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Nothing good is going to come of Draco grabbing a sample of Draught of Living Death, especially since he hasn’t been tasked with assassinating Dumbledore in this timeline.
Oho.

I just hope the Sectumsempra spell isn’t there in this timeline, or that Harry doesn’t run into it, or never gets put in a position to try it.
Ohoho.

I guess someone’s trying to sabotage Gryffindor this year? Or maybe specifically the Gryffindor Quidditch team?
Ohohoho.

I'm glad you liked the house-elf shenanigans :D And yes, Astoria is such a wet cat right now. Poor pathetic little meow meow with her ill-advised crush... It is like a plot from a badfic, isn't it?

You make a good point about Gaunt Snr. being so obsessed with reclaiming the manor like Sauron reclaiming the Ring! I'd argue he's a bit more Gollumy, but y'know.

Read on to see more maidenly shenanigans ;) (I laughed so hard at that joke tbh)

Harry and Draco deal with the consequences of their kiss in the Forbidden Forest.

MASSIVE BL10/11 warning for Harry's nightmares in this chapter, plus warnings for self-harm, blood, indoctrination, physical (and sexualised) assault, body-shaming and ableism, and allusions to date rape (what Merope did to Tom Riddle Snr) and child marriage. Please check the pre-chapter notes for more details!

I've planned this project for a while and after discovering that pottersues has started posting again, I finally went through with it. Say hello to Disney Sues, the DW community dedicated to reviewing Suefics in Disney fandoms. Those with DW accounts and knowledge on Disney works can feel free to join up and post.

In a record burst of productivity, I've managed to finish up another dual feature!

The first story in drafts is a 10k word first mission for a new ESAS spinoff into Where the Red Fern Grows, canon knowledge hopefully not that necessary in the grand scheme of things. It's set in early 2024 for timeline reasons, because I'm hoping to tie this into an interesting bit of older PPC worldbuilding I found while binge-reading the backlogs one night. I'm just hoping I managed to make this new dynamic distinguishable from others I've done in the past.

The second is a small, long-delayed DIA piece, standing at 12k words and featuring a bunch of assorted one-off characters brought back just for this. No canon knowledge needed at all, except for the PPC in general and for, like, maybe one reference.

As usual, I can be contacted through the Discord or my email, though I'm more likely to respond to the former.

We don't get too many visitors these days, and even fewer who stick around, so it's nice to see new faces! I'm afraid my stash of symbolic virtual gifts is lacking at the moment, but I do hope you enjoy your time!

I would like to repeat that I got too many cutouts

Wow, what an insufferable little punk! Bold of him to call Kaguya “infuriating,” when he’s the one joining a club for the first time and chewing out the long-standing members. I don’t know if Kaguya will ever meet this club president again, but he can rest assured that his experience as de facto leader of this quartet of agents, and assassin of Suvians, has developed in him the will and leadership to satisfy that stuck-up president’s arbitrary requirements.

—doctorlit is impressed Kaguya had the self control to give such a polite reply to such an unkind speech

We’re just starting straight out with some plotting, aren’t we? Nothing good is going to come of Draco grabbing a sample of Draught of Living Death, especially since he hasn’t been tasked with assassinating Dumbledore in this timeline. Heck, I don’t know what he’s been doing in the Room of Hidden Things, either, unless he really was hatching some Shakespearean scheme to get himself out of the Bonding Contract with Rabastan, like Slughorn brought up? And either way, there it is: Severina definitely gave Harry her old potions text, along with notes in the margins. I just hope the Sectumsempra spell isn’t there in this timeline, or that Harry doesn’t run into it, or never gets put in a position to try it. After all, in canon, he wound up testing it on Draco, but this Harry and Draco are putting each other in rather different positions. I’ll show myself out.

I love seeing that Hermione is so supportive of Dobby, and I especially like the body language she uses towards him, kneeling down to speak to him closer to eye level. It shows in physical space that she doesn’t consider house elves beneath her, just a really sweet gesture. Sweet like fruit pie. Sweet like the fruit pie that plowed into Anita Bryant’s face. But I got really scared when Harry sent Dobby to investigate the mail situation, because I was still assuming Bellatrix was responsible, and I don’t want that meeting to go like it did in canon. You definitely caught me off guard here, because I did not remotely suspect Kreacher to be involved with the situation at all! And honestly, the fact that he did so, not as part of a plot, but actually to work against Gaunt and Bellatrix, and protect Draco, is a level of benevolence I didn’t expect to see in Kreacher. I love that you wrote it like that; it’s really sweet! Sweet like fruit pie. Sweet like the fruit pie that plowed into Anita Bryant’s face.

You’ve said before that Luna’s dialogue often foreshadows things, so I guess someone’s trying to sabotage Gryffindor this year? Or maybe specifically the Gryffindor Quidditch team? (I thought this was related to McLaggen getting hexed, but one of your reader’s comments on AO3 informed me that that happened in canon and I just forgot . . .)

Oh no, Astoria . . . I remember disliking her so much, back in year two, but this many years/chapters later . . . She really is just a pathetic, hurt little girl, isn’t she? Astoria getting rescued by Harry and starting to fall in love with him? Honestly, it’s like the plot of . . . well, of a bad fanfiction! I want her to find a way out of the abusive culture she’s so steeped in, but I guess I also want her to Bond with someone with strong enough magic to cancel out her curse. It’s a weird catch-22. (I would also still like it if she manages to follow up on that whole “Gaunt’s head on a platter” thing, too, that would be sweet. Sweet like fruit pie. Sweet like the fruit pie that plowed into Anita Bryant’s face.)

I appreciate seeing Dumbledore apologize to Hermione. Hermione made bad choices last year, but the buck ultimately has to stop at the desks of the adults who were around her at the time, and I’m glad at least Dumbledore recognizes that, and said so. Hermione deserved that apology. I also appreciate that he’s including the entire trio in the “Gaunt studies,” instead of singling out Harry as the Special Boy. It just feels more appropriate against this heavily political version of Gaunt, with his far-reaching cultural support. Lastly, I loved the conversation about “the world we want to see,” and the students’ answers to that prompt. It takes people working together, and pushing their society forward, to enact change, and Dumbledore is working to assemble the right people to do the pushing. And I also liked Harry’s observation later on, about the adults in his society shrinking away from positive changes, purely because they want to cling to the familiar. The cage is a perfect metaphor, because it doesn’t have a lock on it: we can reach through and open the door any time. But it takes getting enough people to become brave enough to risk the reach, to want to step outside. But right now, too many people have been convinced that they’re safer inside the cage . . . Uh, in your story! Definitely not musing on the state of the world or anything, ha ha!

Man, the tone of that scene set in the Pensieve is just the worst of vibes. I know this will sound like a wild tangent, but Gaunt Sr. made me think of Sauron, in the way the latter became so focused on reclaiming the Ring that he was reduced to a spirit that couldn’t operate without it, purely because he stopped viewing his own power outside the framework of the Ring. And there’s Gaunt Sr., with a house he could be taking care of with magic, and a daughter he could be showing love, and a son he could be modeling into a kind, mature adult . . . But in his mind, the only things that are lacking in his life are money and magical power. He just needs to trick a rich pureblood woman into marrying into the family, and everything will be fixed again. And he can’t see anything else to matter. It’s sad for Merope to have grown up in a family like that, but I’m glad she hasn’t lost kindness because of it: she still stayed with Madam Yue to protect her while she was injured, still wanted to protect a stranger from her own family.

So, is that the Maiden’s Kiss right there? It’s over, we reached the title event for the year, roll credits? Or does some fancy magical ceremony have to happen? I’m no expert on magic or romance, but I think I read, at bare minimum, numerous Maiden’s Kisses, one Maiden’s Holding Their Partner’s Hands Suspended Above Their Head, an uncountable amount of Maiden’s Dry Humping . . . I should probably stop this joke now.

Anyway, it’s a shame I don’t consider fruit pie edible, because this feels like a good week to celebrate with fruit pie. Celebrate Anita Bryant’s death that is, since this is Anita Bryant Death Week, now and forever. Actually, maybe I’ll find myself some cheesecake and celebrate with that? I have it on pretty good authority that cheesecake counts as a type of pie.

—it’s doctorlit; doctorlit is the authority who says cheesecakes are pies

That being said, I really like the way that the characters are written. Jon, the "main" POV character for most of the show, has flaws that are established fairly early on, and though as part of his character development he overcomes them to an extent, they're still there and still lead to him making mistakes that affect the plot in meaningful way. This applies to the other characters as well, but I can't get into that too much because of spoilers. Oh, and as I said in my original post there's really good queer rep: Jon (like me!) is ace, and there are multiple queer relationships in the show as well (which I sadly can't talk about because of the dreaded spoilers).

My main criticism as such is that the main plot takes a little while to get going - you're introduced to most of the main cast by the end of season one, but you don't get to see them interact with each other in scenarios that aren't "someone interrupting Jon while he's recording a statement" until season two starts. Season one is still really good though - though it seems to be very episodic to begin with, most if not all of the weekly stories do tie in to the wider narrative, and it's fun trying to piece together aspects of the show's lore before you're "meant" to find them out.

Also, bonus in case you're from the UK: a lot of the episodes are set in real places, all of which have been really well researched - one of the episodes is set in a place that I've been to before, and it was clear that the writer had actually researched or been to the place rather than just used it as a vague backdrop for the events of the episode. It gives the the stories a more genuine, grounded feel despite the cosmic horrors going on.

Do let me know if you start listening, I love hearing what people think as they're going through it!

Have some lemming repellent! I've been meaning to look into the Magnus Archives; what would you say is your favourite part about it?

Aye, I have read the Constitution and Original Series. :D

Have a mini snek! They come with hats!

I'm Linstar. Welcome to the PPC! Have a pink towel. It can be used to clean up spills.

I assume you've read the Constitution and Original Series? That's about all the obligatory reading around here.

--Ls

Hi, thought I'd finally actually make an account and post after lurking for a few months. I love comedy derived from bad media, so PPC stories are right up my street! My fanbases are way too numerous to list here, but my current obsession is The Magnus Archives, a really cool horror podcast with some of the best queer representation I've seen in any piece of media. Really looking forward to getting to know you all!

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

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'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.

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).

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!

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!

(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

In which poor 'guya has troubles with his university club.