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All giggling at puns aside, this is interesting! Reading the first issue now.

I don't have enough of a Potterverse 'feel' to know if Hermione is quite that, uh... I don't even know what the word is. But it definitely feels like something someone with her basic character would do.

hS

It's long been a bugbear of mine that there are no true mad scientists in HQ. We had DoSAT, but they're engineers (though suitably mad). We had the DMSE&R, but they were extremely specialised and Not Relevant To My Interests^TM. We had the Medical Research Division, but they seemed to actually want to do their job sensibly. And of late we had the Division of Applied-and-theoretical Multiversal Physics, but they only had one document to their name, and I hadn't even decided which department they were a division of.

Note the past tense above.

It is with great pleasure and not a little trepidation that I introduce a brand shiny new PPC department, designed specifically to deal with all those nagging little scientific questions you never knew needed asking: the Department of Analytical Science (DAS).

Formed from the merger of the DMSE&R and the DAMP, the Thistle and Flowering Leek have branched out into more than half a dozen fields, from chemistry and physics to geology and archaeology. With a large and eclectic collection of agents, DAS stands ready to solve all the scientific problems you care to name - or at least, to reword them in such complicated language that you don't feel bad about not understanding it.

And with even greater pleasure and trepidation, I would like to present the very first work of the new-formed department: the Journal of Investigating Veracity by Experimentation.

DAS-JIVE, Issue 1: "To Think, They Called Us Mad"

Comprising eleven scientific papers on diverse fields by the staff of DAS, along with a foreword by the joint department heads, and biographies of the scientists themselves. The subjects range from an attempt to construct an evolutionary tree of Mary-Sues (Agent Yasmeen, DAS-SWEAR, aka the former DMSE&R), to an archaeological exploration of OFUM's universe (Agents Joan and Durand, DAS-AWAY), by way of narrativium (Alembic and Sunniva, DAS-VOID), generic surface (Mandy and Wei-ting, DAS-MAD), and cooking (Huinesoron & Atlas, DAS-DIG).

Naturally, given the diversity of the agents of DAS, their papers don't even attempt to conform to the same style. I recommend sticking your head into all of them, even if you don't read to the end - you never know what you might be missing.

~

I've put a whole heap of work into this, so it would be very nice to hear some opinions on it. But reviews aren't the only thing I want (though I definitely do; knowing people are reading your work is half of what keeps writers going, so it's always kind to comment when you read something). There are plans for a DAS-JIVE Issue 2, and for that to happen there's two things I'd like from you:

1/ Ideas! I've got a couple (though most of the 'another paper is needed/research is ongoing' comments from Issue 1 won't be followed up), but there's lots of agents who need something to do. I don't promise to use them, but if you've got a scientific question about anything in the multiverse(s), ask it and I'll see if any of the agents want it.

2/ Letters! I really wanted a Letters to the Editor section, but couldn't come up with anything to put into it. So if any of your agents have an interest in science (or you want to pick up any NPCs who do), go ahead and have them write in. I'm sure there'll be a great many responses.

~

A note on agents: in merging the DMSE&R into DAS, I've re-adopted Agent Niamh away from Lily Winterwood. Along the way, I've resolved the question of why she's sometimes shown as a stern blonde Irishwoman, and sometimes a cheerful Vietnamese. Answer: it's both, and she won't tell anyone why. (Okay, I know, not really 'resolved'...)

I've also kept Agent Penny, who has long been in the DMSE&R, and who I adopted years ago. She's in DAS-SQUEE now, the biology unit.

I deliberately haven't mentioned the other named DMSE&R agents. They may be working in DAS-SWEAR or DAS-SQUEE; they may have retired long ago; they may have moved to a completely different field. Not my agents, not my choice, but I'm not closing the door on them.

Norlossë has been mentioned once before, here; she was always intended to be a member of DAMP.

Oh, and Agent Huinesoron is doing double-duty as an agent of DOGA and DAS-DIG. He also helps out DAS-AWAY occasionally, and has a reserve position with SIELU. He's a busy bee; serves him right.

Other than that, all the DAS agents are new creations. At some point some of them will probably go free-to-use, but for now, please give them a warm welcome.

hS

This is a PS4 HD remastering of the original Crash Bandicoot trilogy.

Yes.

Yes I will take one.

I will take one to play it.

And then I will take another one to cuddle it gently and sing me to sleep with the music from Hang Eight in Cortex Strikes Back.

1. In anaphoric reference to a singular noun or pronoun of undetermined gender: he or she.
   Especially in relation to a noun phrase involving one of the indefinite determiners or pronouns any, each, every, no, some, anybody, anyone, etc.
   
   This use has sometimes been considered erroneous.
   
   *a1375 William of Palerne (1867) l. 2179 Hastely hiȝed eche wiȝt..til þei neyȝþed so neiȝh..þere william & his worþi lef were liand i-fere.
   *c1450 (▸?c1400) Three Kings Cologne (Cambr. Ee.4.32) 6 Noman was hardy in all þat countrey to sette aȝens hem, for drede þat þey hadde of hem.
   *1526 W. Bonde Pylgrimage of Perfection iii. sig. IIIiiiiv If..a psalme scape any person, or a lesson, or els yt they omyt one verse or twayne.
   *a1535 J. Fisher Wayes to Perfect Relig. in Eng. Wks. (1876) i. 383 He neuer forsaketh any creature vnlesse they before haue forsaken them selues.
   *1681 London Gaz. mdclxii. 4 If any Person desire to be furnished with young Abeele Plants..they may be furnished with what quantity they please,..at 10s. a hundred.
   *1698 A. Boyer & J. Savage tr. P. Le Lorrain de Vallemont in T. Hearne Ductor Historicus I. ii. iv. 130 Leaving every Body to their liberty of believing what they pleas'd.
   *1749 H. Fielding Tom Jones III. viii. xi. 251 Every Body fell a laughing, as how could they help it.
   *1759 Ld. Chesterfield Let. 27 Apr. (1932) (modernized text) V. 2350 If a person is born of a..gloomy temper..they cannot help it.
   *1835 W. Whewell in J. M. Douglas Life & Corr. W. Whewell (1881) 173 Nobody can deprive us of the Church, if they would.
   *1858 W. Bagehot in National Rev. Oct. 476 Nobody fancies for a moment that they are reading about any thing beyond the pale of ordinary propriety.
   *1866 J. Ruskin Crown Wild Olive (1873) §38. 44 Now, nobody does anything well that they cannot help doing.
   *1874 G. W. Dasent Half a Life 3 Every one likes to keep it to themselves as long as they can.
   *1932 L. Hughes Let. 16 May in L. Hughes & C. Van Vechten Remember me to Harlem (2001) 95 Nobody can bother you until they've passed three butlers, two secretaries, and my personal assistant!
   *1968 Listener 3 Oct. 440/3 When somebody becomes prime minister they're immediately put on a pedestal.
   *1998 A. Pease & B. Pease Why Men don't listen & Women can't read Maps (1999) viii. 212 The psychiatric label for a transgender person is that they are suffering Gender Identity Disorder.
   
   The second item (1450) reads 'No man was [able/willing] in all that country to set against him, for dread that they had of him'. The first is so old that I can't really make out half the words... though gloriously, William of Palerne is also known as The Romance of William and the Werewolf.
   
   ... okay, I was bored, I hunted down the full passage. Here it is, along with my rough translation:
   
   þan hastely hiȝed eche wiȝt / on hors & on fote,
   hunting wiȝt houndes / alle heie wodes,
   til þei neyȝthed so neiȝh / to nymphe þe soþe
   þere william & his worþi lef / were liand i-fere,
   þat busily were thei a bowe schote / out of þe burnes siȝt.
   
   Then hastily hied each one / on horse and on foot,
   hunting with hounds / all [through the] woods,
   till they came so nigh / to tell the truth
   there William and his worthy friends / were all together
   that busily were they a bowshot / out of the bears' sight.
   
   So now you know, I guess?
   
   hS

"They" has been used as a singular, general-neutral pronoun for hundreds of years. According to the OED, this is acceptable usage of the word, and in practice it was only prohibited by Victorian schoolteachers, who instead mandated the usage of "him" as a gender-neutral pronoun. Read this Wikipedia page for more information:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they.

If you happen to remember, what was giggle-inducing bit?

- Tomash

It's super good and creative, and I'm in love with the concept and characters despite knowing basically nothing about football.

Language warning, though, if that sort of thing bothers you.

Juice is by far my favorite character- what about you guys?

One would expect an ESAS mission, with a very specifically overpowered Sue to focus on the Sue - focus on the problems of dealing with an overpowered Sue, perhaps with lots of fight scenes and blood and maybe an explosion and a backflip or two.
But the fact that you didn't focus on that sort of shows where you wanted to focus with the mission - on the agents, over the badfic itself. So I'd say that was a bloody smart choice, there!

So, this is 17776, which Discord got linked to and I recommend y'all check out. It's set in the far future, and much more description than that might be spoilers. It's still updating, so it might be worth checking back for more a few days later after you go through what's there.

- Tomash

(( I was looking at the neural-net generated fanfic summaries, and this idea jumped into my head, so let's go. ))

The Perfect Cow by alafaye Tomash
Severus and Hermione start a horcruxes

---

There was a knock on Severus Snape's office door.

"Come in," he said, setting down the essay he was grading.

The door opened, and a bushy-haired sixth year Gryffindor stepped in somewhat hesitantly.

"Ah. Miss… Granger. What do you want?" Professor Snape said coldly.

"I was doing some research, Professor—"

Of course you were.

"—and I had a rather theoretical question. About Horcruxes."

A moment of shock crossed the Professor's face before he composed himself. "And where did you hear of those, Miss Granger?"

"The Restricted Section, Professor."

Snape glared at her. "Do not lie to me. There are no works on Horcruxes in the Restricted Section." Because I personally made sure there were none once the Headmaster said he had removed them.

Hermione blushed slightly. "Well, Dumbledore told Harry that Voldemort had made Horcruxes, and he asked me to do some research. I couldn't really find anything—"

"Good."

"—but I do know that the idea is that, by doing something terrible, you split your soul, and then somehow put one of the pieces into an object, which makes you immortal unless the extra piece is destroyed."

"Yes, and?"

"I was wondering if you have to be human to make a Horcrux. Could a house-elf split their soul? Or a cow?"

"A cow, Miss Granger?"

"It was an example..." Hermione trailed off.

"I see," said Snape, somewhat dubious. "Why did you think to ask me this?"

"Well, sir," Hermione said, "you are the Defense Professor."

"So I am. But such questions are more a matter for the Department of Mysteries."

Hermione nodded.

"Now, do you have any other inane questions with which to waste my time? Whether ants can make wards, perhaps?"

"No, Professor. Thank you." Hermione quickly left the office.

Hermione made her way back to the Common Room, somewhat disappointed that she couldn't get the answer she was looking for. On the way there, however, she remembered that she did, after all, know someone from the Department of Mysteries. Well, "know" wasn't quite right. The man had come to talk to her last summer about keeping what she'd seen in the Department quiet. He'd been rather creative with the threats, and he had asked her to keep an ear out for anything the Department might be interested in.

It was a long shot, Hermione knew, but, as she settled down in front of the fire, she thought she'd try anyway. She pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill and began writing:

Dear Mr. Brown,

I've got a theoretical question about Horcruxes…

(( - Tomash ))

However, on the technical problem: I don't know how much control we have over site, but if we can sneak in <script> tags on every page, I can potentially make a thing that'll hack in a Kudos button.

Failing that, there's browser extensions that allow you to inject Javascript into pages which are fairly easy to set up once someone gives you the script. We could have a "Board Enhancement Script" that would add that (unless there's some things about how the Board works on the backend that would make it harder).

- Tomash, with the crazy ideas

I've just moved countries and been battling jet lag while settling in and so on, so my time and concentration for Board-related matters has dropped considerably.

As such, I've just passed this over to Delta Juliette. She'll look at your initial request and the revisions and, well, continue the process with you. Thank you for your patience during all of this, and good luck!

~Z

...it takes more steps than just pressing a kudos button. You have to click for the option, then fill in three fields...it could take off, but it is a little unfortunate that no sort of 'like' button is a possibility.

But on the other hand, as no such button exists...yeah, that *would* be a nice culture change. I'd try to help start the trend (if enough people start leading by example it might catch on, right?), but I don't currently have so much time for mission-reading...maybe later in the year.

~Z

I guess we could try for culture change?

Like sort of agree that posting "I liked it (nm)" in response to a mission or anything else is, well, not ideal, but OK, and better than just keeping quiet. Or maybe even that, if you've posted that sort of general comment, going back later and leaving a detailed review is encouraged, but not obligatory.

- Tomash

You're quite right about the comma; I sincerely hope there originally was one and it got lost, but who knows. At any rate, it's in there now. Thank you.

And yes, the double 'and' is intentional.

Glad you enjoyed! And glad to hear you always enjoy! That's nice to hear :)

~Z

Though yeah, even this post was nice to get. Also, it's entirely possible that actual detailed feedback is now hard to give without rereading, so don't feel obligated. Glad you liked it!

~Z

The RP? Celebrating Purim? Something else?

~Z

(Apologies for the vanishing act--I just moved countries.)

As I know some of you are reading my stuff and waiting for new chapters, I decided that I'll make an exception on my leave for plugging new chapters of Blank Sprite, IrregularS and Keiko's missions.

(By the way, Chapter 8 of Blank Sprite is now available: https://rc1587.wordpress.com/2017/07/04/blank-sprite-mission-record-08/ )
I'd appreciate if comments and concrit are posted as comments on the sites where my writings are posted - I'm not going to be checking the Board much.