Still, while I dunno if the game itself's still around it's easy to find a good playthrough on youtube. The talk of a normally semi-comic setting going all hardboiled brought it to mind.

(And I know about the influences, we talked about them in IRC. :P )

I'd been imagining them as rectangular, and opening with a low creaking sound like rusty hinges instead of the silence or low electronic fizzing noise the PPC portals make. They'd also let in a blast of cold air and a brief flash of light when expanding, referencing the cold and windy mornings in which a noir detective often receives the first visit from his new clients. It invokes some of the frosted-door imagery without actually being a giant door that appears out of nothingness.

I was going to include something to reference how rainy it sometimes gets in noir, but that seems way too many references to just pack into one system, plus, it would probably result in people getting drenched when they walked through portals, and there are only so many snide sarcastic remarks a hard-boiled detective type can make about holes in space that dump water all over your new hat.

To be fair, I was envisioning the New Shade as something more noir-parody myself, especially since my first reaction to this new AU's existence in the ever-growing PPC Multiverse was imagining a New Shade agent meeting up with his Transfictional Canonical Defence Authority counterpart and immediately going on some sort of trans-dimensional buddy-cop journey, so my portal idea might not connect well with what you had in mind for the tone.

Most of what I have to say about the story has already been said, but for one personal response, I really liked this universe's Flowers. Not only getting to actually see some of them, since PPC AUs seem to be averse to that for whatever reason, but how well they transitioned into this. The Flowers' tone of detached, vaguely haughty phrasing fits really well in the setting, and I loved the contrast between it and Danny's blunter attitude. The part where the Sub Rosa makes an offhanded and aloof comment as Danny walks into the room, only for Danny to say "You're in my chair." was one of my favorite exchanges. I'm sort of interested in what the extent of the differences between these Flowers and the main universe Flowers are now.
Also, the fedora-wearing bodyguard Weeds were great. I know there's a noir term for what they are, but the only word I can think of is "kneebreakers", and I know that's not right. It sounds like something that would be part of some sort of malapropistic noir-parody inner narrative, maybe, but not an actual term. Anyway, I liked their inclusion. It both set some differences between the main PPC universe, where the high-ranking Flowers would usually go to these sorts of situations alone and the Flowers would attack telepathically rather than carrying guns, and it provides extra detail for the setting without making those details explicit. There was a sizable amount of low-context world-building in this, actually, which I think makes it a good start for an AU. I'm wondering exactly how noir HQ is going to work, though. Noir detectives are notoriously at their best when walking down some sort of shadowy street in the cold hours, not letting the man following them know that they know he's there, and other situations that are rather solitary in nature. HQ is, by its nature, not very solitary. You can't exactly have everybody going on a dimly-lit trudge through the halls, leaving about twenty feet of space in front of and behind them so everyone else can trudge in their own space, because that would be venturing into parody again.

Your compliments are much appreciated, and the errors you pointed out have been addressed. It's much appreciated.

I borrowed the idea of the 'feel' of the Sub Rosa's thoughts from one of Huinesoron's Flower-centric interludes. I really liked the idea of agents having to deal with mental 'tastes' rather than body language or something similar.

I imagine that Danny practiced some version of his rant in his head early one morning while staggering back home from the bar. All the things he'd wished he'd said at the time he'd left and whatnot.

The only badfic I can recall seeing in a vaguely noir setting was some Who Framed Roger Rabbit lemon where the authorial insert character was paired up with Jessica Rabbit. That was a long time ago, though. I'll probably end up just making up some appropriate noir badfic if I want to make an actual PPAverse mission.