The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

There's also Agent May, and Wong the super-librarian from Doctor Strange. Plus various supporting characters around them, but they're fairly minor. On the flip side, I don't think you can count Mantis as an Asian character - that would be like claiming Jar Jar Binks as a black man.

I feel like one of the Iron Man villains was Asian? The Mandarin pretended to be, I think, but wasn't the guy with the whips from somewhere on that continent?

Anyway, yeah, we don't have an Asian-heavy MCU film any more than we have a woman-centred one (and it should go without saying that 'only one' isn't the solution here!). Captain Marvel may start to address the latter point; do you have any ideas for Marvel comics/characters who either are or could be Asian-centred? (Doc Strange and Iron Fist don't count, at this point.)

hS

It has been a while- I was a Techno-Dann in the bad old days, and then I caught a case of the genders. Welcome back!

Have a plate of brief welcome-back SPaGhetti!

I forgot to talk about Shuri in my own review! I super-duper love that the smartest character in the movie is a teenage girl—and let's face it, she's probably the smartest character in the entire MCU, considering the level of tech she's working with. Tony Stark, eat your heart out. But I also like that she does very much have a good heart, as well. Despite her cracks about Ross being a "white boy" and "colonizer," she was clearly more concerned about his welfare than stopping the weapons shipments during the final sequence, telling him to leave the simulation before the barrier around the lab could be destroyed. Actually, the fact that she remodeled the simulator to feel like a U.S. airplane is interesting too. She spent the moments leading up to the final battle in exile from her lab, so she certainly couldn't have made that modification in the instants before Ross needed it, nor could she have any knowledge that such an attack on Wakandan ships would be necessary. The only time she could have changed the program to have U.S. plane features would have been while Ross was recovering, which shows she respected his opinion and flight record enough that she wanted to show him the program after he healed, and ask his opinion on her programming. It also seems, from the final after-credits scene. that she has been responsible for rehabilitating Bucky Barnes. I wonder if he was removed from cold storage at her urging? Definitely a complex and strong-minded character.

I did notice the rhinos were rather poor CGI, but there was so much going on in the movie, I easily dismissed that purely aesthetic issue. Actually, come to think of it, there must have been some moments, like the car chase and the fight in the vibranium mines, where the panther suits themselves had to be CGI as well, but I couldn't tell at all while I watched, either because they looked that good, or because, again, the story was so gripping I was just too focused on it to notice the effects.

The one Asian character you missed in your list is Skye on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and her mother, but I don't want to say too much about them in case you aren't caught up yet. But I definitely agree it would be nice to see further diversity moving forward.

—doctorlit, realizing that the vibranium in Bucky's old arm seems completely unaccounted for in the timeline of "vibranium that has left Wakanda"

She walked up to the man slowly as he stood by the dressing table. He was barely more than a boy, really, but muscular in a lean kind of way, a swimmer's build. He had sleek dark hair and piercing silver eyes, gazing out from behind some fashionable - and, she knew, highly advanced - thick-rimmed black spectacles. He was wearing an excellently tailored suit that fit him very well indeed, emphasising his physique and teaming well with the long Japanese sword he wore at his waist. Everyone assumed it was an affectation, right up until he killed them with it, like he had that commoner during training.

"Agent Morgan," she said, cutting the primness with just a little suggestiveness - it was how he liked to be addressed.

"Well, hey there, Roxy." He turned and smiled, gleaming, white, perfect. "And I told you already, you don't need to call me what that meddling old coot Arthur does. The special people in my life call me Bandit, and the people I love?" He walked closer, running his hand over her back. "Well, they get to call me Storm."

"Yes - Storm - of, of course." The blonde shivered at Storm's touch, but then, so many women did. "I... I just came by to give you this." She held up a small box.

"Aw, thank you, Roxy! What's the occasion?" Storm was already unwrapping the box's sober navy paper and white ribbon and plucking out the bottle of aftershave.

"Just the occasion of us being... us, I suppose," she replied. "Or you being you."

"Heh, guess all that world-savin' is paying off a li'l, huh?" He smiled again, sleek and white and evenly spaced as a military cemetery. "Man, and here I was thinking I'd get British girls just with the accent." He quirked an eyebrow.

She blushed a little and giggled. "It helps, Morg- Storm. It certainly helps."

"Yeah?" Storm put the present down on his dresser and moved towards her. "Is it helpin' now, Roxy?"

"Yes and no," she said, smiling. "Yes, because I like an accent, and no because, well..." She stood up, tossed her hair back, and changed.

"Storm Valerian Gunner," said the short, mousy-haired brunette in front of him, "also known as Agent Morgan, also known as Callsign: Bandit, you are charged with bending the Kingsman canon into an n-dimensional pretzel, killing the series main character to take his place, being an American Kingsman agent, being a secret ninja lord Kingsman agent, getting all blood in my hair from when you decapitated all those people, turning Roxy Morton into a quivering damsel to be rescued and bonked by you, taking Merlin's job despite being a field agent and also impossibly dense, getting blood in my hair do you know how long it takes to wash that stuff out, and generally being a Gary Stu of the first order. Not the First Order first order, because this isn't a Star Wars crossover, thank God, but still. Your sentence is death. Any last words?"

"What?" Storm unsheathed his sword and brandished it at her. "Who are you, and what did you do with Roxy."

"Those'll do me," said Cassie Aubrey, and she sped out the room and slammed the door shut behind her.

Her partner sidled over as the Stu began hacking at the door with his katana. "Damn, girl, that stunt took some hella balls!"

"Em?"

"I mean, there's balls, and then there's balls, ya dig?"

"Em!"

"Because I totally get that you're not into them but hot damn, Cass, those are some huevos muchachos ya got-"

"EM!"

"What?"

"DETONATOR!"

"Whuh?" Three inches of sword blade appeared by Em's right shoulder. "Oh, yeah. Whoops!" She fumbled through her bag and pressed the button. Three beeps and a horrible ker-splutch later, the execution was complete. The agents walked down the stairs as the uncanonical room disappeared behind them, and they left the Kingsman tailors' shop soon after, another well-dressed couple on a day out in London.

"You know, we've got the run of the city for a bit - the real city, not the Stu's version with all terrorists in it," said Cassie. "Fancy lunch? I know this fantastic little pizza place in Euston-"

"You had me at lunch, hun. Girl's gotta eat!" Em ruffled her partner's hair and didn't stop, loving the feel of the soft, brown curls against her fingertips.

"I will too, Em. I did promise."

"Yes you did."

And arm in arm, they walked away.

Wow. That was a ride. I know nothing about Warhammer beyond, uh, memey pictures posted online, but I feel like you guys painted a good picture of the battles there, and the general mood of seriousness and pessimism that seems to be the thing, there.

I like that you've brought together two very serious, somber, large-bodied men, and spent a lot of time developing an emotional bond between them. In addition to their own ongoing character development, it makes a nice contrast with the Sue in this mission: one hulking space cyborg thinks only of himself and interacts with his fists, while our big PPC boys are supportive of each other and keep their violence in check until the moment it's needed. Tom is also a welcome source of humor and light-heartedness throughout the mostly gloomy environments of the mission.

Little moments I liked: the warsheep, the Python chanting, Huinesoron's rant, and Tom's arrival on the battlefield, flanked by rock-and-roll speakers.

One typo I noticed: I believe you wanted "gates of Bree"?
". . . the agents hadn’t bothered to look ahead, and were suddenly yanked to the gates Bree with the abruptness of a poorly written transition."

—doctorlit, rebelling against imagining movieverse!Thorin in his mind's eye

I wish you well, have a half-kilo of lembas bread.

[Fumbles for light switch; gives up; pulls out matches and lights candle instead] See? Still works! ^^

You'll probably only recognise a handful of names, but yes, we're still here, still insane, and still <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mJb2N_MzN3NF0rJUhXQj-k5qU37-lNc--11xNElDdM/pub">visiting the HQ General Store whenever we need something too ordinary to be found on a mission. We even had a snowball fight a few months back...

hS

Hello, haven't been around for a long time. Just thought I would pop my head in and see if the lights still work.

Leto

(Hope you don't mind me tacking on, Skarm?)

My brother wanted to see Black Panther in theaters with me, but the only night we could do so this month was Saturday, in the middle of my work week. So Sunday was a terrible, slow day for me, and I didn't get as much done as I wanted. But the payoff was Monday, when I happened to be driving past a certain service gate in my golf cart when a radio call went out that an ambulance was coming to attend a zoo guest who had had a seizure, and that someone needed to open the service gate immediately. The ambulance arrived less than half a minute later. I have to wonder, if my brother hadn't had me out past my bedtime Saturday, and ruined my productivity Sunday, would anyone else have been close enough to that gate on Monday to let the ambulance in immediately? I don't know, but I do know this has been a Wildly Off-Topic Spoiler Block.

So yeah, Black Panther is amazing, and I barely know where to start. As usual, I won't really know characters' names, because I'm terrible at catching characters' names while I'm watching something on film, and I'm not going to look them up to avoid having outside information affecting my initial reaction. Of course, this initial reaction is based on notes I took two days ago, but uuuuuh

The way the designers made Wakanda appear on-screen is incredible. The mix of futuristic, modern technology, and the uniquely shaped skyscrapers, mixed with all the costuming, body paint, weaponry and names make Wakanda entirely distinctive from any other setting, ever. I love that it combines science fiction, comic book technology with traditional African aesthetics and values. It really gets across how Wakanda has kept itself sheltered over the millennia, developing new technologies at its own pace, and without outside influence undermining its traditions.

Maybe it just seems this way to me because I don't watch a whole lot of movies, but the plot of BP feels incredibly unique to me. I can't think of another story to compare it to. The use of royal bloodline interaction to fuel the conflict not only reinforces Wakanda's heavy reliance on tradition, but causes the plot to advance in a way that made the whole story feel unpredictable and engaging. The characters' motives and restrictions were a bit foreign and outside my ability to understand at a glance, so it forced me to stay captivated and follow along with the action. The battle sequence at the end, too: what movie about a fantasy culture features a civil war at the end, with fellow citizens turning on each other to push different ideologies forward? That part actually made me feel bad, seeing people who should have been allies attacking each other, but it reinforces the idea that I was observing aspects of a foreign culture.

Speaking of conflict, I really liked both major villains in this movie. Killmonger is such a memorable figure because you can see the logic to both his motivation and goals. His aims are violent and destructive, but you can sympathize with him through his history and the real life plight of the disenfranchised around the world. I also liked the contrast between his calculating mind, planning abilities, and combat skills, and his stereotypically "punkish" speaking mannerisms. It defies the way movies normally portray characters with those traits, which made Killmonger an incredibly fun and active character to watch on screen. I also really liked Claue's constantly excited, almost manic attitude to . . . anything, really. I don't remember him being lack that back in Avengers: Age of Ultron. I don't know if it's due to different writing/directing, or just because he got overshadowed by Ultron at the time (also a fun-to-watch-and-listen-to villain). The drawback to me liking both villains so much is, of course, that they both got killed off. I'm actually getting pretty tired of the MCU writing out its villains that way. Aside from the socially problematic, and media-wide, issue of constantly portraying conflicts as solvable only with violence and life-taking, it sucks when you like a villain, and know you're never going to get to see them again in this very long movie series. (Who else really liked Yellow Jacket in Ant-Man? Literally no one but me? Okay.)

The soundtrack was cool. I think it's definitely the most memorable MCU soundtrack to date. I don't usually take much notice of the music in a movie while I'm watching it, but in this one, I especially liked the traditional vs. modern motifs that represented T'Challa and Wakanda with African tribal music, and Killmonger with hip-hop.

As we left the theater, my brother said he "hated all the white-shaming." Well, uh. I thought the "white-shaming" was freaking hilarious. Honestly, I like how the usual roles of white and minority characters got reversed in this. Goes to show that Hollywood's perceived "appealing to the majority/baseline" is garbage. Everett Ross, in particular, was interesting. I didn't expect we would even see him again after his purely bureaucratic role in Captain America: Civil War. I now remember he was in the trailers for BP, but I had forgotten that when I started watching the movie, and was surprised to see him appear. I was further surprised that he joined in the ensuing shootout, and again at the end when he was forced to put his piloting skills to use in the final conflict. It fits back in with what I said earlier about Killmonger, taking a character who was presented as a pure dialogue dispenser in his previous appearance, and allowing him to show off other traits and skills that one wouldn't expect to see in his character archetype. I also love that Ross's last push to stop the weapons distributions required T'Challa's sister to instruct him in making a Wakandan arm gesture. Very appropriate!

—doctorlit will totally respond to Skarm's review a bit later today, wanted to get this down before the movie faded too much from his mind

"They're sitting on an entire mountain of spoilers, and they've been mining it for centuries." "They're sitting on an entire mountain of spoilers, and they've been mining it for centuries." "They're sitting on an entire mountain of spoilers, and they've been mining it for centuries."

I fixed on the Doc. Nesh will fix her version soon, no doubt.

Don't worry about the pun-lover thing, you'll be in excellent company.

But as is my habit, I spotted some technical errors:

it seems our Stu was was born in a ‘test-tub.’
Paging the Repetitive Department of Repetition.

Then I cannot even kill the man who was partially responsible for making my brothers and I the shadows we are?
Shouldn’t this be “my brothers and me”?

HG

“Thoth, how did you get your name?” Tom asked the question seemingly apropos of nothing.

Thoth sighed, not looking up from his book. His partner’s occasional and seemingly random enquiries resulted in discussions that were either mildly interesting or extremely irritating. This one seemed to be approaching tiresome. “‘Thoth’ was the name I took after my legion’s egress from the Imperium. It was the name of an ancient Terran god of knowledge, although many details regarding this god have been long forgotten. It is an arrogant name, perhaps, but it is better to appear pretentious then to show a lack of confidence. In most cases, at least.”

“You know, I’ve been reading about Thoth of late,” said Tom. “While it may be half-forgotten in your continuum, in World One knowledge of Egyptian mythology is still very much alive. It’s quite fascinating.”

Thoth looked up, at once intensely focused. “Might you provide me with such information?”

“Certainly!” Tom grinned, almost laughing. “Take the book. I’ve just been reading about Thoth’s origins, so that’s where the bookmark is.” He tossed a moderate-sized tome over to the Space Marine.

Thoth caught the book and began to read rapidly.

“Well?”

Thoth nodded. “Fascinating. I appreciate it.”

“You’re not going to—”

“No. The fact that you continue attempt to jab at me is more bothersome than the jabs themselves.”

Tom gave his most winning smile. “Well, I’m glad you enjoy the book at any rate, headchild.”

“Tom…” Thoth sighed. “Cease. It is pointless, and I am reading.”

Tom turned to his monitor. Sooner or later, he’d manage to get a reaction. And although he recognized this might be a bad idea, he found it amusing nonetheless.

--

This bit was prompted by a discussion on Discord. If you weren't there and don't study Egyptian mythology (I really don't know enough about the subject, given my name), you may be confused a bit as to what Tom's up to here.

Egyptian mythology is a confusing mess of entirely contradictory stories. However, one of the more popular versions of Thoth's origin is... extremely NSFW.

Tom continues to love jabbing Thoth with things, because He Is A Child.

...and that loophole is Dahlia-shaped.

As long as the fic's text is pasted into a Google doc, I could still write a Monstery Science Theory story.

...assuming anybody actually liked Dahlia and her weirdness, that is.

Here are some anecdotes from Maltese Falcon author and former Pinkerton detective Dashiel Hammet:

http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/hammett2.html

Scape provided the shirt, and I just photoshopped the rest.

Shallot.

I have a lot of practice at noticing the absurd and pushing it into the extremely absurd, but the trick is simply to always be asking yourself "how would this be the most ridiculous?" Preferably in a way that makes your characters suffer react in amusing ways. ^_^ The point, after all, is to show why bad writing is bad. That's the key difference between a mission and an MST.

Of course, it won't always work. Humor is subjective. But the best humor is based firmly in truth, so it's important to always be honest to the source material as you interpret it.

And remember that a lot of good stuff came about during rewrites. It doesn't happen by magic, it happens by thinking pretty hard about it. Comedy is serious business. {= )

So, basically, the Neshomeh Method is this:

1. Push the envelope.
2. Show, don't tell.
3. Be honest.
4. Keep pushing that envelope.

~Neshomeh, presenting this advice to the Board at large for posterity.

Have a pile of multi coloured pens.

...I'm gonna have a hard time doing a follow-up mission after this.

(Especially since Nesh wrote a lot of the really good parts :P)

Hey, Ix, remember that old Doctor Sins doc we were working on?

My memory is pretty fuzzy, and I also think that it's SEVERELY unbalanced. This doc needs moar Ix riffs; I have way too bloody many.

I find the mission quite funny, what with elvish cursing and the "one bloody caprine..." line, and the badfic itself has some powerful strangeness, like the main character apparently having three hands, battle sheep, cheat leather, and the inexplicably funny misspelling that is Slaneesh. Also, I'm glad to see the 41st (31st?) millennium finally get a mission.

Thank you, and to the others as well who welcomed me. I can't wait to be an actual part of ppc.

I'll be sure to read up on them very soon. My favorite fandoms happen to be the run of the mill things; Furry, Undertale, Homestuck, etc, etc.