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Of course, the fic manages to come across like it thought being skinny was some kind of moral imperative (sigh), and it was horrible for plenty of other reasons. Just not quite in that way.

--Ls

"According to the Time Dragon Clock, the melting occurred at the 13th hour, the direct result of a bucket of water thrown by a female child. Yes! The Wicked Witch of the West... is dead!" - Glinda the Good (the "Ga" is silent)

I'm not equipped to tell you whether Wicked Part 1 (released last week, probably in a cinema near you) is actually a good movie.

Because what it is, is a shockingly faithful adaptation of act 1 of the 2003 musical. Not even just the lyrics: most of the dialogue is direct from the stage. I spotted about two lyrical changes; they recontextualised a couple of songs and added a few action or linking sequences; and there was a change during One Short Day which I loved. And that's just about it.

And that makes it the movie I have waited literally 20 years for, done pretty much to perfection. How is it if you're coming to Wicked for the first time? I haven't the faintest clue.

hS

...given that people are feeling badly about all the horrible stuff coming out of Florida these days, and how in the 90s that would've been the heyday of Dumptruck and friends' time down in Mar-a-Lago (like... the 90s are when Jeff Epstein's ascending the rungs of the finance world). Vernon was mentioned to have been golfing in Palm Beach with the Masons, after all. My beta reader and I also joked about how coincidental it was that Ivanka would've been around the same age as Harry and Dudley, haha. Yeah, it was a shame this new Dudley and Petunia had to go, but it made the most sense given the consequences of what Petunia did.

Yes! I'm so glad to have a chance to poke at the Gringotts inheritance tests! I mean... why Gringotts, lol. They're a bank! If you're going to the bank to get a blood test to see if you're eligible for other people's inheritances, your bank's running a scam and needs to get investigated! The Goblins think the wizard drama is hilarious. They're not gonna intervene; wizards throwing down over fake inheritances is the height of free entertainment! And note how Bogrod immediately pushed for Harry to open another account for Kreacher... the bank always wins! :P

It's a lot more fun to write about a grownup plan going completely off the rails because Harry and friends mucked it up than Harry and friends coming up with some stupid plan that somehow manages to outsmart the grownups. That's all I have to say about Regulus wingmanning Harry, haha.

Chrysomallos is based off a Purityworld fic's club called the Golden Fleece, but updated a bit to reflect how an actual upscale society club like White's worked. I mean, it is a little bit more equitable than the Muggle equivalents given the lack of barring women from membership, but it does still discriminate in other ways...

--though I did have fun at karaoke nomikais in Japan! But that's because I like karaoke, haha.

Actually, there were already Dementor attacks and all these things in the opening of the 6th book. Dementor attacks, the Bones and Vance murders, and the Brockdale Bridge were all in the 1st chapter of book 6 as well. The only thing I changed was the giant attack in the West Country, explained away as a "freak hurricane". I turned that one into the sleepwalker's fog, aka Dementor fog. It seemed like something Gaunt would do to punish the part of the country that mostly voted against him.

I had planned for Petunia to run over Gaunt with a car from about the very earliest parts of the planning stage, since I just thought it was really funny to have this intimidating, powerful wizard get taken out by something so mundane. It just dovetailed really well with the Dot stuff from year 4: Ali escaped, his dad started investigating, Gaunt has his dad killed for investigating, Ali opens a can of Streisand effect on Gaunt. 1996 was another time when the Troubles started up again after a period of ceasefire, so the Riddle stuff and the increased terror attacks in Britain plus the Atlanta Olympics bombing all melded together to make Petunia one hell of a true crime fan. And then it made perfect sense for her to intercede on her family member's behalf on a Known Criminal.

Yeah, I reckoned Dudley needed some positive male influence, too, hence Harry helping him wingman! It's part of a longer subversion of Harry's sudden "Quidditch-toned muscles" from fics, where Dudley helped Harry get swole in exchange for pulling advice. I don't think there's a lot of bulking-up for Seeker, where you're supposed to be fast and lithe...

The party was fun to write and much less fun to experience IRL, haha! You'll hear more on the distribution of potions as party drugs as a subplot through the year... But I can definitely say that Gaunt isn't cracking down on it because he doesn't care about Muggles, and in his estimation, it's better if they all got poisoned by potions... Similarly, that's why he's not prowling BBS boards (which iirc were pretty niche in the 90s, pre-social media and all) for Harry, either! Going full Muggle has its benefits of being overlooked by folks like Gaunt :P

Thanks for catching the typo!

Here you go, link is good for 12 hours. https://discord.gg/QZ7n9bV

Outside of work, a few things have been soaking up my time:

I've been getting outdoors! Lots of rock climbing, and a climbing friend got me started backpacking too- those seasons have kinda ended for the year, but snowboard season starts up in a couple weeks. Running away to the mountains has been a fantastic way to deal with the last couple years.

And secondly, I've gotten sucked into combat robotics! Rotato Potato is a one-pound meltybrain robot- unlike most other robots, where there's a drive platform and a separate spinning weapon, a meltybrain uses a pair of wheels to spin the entire robot at a couple thousand RPM, and then varies the power output to each wheel to drive around the arena while spinning. Meltybrains are known for being difficult to build, harder to control, and deliver some of the biggest hits in robot combat. I've been hacking on the Potato for most of a year, and finally won my first event a couple weekends ago!

Jesus was involved. As was Shrek. And Jeff Bezos. ...Wattpad, man.

Oh, Yiddish? Huh, that is really fascinating. Yeah, it is weird how dialects can pronounce things in wildly different ways. I'm not sure how best to teach that in a language course, though.

I think I did like one lesson in Arabic, and I remember literally nothing LOL.

--Ls, also a language fan.

The overwhelming majority of my time has been taken up by my new position as a full-time carer for my partner. It's not something I ever expected to be doing, at least not yet, but after this year's Great Lungs Adventure it has become necessary.

I mentioned it briefly on the board a little while ago, but my partner contracted double pneumonia in January of this year. It then turned into ARDS, or acute respiratory distress syndrome, which necessitated their being placed into a medically-induced coma from the end of January to the middle of March. They were also placed on an ECMO machine, a last-ditch device that oxygenates your blood for you so that your lungs can recover; the exact specifics of the procedure involve really big tubes and the offspring of a posh microwave and a bouncy castle inflator, which I advise against looking up on a full stomach. They were able to return home on the 5th of May, thankfully, but they are barely able to walk and had to undergo six months of chemotherapy. That's because the doctors found something extremely rare wrong with them: an autoimmune condition called antisynthetase syndrome that affects approximately one in thirty-three people worldwide.

Sorry, one in thirty-three thousand people worldwide.

Besides that, well, I've not done much else. In terms of creative output I've written a pretty decent fic for web novel Worm called Another Girl's Treasure. The six chapters posted so far have accrued a total of more than 14,000 hits, which is about 15,000 more than I expected, so I am choosing to consider it a success.

Things are not how I expected them to be. Life never is, of course, but there's unexpected and then there's "watching your GP Google your partner's illness". That said, no matter how strange or difficult or horrible life becomes, there is joy there to be found, and staying alive is the only way to find it.

Oh, and I turned 32 last Saturday, which means I've been here at least ten years. Get rid of me now. Mwahahahaha.

I kinda lost interest in this, but theres something I posted in the discord that i cant find anywhere else. I'll be in and out.

I don't know why I'm surprised. I really don't. There's a musical (on ice?) or whatever exactly that is; fanfic shouldn't surprise me.

The course with the standardization stuff is Yiddish. The language kind of splintered after World War II, and today is primarily spoken or even known to any level of fluency by the few remaining native speakers and some of their descendents, people who've taken an interest and learned through academic programs, and big groups of very religious people for whom a different version of it is their first language. There's some minimal overlap between all of these groups. So yeah, for the Duolingo course, everything but the recordings are in Standard Yiddish, likely because it has stable rules for spelling and grammar (and is one important side of Yiddish today), and the recordings were done by representatives of the largest group of...I'd say native speakers, but frankly they're the largest group of Yiddish speakers overall at present unless something's changed very dramatically in the last five years. So from that angle I understand it perfectly, but from the angle of someone who studied Standard Yiddish and knows a little about how wide the variations can be...it's so confusing to listen to. I do think they're at least reading exactly what's on the screen, so odds are I'm ultimately mostly just floundering at being taught Standard Yiddish with the pronunciation of an unfamiliar dialect (which is. not the most comfortable realization), but conceptually...it felt like an odd choice, because there are extremely few speakers of Chassidic Yiddish who ever learn Standard Yiddish or have any interest in the culture it inherited and carries (too secular). There are articles out there from when the course came out that go into it more. So yeah, today I'm less sure what exactly I think of it apart from mild shock at how different the pronunciation is from any other Yiddish dialect I've encountered. Needs more thought!

The other one I mentioned is Arabic. All that progress and I couldn't have a "hi, how are you, I'm alright, see you later" conversation or spell anything 😅 but I sure could do some basic reading and say I'm from Canada and have a big, new garage and small, pretty house and fresh fish! Not useless, but also not really sufficiently practical.

~Z, linguistically intrigued (as always)

This takes place when the guy was 18; contains some lavish descriptions. Specifying what length of hair 'Guya has in an entry has become a running gag, it seems.

I’m actually a bit sad to see Dudley and Petunia go. Like Harry says, he had seen such a turnaround in his relationship with Dudley, and even Petunia was starting to act a bit more protectively towards him. I’m also sad I won’t get to see the two of them trying to keep Kingsley and Hestia remotely normal on their very first plane ride, surrounded by Muggles! But there’s still some tasty irony in Petunia needing to rely on wizards to save her from wizards. I also enjoyed seeing Dudley using Petunia’s fear of magic to help persuade her into the inconvenient but safe choice; he knew what was right, and he knew his mom, and he used the tools at his disposal to make it happen. Oh, also, I don’t read the warnings at the start of the chapter to avoid spoilers, and wow was that a curveball of an implication! I definitely didn’t get that sense from the Florida conversation during the actual chapter . . . I can only hope Dudley has gotten enough exposure to Harry’s positive masculinity to inoculate him against being too close to Trump . . .

I had a total “I see what you did there” moment when Bogrod commented on “extra inheritances you’d be eligible to collect.” All those fics where Harry becomes head of twenty different family lines . . . It’s crazy that Goldensnout’s scam convinces people they could inherit anything from Mother Magic, but it was nice to hear Bogrod state openly that she doesn’t actually exist. It must feel so weird for the goblins in this timeline to watch the humans bending over backwards for that whole silly religion!

Man, Regulus really did have a fantastic plan going. He must have felt so frustrated watching the teenagers slowly dismantle it all last year. Great job breaking everything, teenagers! Enjoy your brand new, worstest timeline!

Your Professor Slughorn has an even stronger Mycroft Holmes vibe than the canon version, so it’s appropriate you’ve given him a spiritual successor to the Diogenes Club. I love the description you give of the place, and all the people and activities taking place inside. It really feels like the perfect marriage of wealth, leisure, and the desire for making social connections that Slughorn values so much. I think I would despise being in a place like that in person, but it’s nice to visit on-page!

There’s a repeated word in this sentence:
If you didn’t know his father’s name, you’d never would have guessed . . .

—doctorlit fearfully looks forward to Vernon Dursley fulfilling his new role as Trump’s attorney general

-them

They’re the main antagonists of the game, corporate robots based around business phrases. There’s a lot more but i’ve been in a bit of a descriptive recently so I can’t describe them very well right now

In which Arare missions with 'Guya and Momo, and I enjoyed writing the tea party scene a bit too much.

-Yuki, who likes describing food, clothes and scenery and isn't sure if she's an aestheticist or not

I haven't really heavily used Duolingo for any languages that don't just use the Roman alphabet (I've mostly used it for French and Spanish), so I haven't encountered the alphabet practice thing. Which language has those standardization issues you're talking about? One thing I've thought is interesting is their newer podcast segments, and the stories segments, which can be... cringey at times. Still, a neat platform.

Oh, and because this is the PPC, I might as well mention my MSTs of some insane Duolingo fanfics last March. Some fun (and truly bizarre) stuff there.

--Ls

So far so good, incredibly!

As for Duolingo, I've had an account there for a good many years, and have tried all sorts of courses. It can be really interesting! The courses have changed a lot over the years, though, and it's even happened a couple times when I was either actively studying or had taken a break and come back after a year or two, so that suddenly the earliest lessons have covered things I didn't see...interesting for sure. Some of them also have separate alphabet and/or pronunciation practice (or both), which is pretty good! Still absolutely wild to do things like get to the point of being able to compose simple sentences without being able to spell your name out for someone (a la "sure, it's zee-eye-en-gee" etc) because you were never taught the names of the letters (yup, there really is at least one course that will teach you how to pronounce the entire alphabet and so on and so forth without teaching you the names of the letters even in an extra little written lesson or the separate alphabet practice section. There's also one where they decided to use the standardized version for the written form, so that there was consistent spelling and grammar and the like, but have the recordings done by people who speak a rather different version of the same language that is not standardized. The logic, to my memory, is that native speakers of the standardized version are fairly rare these days, but it's, uh, extremely confusing to go through if you learned one and not the other, and they really are pretty different versions in a number of ways, so it's a choice that I suspect feels strange to people on both sides of this). Anyway, yeah, I have. a lot to say on Duolingo courses! XD They're great for what they are, but also have very interesting limitations at times.

~Z, back to Needing Some Rest but rather happy to have just spent a few minutes typing out a paragraph about language learning! Which, I'm realizing, was kind of tangential. In terms of streaks, I think this is the longest I've ever sustained without it breaking, though I think I have previously used the app on almost every day in a year. I could be wrong. I got inspired by relatives of mine who turn out to all have super long streaks, hence part of my current motivation - it sounded nice. We'll see how it goes!

Harry discusses inheritances at Gringotts and meets Lord Slughorn at Chrysomallos Club.

BL9 for a brief mention of arson.

Moved onto a new team, which is overall good (my old project really did need a winding down) but that means there's a bunch of low-hanging fruit I can help out with and I've been sucked in.

That aside, been on and off again poking at some writing (a Murderbot/Young Wizards oneshot and more Post-Self stuff), been herded into watching more Star Trek (and have liked the bits of Lower Decks I've seen), and have been trying to not drown in things that need doing.

And Duolingo is fun. I've not used it much for Mandarin, mostly French. It seems like every time I get a year or longer streak, it immediately ends, though. :/

--Ls

Is... is that a canon-specific thing? Could you explain it?

--Ls

Why not do another?

I haven’t got many ideas this time so just take one or two

-Cogs do not make good agents, unless they have actual personality or are a redeemed Sue, keep them out of headquarters.

-Just because you somehow made Fnaf quality animatronics does not mean you should kill fan kids to put their souls in them.

*If you ignore this rule, YOU will be taking the night guard duty.

Went through about five big to huge life changes all around the same time, still processing it all, working to move forward productively and, increasingly, remember how to actually slow way down and relax properly. I'd say these are mostly positive changes, or ultimately will be so, but it's been very difficult. I'll make it through, though.

Apart from that, I've done very well to outstandingly well in my courses so far (I'm in the process of getting a professional certification in my field), I've got an original fiction story that keeps on developing and developing in ways I'm really happy with, my local in person writing group has become active again so I've been trying to get to some of its events...I keep looking sometimes at my remaining PPC writing, too, but my overall writing time has been limited recently as it is (see: ~five major life changes), so that's progressing similarly slowly. (To be fair, my original fiction story isn't progressing all that quickly either - it's primarily worldbuilding, as part of the few writing group events I've been able to participate in so far.)

I still haven't let go of the idea of putting up a bunch of my wholly and partially written PPC pieces from about 2013-2018, as extremely historical stuff, but a fair amount of it wouldn't make as much sense without notes or a framing device, and my spare energy and interest for getting that into place is rather limited right now, unfortunately. Too much else going on, and more interest in other projects. I mostly want those up for a sense of closure and filling in more pieces of the stories I wanted to tell with my PPC characters for anyone who might still be interested or become so in the future; I'm not looking to go and finish them at this point. I expect that's why that project has never moved very quickly: I've been very busy with RL stuff in recent years, and most of my available writing energy has gone to writing as opposed to making abandoned pieces accessible. I guess we'll see what happens!

Also, on a fairly different note, I've been learning Chinese (specifically Mandarin) via Duolingo and film, and it's been a(n occasionally frustrating) joy. I'm about to hit a 241 day streak (occasionally saved by streak freezes, I'll admit), which I'm also quite pleased about. It's been pretty cool, learning an almost entirely unfamiliar language almost completely from scratch! I've been enjoying it a lot, and my listening comprehension has gone way, way, way up as compared to where it was when I was just beginning to pick out a few words and sentence structure patterns that showed up most frequently. It's a really cool experience, being able to track my learning of a language that I originally knew basically one non-food or -place name (or - person's name) word in (which is to say, I knew how to say hello, no tones involved). I'm looking forward to learning some more.

~Z, rather tired but thankfully in a position to get some rest

And best of luck with yours!

It's to prepare for when I leave to another province for Christmas, so I'm not going to be writing PPC stuff for a while.