And this is in many ways the goal.

[PLUG] Apples & Oranges 2: The Unknown (Animorphs mission, 1999) by Huinesoron on 2022-04-17 14:39:07 UTC Writing Plug Reply

(A&O 1, if you missed it)

As before, it's an Animorphs mission, but canon knowledge is not required. It's not like Alex has a clue what's going on anyway.

Apples & Oranges 2: The Unknown

In which there is an encounter outside the Cafeteria, a(nother) Extra Animorph, and Alex's book-magpie tendencies continue to be evident. Also, there's more "Very Kell". :)

Thoughts by Tomash on 2022-04-23 17:38:15 UTC Reply

That was a good mission, and it makes sense how that sort of early intervention is a generally better style if it's available - and with this being the olden days, there was less fic going around so cleaning up borderline cases was something PPC agents could still do.

As to the second bit ... welp. That sure is a cliffhanger.

Overall, I have read and liked the thing.
re: mission+mystery (spoilers) by doctorlit on 2022-04-21 14:18:28 UTC Reply

Even knowing that the PPC was very different before the Somebody was ousted, it still feels so bizarre to see agents in an actual narrative structure talking about week-long free time, or saying that the cafeteria is good, actually! I'm starting to get the vague itch to set an extremely interlude-heavy spin-off in the pre-Reorganisation period . . . but no time to plan such a thing out right now!

Poor Penny! I kind of hate seeing her like this. The event definitely has a different weight to it here, compared to Nyx and Dassie talking about it after-the-fact in Reorg. For all their rigid structure and semblance of authority, the DIS really did just become a bunch of bullies, didn't they?

Is Joe Bob an established character? I'm not familiar with that name. (I'm assuming the "Mort" there is Mortic.) I can't find "KPI" anywhere, either; is that "Kills Per . . . Intel?"

CAR. CAD. CAST. CATS.
~~Not sure what the first three are about, but it sure was thoughtful of the Ellimist to give the agents 20 years' advance warning not to watch the Cats movie.~~

Oh my gosh. I somehow feel incredibly dumb for not seeing the Disentangler coming, in connection to Kell's investigation. We really never learned why she was imprisoned, did we? Not that most of the DIS's prisoners were there for valid reasons, but still. But assuming Dis is innocent . . . will Kell ever find the real murderer? D : (Not fishing for answers here, just musing out loud, please do not spoil.)

—doctorlit promises he hasn't forgotten about betaing the next part, he just has very packed to-do list, and the free time only comes in spurts

PS: by Huinesoron on 2022-05-04 10:33:57 UTC Reply

Joe Bob is Joe Bob Brentworth, from Architeuthis' missions. He's implied to have been around a while, so I figured he was safe to splice in here. He may or may not be the source of the gun Alex claimed to have traded from the X-Files Division back in Last Sun.

hS

Ah, gosh. Been a while since I read through her whole spin-off . . . (nm) by doctorlit on 2022-05-04 11:44:27 UTC Reply

And this is in many ways the goal. by Huinesoron on 2022-04-22 08:14:06 UTC Reply

Due to the way the plot of Reorg shook out, we never actually got to show the PPC as it was before everything went to pot. I think the only "routine DIS behaviour" we see is a couple of glossed-over patrols, and Nyx's arrest of Palaver (which is also part of her 'hazing'). Everything else is outside the norm even for them, so you just have to take our word that even when not murdering Accountants in Escher rooms while singing children's songs, the DIS are bad sorts.

Similarly, I've always described it as the end of a deliberately-quotemarked "Golden Age", but what we see in Reorg isn't at all golden. But that's because Nyx and Tango are in really weird outlier situations - they are not experiencing the PPC's normal running mode!

Alex and Sam, and Kell, let me do that. Granted things are already into the downward slide - though there's another thing in the works that may pull things back even further - but by and large their situation is just normal. The DIS are intimidating, but (Twp aside) not actively hostile. Their free time is being eaten into, but they still get it. Their world may be on the verge of collapse, but they're not involved - they don't feel it.

Yet.

But yes, the DIS are just a crowd of bullies, with a few people who think of themselves as Good Apples thrown in. We'll see how that pans out.

(KPI is Key Performance Indicator, and is really obnoxious corporate jargon that still exists today. Given that I have to work with these people, I allowed myself one abstruse* Grown-Up Joke.)

hS

(*I have always thought this word was "abtuse", like obtuse. Apparently there's a whole two letters I just completely missed!)

Ah, well, as long as it's only a few good apples—wait— by doctorlit on 2022-04-23 12:27:53 UTC Reply

Also, I realized I forgot to comment on the actual mission part. I was super confused what the badfic was actually trying to do there, before I realized the implication was that the Ellimist had moved the Animorphs into a "real world" where the books were published. I'm very amused that you had the Ellimist just kind of. Snap out of it and undo everything. Feels very in character! And like I said on the first A+O story, there's no reason a benevolent being like the Ellimist wouldn't play along with an innocuous badfic, at least for a little while.

—doctorlit has a key performance index, too! It's the amount of colors he and his clothing come home smeared with. If he's relatively clean, it probably wasn't a very productive day.

"You're at least halfway hinged" by Linstar on 2022-04-18 03:29:37 UTC Reply

That line made me smile.

Thank you! by Huinesoron on 2022-04-18 15:51:29 UTC Reply

A lot of my writing consists of flinging out lines in the hope that they'll stick, so it's always good to know one did!

hS

It stuck. (nm) by Linstar on 2022-04-18 16:28:18 UTC Reply