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Nume: *groan* Already? But—wait, whoa. New rule: I am not your uncle.

Henry: But you said you were.

Nume: No, I didn't! *thinks* Okay, the 'Uncle Vernon' thing? That was a simile. Do you know what similes are?

... Nume goes on to attempt to explain similes to a six-year-old. I'm sure this will end well for him. *grin*

~Neshomeh

And, well, upbringing to some extent. Not to criticize! But, I used to babysit for a couple of little boys with rather non-disciplinary or at least inconsistent parents, and they weren't just screamers, they drove people at my church crazy. Like, people were slightly in awe of my ability to put up with these kids, that's how unruly they could be. They found out pretty quickly that it didn't work on me, though (my response to tantrums, learned from my brother's and my upbringing, is basically "LOL, it's funny that you think that will get you anything but a red face and a timeout"), and we mostly got along great. ^^

Also babysat for another little boy who was naturally pretty quiet and serious, and he hardly needed more than a stern look and an "I mean it" now and then. He cried sometimes, but never screamed that I recall. Kids are different. {= )

As for Henry in particular, I think his actual and literary genetics predispose him to being of a quieter persuasion. Baby Harry might've been inclined to scream (see: CAPSLOCK OF RAGE), but with the Dursleys, that would almost certainly earn him a quick trip to the broom cupboard with no supper, and epigenetics matter. (This science argument is probably no more than 50% dumb!) Baby Severus... I just can't see him ever being loud, ever.

Plus, if Henry's going to flip his lid, it's gonna come at the point where he takes off into HQ and makes Nume chase him. So... the plot demands it? ^^;

The rest, I will consider, and thank you! I can't take the easy fix, it would super break the timeline. {= )

~Neshomeh

The first thing that jumps out at me is the formatting: You gotta offset your paragraphs somehow, whether by indenting the first line of each new paragraph (standard in print, difficult in HTML-only online spaces) or by putting a line of whitespace between paragraphs (standard online; hit Enter twice when you start a new paragraph, it's easy). This makes your text much easier for people's eyes to track.

This is a new paragraph. See? It's super-clear with that line of whitespace between this one and the last one. You can't miss it. {= )

Here's another one, where I'm going to talk about other stuff. There were some SPaG issues, mostly to do with commas and with capitalization around dialogue, but I'm gonna suppress the urge to get into those in detail for this challenge.

What I liked: seeing DOGA doing what they do best. I like the "response team" thing that some departments naturally lend themselves to, when they can show up to do just the job they're trained to do instead of necessarily always tagging along for a whole mission. That's also fine and good, but too many agents on a team tends to really bog things down (IMO, four is the top limit of bearability in most cases), and this could be a good format for a different sort of spin-off, which could be fun. I also liked the concept of the Forest of Dean being expanded over whales. Typos are fun. Always make the most of a good typo. ^_^

What I would change: I'm of the firm opinion that agents should use canonical disguises and methods whenever possible. You can get away with not being in disguise if you're a human in a human-centric universe (or an alien in an alien-filled universe, etc.) with no OCs involved, e.g. most Bad Slash missions, but I think futuristic tech in a magical universe is going too far, even if the OC is gone already. If you really must go the technological route over a magical one, the Harry Potter universe does have Muggle flamethrowers, napalm, agent orange, etc.—but why would you do that when you have magic available?

Also, I'm a little unclear on how far the DOGA agents fell from their portal. "Above the now enlarged Forest of Dean" suggests to me that they fell from above the treetops, which is not a small distance at all. Did you mean a few feet above the forest floor? Consider also that Apollo's visibility will be limited by the trees, depending on their density, wherever they pop in.

One last thing: this is the correct rendering of the quote and of Obi-Wan's name: "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope."

That's it. Considering I cheated, kudos on actually writing from the prompt in a way that fits. {= )

~Neshomeh

Here on the Board I can lurk quietly. If I lurked on the Discord, you could see I was there. I could look at the history later, of course, so it's not private. But there's just a slightly higher barrier to entry on the Discord.

In which we finally discover who is Sergio, nikki and Corolla's opponent, and Sergio makes an important decision.

https://rc1587.wordpress.com/2017/03/25/blank-sprite-mission-record-07/



(Note that the ending of the chapter, despite what it may look like, was actually decided long before the recent bad things, as my beta readers can confirm.)

Hello! Here you go, one .pdf of My Immortal. Laughs, despair at the grammar and hatred for My Chemical Romance are all treatable side-effects.

Welcome back!

*gives the official returnbie bumper sticker*

(I used to be known as Techno-Dann; along with name, gender and pronouns have also changed. Surprise!)

I honestly think it's just part of the feeling of the chat. I certainly don't think of it as being "as public" as the Board, even though it clearly is. I don't know that I can really explain it, either, so I'm aware this sounds absurd (and is a moot point, since Tomash is leaving for 2-3 months anyway), but a chat really does feel more private.

My most sincere condolences to hear that my—uh, I mean, those men made an attempt on your life, sir. I would most like to hear about future security measures that will be put in place. For the press, you understand.

—Iximaz, reporter for the Sunflower Times

Have a plate of welcome-back SPaGhetti! Can I have your autograph?

I'd thought you were saying they had to be drabbles so I was like "Well, most of the entries aren't..."

lol

Work, and larp , has been kicking my rear. I have finally returned though!

Good day, everyone. It's me, John Henry--

Kidding! It's Nord. How've you all been? Me, I've been getting better at things. Wrote some fanfic, mainly my Mass Foundations series (see below), made some gameplay videos and streams (also below), the works. I'm aware I haven't contributed much to the PPC, but to be honest, I kinda miss you all.

SHAMELESS SELF-PLUG, HO!

http://archiveofourown.org/series/31684
https://www.youtube.com/user/NordRonnoc
https://www.twitch.tv/nordronnoc

Note: SPOILER warning for the end and, to some extent, general premise of Torchwood season 3 (Children of Earth). Some dark imagery in line with that.

*

*

*

Jacques jolted into wakefulness, gasping as his heart rate began to settle. No one was in his bed; as his hand hit the back of the couch he realized that he wasn't in his bed. He rubbed a hand over his face and groaned, wondering how long he'd been out.

Two hours, going by his watch, though who knew how accurate it was by now. HQ didn't exactly have a stabilizing effect on timepieces. Sometimes, Jacques found himself wondering how people decided when to celebrate their birthdays.

How had he even managed to fall asleep? The TV was still on, cycling through a DVD menu--

A face that could have been his at his most sadly determined flashed across the screen and everything fell into place.

Children of Earth. He'd been watching Children of Earth (the third Torchwood season, not the cheesy Old Earth musical he remembered seeing before he'd been himself) and somehow fallen asleep.

No wonder he'd had nightmares about sacrificing the Sato children to save everyone in HQ. They were the closest he had to family in this place, and he hadn't seen them in what, two weeks? A month? It felt like years. And at least they didn't call him 'uncle', they knew he was a version of one of their dads, but--

The parallels were still there. They might have been Jack's children instead of his grandson, and they knew exactly who Jacques was and a very simplified version of what he actually did for a job, and HQ wasn't currently under attack, and yet--

And yet all of that couldn't quite dispel the nightmare of himself in Jack's place, needing three children to make the signal strong enough to wipe out the shadowy invaders, finding no one else who could serve as a conduit and unable to force the signal through himself in their place--

Jacques found himself on his feet, heart racing again. No. It was never going to come to that, not ever, and not least because, unlike Alice, he was completely certain that the Satos' mother would actually kill him. And then she'd do it again, and find a way to make it stick, if she was feeling kind enough...

He couldn't shake the nightmare. Not when jack harkness the mini-Reaper flew into his shoulder, not when he poured and drank a glass of water (his hands were shaking), and not even when he gave up on drinking and poured the water over his head. Something about it would not let go.

This was the absolute last time he was going to watch his home canon. Ever.

But even that resolution wasn't enough, and he ended up pacing, trying to work off the tension and the shaking and only making it worse. He had to--he had to--

His first thought was to go see Luxury, but he didn't think he could bring himself to voice what his subconscious had decided to torture him with, much less find the desire to touch her right now. His second thought was the children again, and it turned into Ruby's scream and Seren's closed eyes and Owain--

No.

He forced one deep breath and then another. Reluctantly, he went to find a mirror; he'd probably look like hell either way, but at least he could see if his hair needed combing. And then he could grab his jacket (heavy, dark, everything he hadn't been wearing in the dream) and go to the Nursery.

After all, what better way to convince every part of his brain that the Satos were still happy and breathing?

*

Six-year-old Ruby ran straight for him the moment he walked into her line of sight. "Jacques! Jacques Jacques Jacques--" She stopped shrieking when he went to his knees to hug her, hugging back for a minute before she wriggled free and grabbed his hand. "I made a gold thing and it's really cool! You take a pencil and you draw on it and then you flip it over and it's really cool! But you have to draw on the silver side, or it looks weird. Come see!"

He went--of course he went, he was always going to look at whatever she wanted to show him--trying to hide the shakiness of his breathing. She was alive--she was so alive, and she was going to stay that way if he had to take on every villain in existence to make it happen. She was fine.

"Where are Seren and Owain?" he asked. Amusement tugged briefly at him: he'd managed to time the question perfectly, landing it in between them arriving at the low art table and Ruby starting to explain her latest art project in more detail.

Ruby shrugged. "Seren's making maps so she can go places on her own and Owain's trying to read or something. I don't know. I think they're over there." She pointed to a corner of the room, past a handful of other kids of varying ages.

Jacques looked. Seren was there, her little head bent over the piece of paper she was drawing on. A familiar scowl was on her face: the crayon must not be cooperating. Behind her and to her left, Owain sat on a bean bag chair, his lips moving as he sounded out words to himself. As Jacques watched he stopped trying to read, flipping the pages quickly enough that Jacques knew he'd gone back to just looking at the pictures. Then again, he was only five; easy reading didn't even need to be in his skill set yet. As his mother had said once, it was just that much more time that they got to spend reading to him.

Jacques took a deep breath in and let it out, relieved when it didn't shudder. "Alright," he said to Ruby, and sat down where he'd be able to see her, her artwork, and her younger siblings. He even managed a smile. "Tell me about your cool foil thing."

Ruby happily obliged.

*

*

Another note: this ended up leaning more towards the determined side of hope. Less the 'I wish this would happen and I hope it will' side and more 'I hope this will happen and I will do anything to make it real' side. The first third has been mildly edited by me; the rest got only as much editing as happens when one reads back a sentence to know how to continue and ends up changing a word or two. I don't know how long it is--maybe about 1k? Word count in Microsoft Word says 1,003 words. Not quite a drabble, more of a one-shot. Comments and concrit welcome; this may eventually become canon. It's certainly in line with it.

I think I'm out of time to drop a review on anything right now, but hopefully ( :) ) I'll get there tomorrow night or Sunday.

~Zing

I'm a machine.

It was an odd thought, even by the standards of Time Lords. Of course she wasn't actually a machine. There were no hidden cogs or artificial myomers lurking beneath the skin; her experiences in the Time War had given her ample opportunity to check, sometimes from several directions at once. The Notary thought back on those mad days of pain, the ones she'd convinced herself she'd left behind like a badly-developed photo of someone else's skiing holiday... then she stopped, and took another long swig from her glass of amasec, and turned over the page in the Rudi's accounting dataslate.

She knew her drinking was excessive. Knowing and caring were two very different things. Her former self - the one she'd been forcibly reintroduced to by a Sue-Wraith of monstrous proportions - had drank excessively because she attended all the best parties in all the most fashionable galaxies, because she was welcome there. Her roaring years. A girl in every spaceport, sometimes with her atrocious megacorp husband's private army filling the air with laser fire ever so slightly too far behind. So many came with her, over the years. One stayed, though, just the one. The only one that version of her had ever needed.

She was so lost in her reminiscing that she didn't notice who had sat down next to her.

"How're you holding up?"

"Hmwha? Oh. Hello, Agent the Clown. Wobbles the Agent? I'm still not quite sure of the protocol-"

"Try friend."

"I don't have any friends. You've been inside my head, you know that better than anyone, with the possible exception of Moon Moon. And that entirely depends on how much she remembers through the fug of regeneration sickness..."

"Well, ya won't with that attitude. Try it out! See how it feels."

"I..." The Notary paused. "You're not filming this, are you?"

"Uh, where exactly am I gonna put a camera and not have it explode?"

"You know exactly what I mean. Is this a bit? A little skit for your television program wherein the kiddies all get to laugh at how the mean, nasty Time Grump," and there had never been so much venom in those two words, "just wants to be loved deep down? Will they be laughing at the thought of a vicious old bag with too many dead behind her just wanting to be cared for? Hell, I'd settle for being cared about these days, and not just someone waiting to write an obituary that would've constituted a poison pen letter had I been alive."

"In vino veritas, I guess. Or in... stuff that smells like wood polish veritas. What even is that?"

"Amasec. In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war, except when they stop fighting and drink this stuff. Want some?"

"Uh, sure, I'll bite. Chyeah, that's how you know I'm not filming. No alcohol refs in the 2-11 demo." Wobbles took a small, tentative sip... then made a noise like a cat trying to projectile-vomit into a malfunctioning garbage disposal unit.

The Notary couldn't help but throw back her head and howl with laughter, nearly knocking the dataslate off the bar. "Oh, Wobbles, your face is a picture!"

"I REGRET EVERYTHING. EVER."

"I'd take a photo, but that'd be grossly hypocritical."

Wobbles had a pithy rejoinder at the ready, but she was too busy trying to scrape her tongue clean with a folding steel wig comb. "How can you sit there and drink that, Notary?"

"Very easily. I perch on a barstool, raise it to my lips, and swallow. Then I repeat the process until there are at least three barstools. It's an intense training regime, but I like to think I've become something of an expert."

"Gawd, Notary, that pun was worse than how that stuff tasted. I didn't think that was possible!"

"Nothing's impossible with the judicious application of self-belief, alcohol, and zero talent for the task involved."

"Ugh. Hey, um, sir? My usual, please. And make it a double." The barman nodded, though he looked a bit pale.

The Notary, still smiling, looked at Wobbles. "You have a usual? I've barely ever seen you in here."

"My therapist and I used to come here a lot when I was in FicPsych, and the gang here never forget a drink order."

"Huh. Live and learn."

"How's your own FicPsych stuff going?"

"Well, we haven't gone out for a drink yet, if that's what you're asking." The Notary shrugged. "I'm taking it slow. It's a big step, and I've been out of the decrazification pool for a while now. I've been considering water wings."

Wobbled snrgled, a weird snorting sort of laughter that seemed slightly out of place coming out of a clown's painted face; it was more suitable by far for the person underneath. "Y'know, you're actually pretty funny when you're not beating people up."

"Thank you for saying so - Rassilon's bones, woman, what the hell is that?"

"My drink order!" Wobbles beamed.

The barman, struggling somewhat under the weight of it, had set a frankly enormous milkshake on the bar beside Wobbles with an audible crash. The word milkshake, though, didn't do it justice. When milkshakes went to meet the Great Big Flavoured Milk Product In The Sky, this was what they thought such a being would look like. There were crushed pecans. There was ice cream. There was whipped cream. There was something a passing Flareon inwardly hoped was chocolate custard. There were miniature brownies, there were tiny marshmallows, there were umbrellas, there were sparklers. And jutting from the side like the wrath of God, if God was plastic and bent into interesting shapes, was the kind of bendy straw that children's dreams are made of. It was bright pink.

The Notary gaped.

Wobbles just grinned. "You wanna try a slurp?"

"... Well, fair's fair, you tried mine."

Wobbles pushed the glass over with surprisingly little effort, a dribble of ice cream in its wake. The Notary inspected it much as other people would a landmine that just went click. "What flavour is it, Wobbles?"

"Uh-uh, no questions. You didn't tell me what amasec tasted like, now didja!"

"Would you have believed me?"

"Don't change the subject."

After another inspection, during which the Notary nibbled on a bit of pecan nut and was gleefully informed that it didn't count, the Time Lord finally bit the bullet and gave it a slurp.

She came to from the sugar high about twenty minutes later, finding herself in a FicPsych ward balanced on top of an enormous, gyrating fir tree. The nurses, who were rather more understanding once Wobbles showed up and even deigned to help her down, informed the Notary that she had proclaimed herself the prettiest sugarplum fairy in all the land, and that she deserved to be atop a pretty Christmas tree, no matter whether or not it was time for his nap.

The Time Lord looked at her partner. Her partner grinned back at her like a trickster god.

"That," said the Notary, "explains so much."

"Prolly!" Wobbles beamed. "Still think you're a robot?"

"What makes you think I-" The Notary paused, thinking back. "Did I say that out loud?"

"Yup."

"Well... yes. A little bit."

Wobbles nodded. "Thought you might. Don't worry, stuff like this takes time."

"You're right. It does." The Notary removed some stray needles that had been lodged somewhere uncomfortable. "But then again, I'm a Time Lord. If there's one thing we've got, it's that."

And they walked off after that, and told each other stories.

We're here to concrit the stories, not the incidental posts. I fully admit I started it (though I did try to use the topic to give Skarm a cool new fact), so I think that means I get to end it, too.

Move along. Stories to write, concrit to give, fun to have.

hS

“It’s over,” said Guardsman Alorandosenar. “We’re backed into a corner and this time there’s no cavalry to save us.” He took a shaky sip of water from his canteen and stared blankly at the trench wall in front of him. “Two hundred Daleks versus twenty-four of us...”

Over to his left, a shot from a Dalek dissector cannon blasted the operator of an automatic staser gun off of the parapet, reducing him to a pile of ashes in the blink of an eye.

“Twenty-three. But my point still stands— we’re all dead.” He leaned forward and rested his helmeted head against the wall, closed his eyes, and sighed. “We fought an endless war just to die in a hole in the ground on Gallifrey.”

“Chin up, soldier,” said Sergeant Major Emiranlanoamar as he made his way to the abandoned automatic staser and pulled it off the parapet, scooping up the fallen soldier's ID tags in the same motion. “We’re not going out without a fight— it’s the least we can do for the civilians we’re got in the bunker up there,” he added, nodding towards the structure in question.

“With respect, sir: I’m just so tired,” replied the guardsman. “We’ll fight, yes, but what’s the point?”

“Every Dalek that doesn’t make it off Gallifrey is a Dalek that won’t go on to terrorize the universe at large,” said the sergeant major. “What we’ll do here is win a delaying action: we're buying time for the younger races of the universe to prepare for confrontation with the Daleks. The Kaleds have exhausted themselves to bring themselves here— they aren’t coming out of the War as a huge threat.”

“It’s not fair.” The guardsman gripped his staser carbine tighter. “It’s not fair. They keep winning and winning and winning and they can’t be stopped and they can’t be reasoned with and..." He sighed. “I want this to be ov— argh!”

A sudden hiss of static over the squad-comms made both soldiers jump a little, then came an encrypted message from the Gallifreyan War Council, displayed over their retinal heads-up-displays:


///

MESSAGE: PRIORITY_ABSOLUTE //

DOCTOR IN ORBIT AROUND GALLIFREY //

ALL 13 SELVES PRESENT //

HAS PLANS TO TELEPORT ENTIRE PLANET MINUS HOSTILE ELEMENTS TO SAFETY //

FINAL ORDERS: DEFEND AT ALL COSTS //

VICTORY IS IN SIGHT, LEND US YOUR STRENGTH FOR JUST A FEW MORE MINUTES //

GALLIFREY STANDS //

///


As the guardsman blinked away the afterimage of the text, he saw an outstretched hand raised towards him. He looked up at the sergeant major.

“On your feet,” he said. “Hope ain’t dead yet.”

You'll be pleased to know that the Socialists tried - but apparently we acquired some Secret Service types? I don't know where from, the Intelligence agencies have been entirely defunded.



But there is still hope for them. By following your wise policies - ending policing, banning abortion, cutting benefits and anti-discrimination laws - we have ensured that our country is going down the drain:



We are achieving failure on an international scale.



We are... somehow doing well on the economic front.




But most of all: we are hated. We are reviled.



They will come for us. And we will open our arms to welcome them.



This is the final year before we are 'voted' out. Make it count.

((I just hope there's not a limit on the frequency of assassinations...))

hS FC