students as they advance from early childhood/adoption into the agent training of their mid-teens. It's all about learning to live with people of other cultures and biology, talking through problems, and the strong bonds of friendship that form between kids, and the love that develops between non-bio families . . . and maybe juuust a bit of rebellion against authority? It's totally slice-of-life, and nothing bad or dramatic happens.
So yeah! Tv shows! The best part!
—doctorlit is extremely fond of Agent Carter and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
So we've got Rhus and Children in Phase 1, MSTW and Sufficiently Advanced in Phase 2 (the latter maybe shading into Phase 3), and Alternates in Phase 3. That's a lovely setup. I am very happy with these ideas. ^_^
And unlike certain Agents of SHIELD, these series will actually be referenced in the movies. ;)
hS
We can have all the crossover continuity between the films and shows as we want!
Also, considering the PPC was "built" primarily for mission stories, it really is amazing what a diversity of events it and the OFUs have featured over the years, to be able to construct this massive continuity around!
—doctorlit, excited
In that case, I think Elijah Wood might make a good Dafydd.
(I know I said I didn't have any ideas, but Lily's post filled in the gaps on INTELLIGENCE 2, and I came up with a way to make AGENT work, so now I do have ideas.)
Bleeprin: the PPC's wonder-drug. Incredibly rare, naturally formed only in certain types of super-unrealistic badfics. Two Suvians, a blonde girl and a very pretty man, have just stumbled across a vein in their own story, and get super excited - "they" will definitely want to know about this!
Only then the man turns on the girl and kills her, and pulls up a link to HQ. "This is Agent Jacques Bonnefoy: I've got the goods, I need a pickup..."
When Jacques gets back to HQ, Gaspard meets him with a new mission - infiltrating the Sue Factory and stealing the urpleprints to their plans. This is somewhat off the books, because the Flowers aren't convinced that the Factory is really there, or really a threat.
Heist happens, all manner of excitement occurs, and by the end some plan is foiled, and Gaspard has actual evidence to take Upstairs. Someone is presumed dead along the way.
Post-credits: The SO talking to a shadowy figure. So you think you can manage it? A Factory to actually manufacture Bleeprin?
The figure steps forward into the light, and Miss Cam smiles. "I think I can manage rather more than that."
Basically played straight, as the Lina/Gimli fic it is. OFUM is the Bleeprin factory, using its students tortuous attempts at writing to generate the drug. Since they do, in fact, improve ("somehow," says Cam, rolling her eyes), they need to bring in a new batch each year, which is why it's a university.
I think OFUM has various "fangirl revolts" - if we merge these down and make them the work of a Suvian infiltrator (pulling that plot point from... was it IAHF? Someone, anyway), we have a climax which ties in with the overarching plot.
Post-credits: Big reveal that the Sue Factory is really a League.
Tawaki and the Disentangler are an agent team in the Department of Temporal Offences. Dis occasionally mentions her old partner, the Agent - "knew him from back home, but he's gone now". The SO taps them for a special mission: assembling the Key to Canon, a device which can rewrite Word Worlds to the wielder's whim. They gather up 2 of the four pieces over four missions, but Somebody is interfering, and manages to steal the other pieces. Ultimately, they discover that Somebody is... Jaycacia, who has gone a little bit rogue in her attempt to make a name for herself.
Jaycacia gets hold of the Key and uses it to create her own ideal reality, with soppy!Jay and evil!Acacia fully present. Hijinks ensue, and eventually Tawaki gets the key back and uses it to restore reality. Only it's been booby-trapped somehow, and he's fatally wounded in the process.
Dis is in tears. "You made me promise," she says, "you made me promise never to give you this... but I can't let you die." And she pulls out... a pocket-watch, glowing with temporal energy.
Tawaki was the Agent under a chameleon arch. He regenerates, is cross but forgiving, and then the Time Lords look around for Jaycacia.
"Oh, don't worry," says Jay, walking over and wiping her hands clean. "We took care of her for you. Jay Thorntree, by the way; you might have heard of me."
Post-credits: Gallifrey. The past. Agent and Dis sitting outside watching the sunset or something. A battered red TARDIS crashes in front of them, and the Aviator crawls out of the wreck.
Zeb copes with having his partner back, and now an experienced Time Lord. Ave copes with being back in the PPC after so long. The plot is a combination of the whole "DIA doesn't trust her" thing - the Flowers think she might be a Suvian infiltrator like OFUM had - with... maybe Ellie's conception and birth? I'm not too up on Ave's plot arcs, but this seems plausible as an attempt by the Somebody to take her out of commission, like killing off Dafydd was.
It might work well to have Jay and Acacia play some kind of role here, though I'm not sure what.
Post-credits: The someone who was 'killed' in INTELLIGENCE 2 staggers back into HQ, very sick. The macrovirus plague is here...
The macrovirus plague sweeps through HQ. We see all our starring characters again (with the notable exception of Dafydd and Constance), some trapped in their RCs, some out fighting the plague. The weird thing is, people who get thoroughly trapped keep vanishing - not killed, just... gone.
Eventually our last viewpoint characters - Selene and others - find themselves in a hopeless situation. The others literally vanish around Selene, whenever she looks away from them. A macrovirus comes towards her, and she closes her eyes-
-and a portal opens, and a hand drags her to safety. It's Dafydd. "I know what I said, but I wasn't going to let you die, was I?"
Dafydd and Constance have been working with Intelligence to get everyone out to a spot high in the mountains of New Caledonia. There's an abandoned village there, and the agents are already working to build it into a new city. Some of them want to just stay there, but Gaspard is convinced the plague is the work of the Factory, and he's Putting Together A Team.
Our core team go back into HQ, fighting the macroviruses with new tech until at last they have it all cleared. Then, juuuust as they finally get it under control: urple portals open, and the Suvian invasion begins.
You know the drill - hopeless fight, the Flowers give them up as a lost hope, the rest of the agents swarm through to save the day, probably with Jay and Acacia in the lead, the battle spills out into New Cal, and eventually they win. This is probably where the Somebody is revealed, whoever they are. Naturally they escape.
Post-credits: the Somebody is fuming. They pull out what looks like an evil Key to Canon and smash it open; a dark portal opens, and they step through.
Phase 3 is definitely about the incursion of the Mirror and other multiverses. Start with Blank Sprite ("SPECIAL OPS"), with Agents Sergio and Nikki finding alternate versions of their past impinging on their reality. Then AGENT 2 is Agent and Dis doing the Mirror Multiverse, and discovering that there are other multiverses out there. CONTINUITY COUNCIL is still a multiversal murder mystery, and then... dunno about a fourth one before PPC 3: BLACKOUT.
But still no cast members. I am genuinely terrible at that sort of thing, so be delighted for any suggestions for my own agents too. The key cast members so far are:
... and, like, anyone else! Cast your own agents or your favourites, and don't worry if you repeat an agent, options are good! All of these films would have supporting casts, and in some cases (Intelligence, Aviator), major secondary characters have gone unmentioned for brevity's sake. I'd love to know what people think this would all look like.
hS
What if the Big Bad Somebody (not to be confused with little bad Somebody Jaycacia?) were the entity behind "Agony in Pink"? Or, for the sake of the PPCCUU, perhaps a combination of AiP and "Subjugation." The PPC destroyed it all those years ago, or so everyone thought—but the truth is that all they could do was weaken and suppress it. Now it's broken free, and has been pulling strings behind the scenes and assembling the Key to Canon so it can rewrite the past, resurrect its story, and worse than that, rewrite all stories in its own twisted image.
There's a catch, though. A bunch of the agents involved in putting it down have been missing, presumed dead, for all this time, but as soon as the Key activates to undo the past, guess what? They're back! And they're furious. You could use this to introduce basically anyone you want, though I have Nume & Ilraen and Su & Dio most firmly in mind. Could also do Fitz & Silas and perhaps Trojie & Pads?
I flatter myself that Jenni has been a beloved side-character so far. She's kind and witty, but sad for reasons that have only been hinted at. Now she gets a sub-plot involving the reveal that she's been grieving for her friends who were lost putting down the Somebody the first time, particularly old flame Su. (You could, perhaps, make it Nume for the cinematic universe. Cue extreme wailing and gnashing of teeth from the fans about how his character has been butchered and the entire franchise is now dead to them. {; P ) Now that he's back, this complicates the slow-burning chemistry between Jenni and Jacques. She's just gotten to the point of moving on enough to be with him, but now Old Flame is back, and he's jealous, and it's a mess that threatens to damage Old Flame's effectiveness in the coming fight—but of course it works out at least enough that he's where he needs to be when the time comes, even if there are still issues they'll all need to keep working on. Or, a self-sacrifice play taking him out of the equation again wouldn't be out of the question, leaving J^2 more or less back where they started. Perhaps they're the FitzSimmons of this universe. >.>
Well, make of all that what you will! Take what you like, leave what you don't. {= )
Re. casting, I'm afraid I don't have any updates. I don't think I consume enough media to know who's who anymore. ^_^;
ETA: I went back and looked at the old casting thread, and I do have one update: Cobie Smulders (a la Maria Hill) for Jenni. {= )
~Neshomeh is enjoying this thread.
Love it, love it. Since we're on the idea of "discovers that there are other multiverses out there", another joke Zing, Nesh, and I have going on concerning the exponential amount of AUs that Jacques has is a Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse-esque parody featuring the multiple AU versions of Jacques:
(Yeah that joke about the Bonneverse in my Badfic Games thing came from this joke ;P)
I believe the Suvian infiltrator arc was in IAHF, yeah! I suppose Lilith Wydenbrooke could be said infiltrator, since she is in OFUM badfic :P And Christianne and Eledhwen could have a Vision&Wanda kinda relationship off to the side of all of the Factory-related instalments, since Eledhwen is a Factory escapee in canon...
Unfortunately, I don't have any ideas for it.
A heist-style mission where one of our agents has to be a honeypot. One of our agents meaning Jacques, obviously, but someone tried floating Eledhwen for the idea (using the eminent logic of "Elves pretty") and Jacques was like "Don't send a Tolkien elf to do the work of a fifty-first century Time Agent!"
Then we got to thinking about what sort of heisting could actually happen in a PPC setting and we came up with:
-Stopping the League of Mary Sue Factories from detonating a more effective Vambiolaria bomb by stealing the blueprints (urpleprints?)
-Stealing something from Headmistress Giritinuvielwen from the Training Academy of Mary Sues
-Bleeprin heist. HFA manufactures Bleeprin, some agents probably are not psyched about JKR's latest stances on trans women but they still need their Bleep...
I was just thinking this because cinematic takes on the PPC, haha. The idea of Dis and the Agent assembling the Key to Canon is pretty amusing, though! And going into the Mirror Multiverse, too...