I'm not 100% sure what you're referring to when you say you're not sure they 'even do that', but I think you mean neuralyzing former members (if I'm wrong, this next bit probably won't make any sense). That actually came from a line of Peter's dialogue in New Recruit, where, after Nita acknowledges having seen MiB, he says 'Good. Then you'll understand the concept of a job you are not allowed to leave without being dead or having your memory wiped. This is one of those jobs.'

I'd thought about using the whole DIO/secret keeping thing as a backdrop for some character interactions, with a current DIO agent keeping tabs on his former partner (and maybe getting too close). I would have probably tried to do some missions as well, if allowed, as I wouldn't want to have recurring agent characters just appearing in interludes. I'd started giving some thought to how I could integrate my characters with the set-up and characters already presented, but considering the events of Royal Swan, that's pretty much just academic now.

If you are interested at all in seeing what thoughts your first couple of DIO pieces sparked in my brain, I could probably e-mail some notes or something.

When I started thinking about all this, a few weeks ago now, it looked like the DIO had only been used a couple of times, and had possibly fallen into neglect (having no idea what date any of the pieces were written). If I'd known that anything like this was in the making, I doubt I'd have bothered thinking about it.

I'll probably just remove any reference to the DIO in my plans. After all, the Message looks like it could provide plenty of fun and games.

I can see where your wish to write out this department comes from.

Also, thank you for mentioning it. Now I just have to name my next fort's mechanic Justin Agent.

That doesn't make it okay to go "LOL." at someone's reasonably diplomatic sincere question any less eyebrow-raising. You've kind of been talking lately about how you don't really care about the PPC, or PPC canon, anymore, and you've outgrown all this, and I get that. I really do. I write the Cafeteria stories for fun, and I don't read many spin-offs lately, and I'm only recently starting to realize that I just don't know 'modern' PPC canon all that well, these days. I understand that this isn't a really important thing to you anymore, and as has always been the case, I don't think that should impact the way anyone regards you at all; you don't have to write, breathe, and live PPC to be a Boarder.

But... your tone, juxtaposed with your saying things like "I cared when I was thirteen, but I'm not thirteen anymore," kind of makes it feel like you consider the rest of us immature, or somehow beneath your respect. And responses like this do nothing to make me feel better about that. Lately, I seem to be getting a lot of vaguely-directed irritation [from a lot of people] with anything new, and vaguely-spoken "Things were better back when..." ideas. And it's really kind of bad. It creates a hostile environment, for everyone involved.

Having been here longer than someone is not an excuse to treat their opinions, or them, with no respect. If a newbie posted something like this, no matter how true their reasoning was, everyone and their dog would be ripping them to shreds for it. This response, whether you are right or wrong in your reasoning*, really is pretty bad behavior, and I'm not okay with you justifying it as amusement. Please be more respectful with how you treat others here.

--VM

*and I do actually agree that, given the Department is Huinesoron's, he should be able to write it out, and that as he pleases. We had this conversation in the IRC last night. Buuut as pointed out, Data also has the right to go "Wow, this is dark, I don't want my agents in on it." So it's... complicated, I guess.

however, I'll be holding off a bit until the rest of the story is resolved before I try producing something to introduce them.

A white tulip comes to mind for me.

... do you think some of the misconceptions apparently arising from Swansong would be alleviated by my releasing Mute Swan (with or without the text of the Message) ahead of schedule - ie, in the next couple of days - with Flight of Swans still waiting a couple of weeks? I ask you since you're one of the two people who've actually seen it. :P

hS, trying for damage control