Subject: A tiny bonus story
Author:
Posted on: 2025-01-05 02:50:38 UTC
After about a year, here's a 1.5k flash fiction piece featuring the Curator from Name Pending. It's rushed, unbeta'd, and really was just written in a state where I wanted to get any kind of productive writing done that day, but it's done so I suppose I can't be too upset, haha. First piece of 2025 for me, too.
That said, here's Vignette 1.
Been hoping to get one more out so I could feel like I accomplished something this year, in between the pokes at original fiction. and I'm glad I could finally scrape this together. It's been, what, close to five years since I started writing this pair? How time's flown by... anyway, here's my tenth mission and an interlude to go with it.
The main course is Of Scribbles and a Stu, where the console reports an 'old shame' to our local idiot duo. Funnily enough, I think this was a type of mission I wanted to tackle since I first got Permission, and after literal years I finally managed to do it. Better late than never, haha.
And for our interlude, speaking of types of writing done by past spinoffs, here's Years Hence, which is about what you'd expect. And just like almost every piece of PPC writing I finished this year, once again, it was started at least two years ago. It really does feel like most of this year for me was digging writings out of my dusty WIP pile.
This might be my last piece with Jiwon and Charlie for a bit, as with this done I've finally finished the last of my 2021-2022 ideas with enough potential to become a WIP. I still have a few more PPC stories in progress, though, such as a Cafeteria piece, short and story-centric ESAS spinoff, and another DIA one-shot. Hopefully at least one of them will be a new high for my writing career - as much as I'm proud of some of my older work (And That's Okay and We Do a Little Trolling are personal favorites), I feel like my 2024 writing quality wasn't quite up to that level. But maybe that's just my brain becoming more critical the more I write. Anyways, happy new year!
I see Jiwon has become talented enough at shapeshifting that she’s made a big change! Too bad the tails aren’t as malleable; having that much extra volume must get frustrating in an all-indoor setting, and she doesn’t even get to leave on missions any more! Still, switching to an infrastructure department feels like a perfect end step for Jiwon; her anxiety on missions wasn’t always pleasant to read about, and she’s probably doing much better psychologically! And as cumbersome as her tails are, at least they function as storage devices! Somehow! Too bad, that would have been valuable in the action departments. (That soldier dude can eat a sofa, though. Who steps on another person because they’re in a hurry?)
I went into this assuming Charlie would have doubled down on the bard stuff, so reading them leading an army of undead was both a shock and a laugh for me. I especially love the idea that he’s been completing missions by ordering minions to do the easy ones for him, like he’s just lending NPCs out in a video game. I’m sure they go in disguise, like any standard mission, but it’s still funny to picture the undead blankly watching the events in a fanfic and having to snark at it, simply because they’ve been ordered to snark! And it’s great that Charlie’s reaction to their system being criticized is “it’s okay, I gave them knives.” Jimmy seems so long-suffering, and I have to feel a little bad for him having a high Intelligence stat while stuck working for a ditz.
Even after all this time reading your work, Charlie’s cool demeanor never stops catching me off guard. When they brought up becoming a lich, I assumed they meant as a long-term plan, something they would do someday in the future as they aged and neared the end of their lifespan. And then they just started doing it, there on the very same page, right before my eyes. They’re just so chill about everything, including giving up their living status to become a master zombie wizard. We must all learn to let go of anxiety and worry as well as Charlie! They also briefly tricked me into thinking “determination” had four syllables, because no, I didn’t catch it until Jiwon pointed it out!
One area where the description confused me is when Jiwon and Charlie walked to the gold table to eat. I get that they left the spooky room with the cauldron, but I’m unclear whether the table is in a separate RC from the one Charlie operates in, or if it’s a room within that RC. I think it’s the former, since Jimmy waves to them as they pass, and he was originally stationed at the RC door. Sorry if I’m missing something, but I just can’t quite picture what’s happening there.
New word you taught me: “hanbok.” They look fairly comfortable—which for me means unrestricting—but it’s not always easy to tell just from looking at pictures.
One typo here:
Then then patted Jimmy on the shoulder
And these paragraphs are missing the spacing between them:
“A lich? As in…”
“Yup! I’ll be undead!”
—doctorlit appreciates the literal jaw drop
I'I'm glad you like the little details and developments here. Jiwon in particular I've been trying to give a developing personality over the years, so it's nice to see it's actually noticeable. And as for Charlie, I was inspired to go the lich route ever since reading one of the old Adventurer's League modules (some kind of official organized play system for D&D) where there was another tabaxi musician who became a lich. I may or may not have shamelessly stolen the idea of the phylactery being the instrument from that, haha.
Oh, I guess I can talk about the joke of Jimmy having twice the Intelligence stat of Charlie, since you brought it up and I liked coming up with it. So for years now, I headcanoned Charlie's original D&D stats as being absurdly lopsided, with the normal bardish ones like Charisma and Dexterity being as high as they could after reaching level 20, at the expense of such things as, say, their Intelligence score, which I've been bouncing in a not-quite-confirmed state between 5 and 6. For context, the average score is a 10, while most animals hang around 3. Charlie shares the same level of intelligence as orges and hill giants, both barely sapient beings. Jimmy isn't even particularly intelligent, his stat is 11, it's just that by being average he's comparatively so much smarter.
And as for Jiwon ending up in an infrastructure department, I figured that if he didn't die or outright desert by the end of the decade, he'd probably end up in Legal so he could actually do something about the complaints he's built up over the years. Or she, at this point - spirit moment, I guess. Hanboks also aren't usually tight, the pictures do show that accurately. Usually. Future-Jiwon may have been messing with proporitions without adapting clothing measurements. (I could've sworn I had Jiwon use a tail for hammerspace storage before, though, but admittedly it must've been some time ago. My gut tells me it's the Narnia one from 2021? How time flies...)
I ended up changing up the wording on the gold table transtion becaue I checked back and yeah, scene placements were off. That's been a weakness of mine for some time now, and I'm hoping to fix it up for when I write a story with more environment than two rooms indoors. And as usual, thanks for the typo catches!
And I like the reasoning behind Jiwon joining Legal. She wants to keep other agents from dealing with the problems Jiwon had to put up with! Nice lady.
—doctorlit be reading
(My reading time is rather inconsistent right now, but I’ll get to the second story when I’m able!)
I don’t know how long you’ve been setting this up, but I remember thinking during some of your more recent stories that Jiwon’s tail was bigger than I pictured in my head. I assumed I had just gotten a wrong impression of what the tail looked like, but now I see it actually has changed over time. Very sneaky! You wrote the change so subtly, I didn’t see it happening! And even when Jiwon brought up the size change at the beginning, I somehow didn’t expect the explanation that was coming by the end, even though it feels plainly obvious now. I’ve heard of nine-tailed fox legends before, but it didn’t occur to me that Jiwon could turn into one, especially not all at once like this! It makes for an interesting metaphor for Jiwon’s personal growth, because even though he may not appear to have changed much since the beginning of the spin-off, he absolutely has become more confident and less anxious over time. Perhaps getting all nine tails at once is a sign that he’s developed as far as he can without radically changing who he is? Whatever it means, I think it’s a very clever idea!
I understood, from the Doylist viewpoint, that this mission was based on one of your old stories, but in Watsonian mode, I was puzzled by what Intelligence meant by labeling the story an “old shame” in-universe. Jiwon and Charlie are pretty clearly not author insert-style characters, as they themselves discuss. Aaaand . . . I admit, I didn’t understand the relevance of their console saying, “don’t take me as well.” I thought it was worried about getting stolen or something. But the idea that the console has been this spin-off’s self insert all along, and was scared to confront its old shame (and has been writing the mission reports the whole time!) . . . OrangeFox, that is genius, and extremely funny. I very much enjoyed reading that twist at the end!
I figured out pretty early that the “chessboard” the agents were seeing in place of the Words had to be comic panels, based on the description you were giving inside the fic. Honestly, I had great fun reading the descriptions here; you did an excellent job of describing a child’s drawings the way they would look and feel as a solid environment. Honestly, it was kind of endearing, and early on, I found myself rooting for you not to be too harsh on your younger self. The comic is cute! It’s a little kid having fun and being creative! So I really like the ending. Oh, and I love that the agents’ disguises matched the aesthetic of the comic. Making Jiwon into another fox with magical fire is perfect, but I especially loved that Charlie just became a stick figure with cat features on the head. It’s just so cute and funny, and really feels like it matches Charlie’s vibe. All that said, I think this is the single most justified usage of a CAD screaming and melting after trying to give a reading of a character. I’ve read so many such scenes by now, I often feel the trope is overplayed, but in this story, it made me laugh out loud!
Nitpicker doctorlit wants to battle! Nitpicker doctorlit sent out Continuity Errors!
. . . being defended against the Haunter, his Gengar goons . . .
I believe these were Gastlys a couple scenes before?
The agents watched the Ferroseed hop . . .
This is a Ferrothorn everywhere else in the story. Then again, in the actual comic, it looks more like a Ferroseed to me, so . . . I don’t know, it’s your story, lol!
The opposing Continuity Errors fainted! Nitpicker doctorlit sent out Missing Words!
Another fight was ongoing, just in time to watch the lead stickman
Either the sentence trailed off, or the end punctuation is missing.
With that, they leaned back against ramp and watched . . .
the ramp
Nitpicker doctorlit withdrew Missing Words! Nitpicker doctorlit sent out Excess Letters!
The Pokémon slid across the floor of the gym less like static jpegs.
"Why'd you ask if you're not gonna do it anyway?"
I think I’m reading this right, going to be embarrassed if I misunderstood the conversation!
He wasn’t there in the last one, was he?” T
The Destiny Bond took Excess Letters down with it! Nitpicker doctorlit sent out Thefollowingpairsofparagraphsaremissingthedoublespacebetweenthemeon!
“Still no Words.”
“That’s what that ‘right’ implied, yes.”
“. . . Well, what’s next, then?”
competitors, said the fic . . .
“Somewhat, yes.”
“Nice.”
And I don’t really know what Pokémon joke to make for the last two, so:
An A, T, E, and R follow suit,
“followed”
Charlie clapped their stIck-hands rapidly.
Snuck a little of yourself into that “stick,” didn’t you?
—doctorlit awards OrangeFox the CHARACTERARCBADGE! DOSAT technology up to level 30 might obey you, sometimes!
I'm glad you liked the tail details, the disguise notes, and especially the screaming CAD joke - I've been worrying as of late my ability to match PPC tone and humor as of late, especially with the more unconventional endings and solutions I've had in my last few missions. It's something I'm trying to keep in mind for my one-off pieces to come and especially the more story-centric ESAS spinoff I'm hoping to start and end within the next two years.
For Intel sending them an ‘old shame,’ I’m a bit fuzzy on the details, but I think the idea when writing was that with every past ‘old shame’-type mission managing to send the correct ones to their matching author-insert, Intel must have some vaguely meta way of identifying them for assignment. Calling it an ‘old shame,’ I think, was meant to be just another step in that direction. I’m not fully sure, though, since I think that part was one of the first chunks of the mission I wrote, which would be over two years ago by now. Maybe with no self-inserts present when Intel found this fic, they ended up sending it to the only pair the author (moi) had in HQ? But hey, that's just headcanon at this point, haha. Could be something other spinoffs could touch on, who knows?
The 'don't take me as well' I do remember (at least, I'm 90% sure) as a reference to Alopecoid, where the CAD got taken away for maintenance (which the 'I thought we fixed that' statement developed off of).
I will say, when writing the ‘who’s the self-insert?’ jokes, I didn’t intend for the CAD nor the console to be confirmed as it, so it’s interesting to see both you and Linstar interpreting it that way. I don’t know whether that says good or bad things about my writing, haha.
And thanks for catching all the errors! I guess it makes sense for there to be more in a writing so disjointed and procrastinated on that I forced myself to finish by disregarding my usual over-polishing writing style. Honestly, I think my outline for when I first created the document and when I finished turned out drastically different. (Some of the paragraphs stuck together seem to just be a publishing format issue - they're double spaces on the editable doc itself for me. Odd, that.)
I'll try to get to the other responses as well tonight!
Well, as for the mission itself. It was pretty good! I liked the idea of the old shame, and a CAD being an author insert. I... think there was a typo involving a stray capital "T", somewhere. I forgot to write this review after reading the fic, lol. I liked your descriptions of the stickman world. I will be honest, I did find some of ten-year-old Fox's bad jokes to be funny. Maybe that was just because of how you described it in the mission. Overall, I greatly liked it.
And I beta'd the interlude already, so not anything new to add there.
--Ls
I'm very happy I managed to transfer my nearly incoherent child drawings into words well enough. It wasn't as hard as I thought to actually write what was shown, but the issues came when writing what wasn't, like the transitions between scenes, where places like the bleachers were situated, and the entire tournament arc that was a smudge of pencil lead because that part of the comic was a parallel to a comic my sibling wrote. That was a particularly weird bit about my old drawings.
Also, thanks for catching the T, because that big of a mistake led me to search the whole thing for another polish, and it turned out it very much needed it. Genuinely don't know how that happened. Here's hoping my future work won't have issues like that.
After about a year, here's a 1.5k flash fiction piece featuring the Curator from Name Pending. It's rushed, unbeta'd, and really was just written in a state where I wanted to get any kind of productive writing done that day, but it's done so I suppose I can't be too upset, haha. First piece of 2025 for me, too.
That said, here's Vignette 1.
And I'm very glad Slorp didn't breach containment , because Sergio and Nikki surely wouldn't have enjoyed getting called in to deal with it again!
(I had already given this feedback to OrangeFox in the Discord chat. I just wanted to paste it here for posterity, since the Board is Where It’s At, lol)
Enjoyed this! I like that it’s technically a robbery story without any real, like, greed or malice behind it? I also like “Gene Eric” as a name, and the puffball creature having terrifying mech arms.
I assume the meat creature is a piece of Slorp?
—doctorlit never got an answer to that question, nudge nudge
How did she acquire the remnant, though, is the real question... The particular lightsaber featured in the story may or may not also be a reference to a particular incident involving keys and canons (and so might the name she brings up in her first line).