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I loathe the ones that are actual pictures, like the yellow face ones. I am a man of words, not pictures, so I need my text faces to be composed of actual text!

—doctorlit, feeling
: )
) :
'~'
8 D
D 8
'__'
ಠ~ಠ right now

Very sweet, and very sad, but in a nice way, if that makes sense. I love how supportive Momoka's dad is! And hey: she got her wish, defeating monsters at the PPC!

—doctorlit, definitely going to bed on time, just . . . just one more thing, come on, just let me get one more thing done, that's all I need bro, one more thing and then I'll go to bed, one more thing, bro, I need it, I

Ah, the first real look into how a slash mission functions! (I think; this project has gone on so long, it's hard to keep track of all the firsts any more!) Funny that it's actually a mission for the Department of Emergencies, even though it would probably be seen as a pretty straightforward mission nowadays. It must be the threat to Legolas's life after the fact that justified that designation to the authors. And that, of course, connects with Doctor Fitzgerald's shock at having a canon character brought to Medical; since that wasn't a norm back then, any mission where a canon was in active mortal peril would have been seen as a greater emergency, since using Medical wasn't considered a solution. Until, of course, it was! Which may have contributed to argument to dissolve the DE once the concept of the Department of Floaters started to gain ground.

The . . . particular topic of this mission is tricky to work into a PPC mission. Since part of the job is to watch to collect charges . . . yeah. I see Jay and Cam got around that problem by basically starting the mission portion in media res, so that it was already time to intervene. Yeah, not much else to say there.

Oh, hey, the DE had its own cantina? I wonder if it services the SpecOps Division nowadays, or if too much of the DE's staff moved to other areas of HQ, and it's just unaffiliated now?

Aw. Miss Cam said she was working on a Daed-and-Heal mission, but I guess that never got finished . . .

—doctorlit, soon to exorcise tiredness by going to sleep

• The hunt for breakfast is a very nice starting scene
• I'm liking RC V
• Does the "including;" need that semicolon? Something feels off about it
• Yeah, the Flowers assigning you someone as a partner is a solid reason to be a bit sus. They're definitely trying to create tension
• Haggling over disguises makes sense
• Though meta note: I hope you're not hunting through a particular author for material. That's perhaps a bit much
• (You've got some stray <i> running around in one spot)
• I'm not sure what exactly's going on with “There’s no explanation that would centrally involve me! At all! Whatsoever!” (and also 'centrally' is probably a typo)
• Though I do now also want to know why the Words are blury
• "Sue illogic." sums up a lot of problems, doesn't it?
• Overall, the contrast between Mina and Carlisle works quite well here so far
• Mina, if you keep relying on the SEP field, it will fail you at the worst possible time.
• IHOP is definitely an improvement over the fic
• The CAD not exploding was a nice touch
• This fic is definitely referencing My Immortal a lot
• That's definitely a good combat scene
• You have "So I am" for "So am I" in the climactic bit
• The PPC badfic reveal is interesting. I take it we'll see more eventually.
• Though they did seem to calm down fast. I'm expecting they'll have a longer conversation about this in the future.
• And yeah, I think you grabbed a solid endpoint
• And you did a good bit by foreshadowing the lightsaber - I'd figured that was a gag

Overall, this is definitely a solid bit of PPC writing that exposes a bunch of new worldbuilding hooks (do the Flowers know about all this? How'd Mina's parents get their names? etc etc.) and does a good job playing off the agents' contrasting personalities and the nonsense of the fic off for comedy.

• I had trouble working out what the first sentence was going for, I think you accidentally a word or something
• Yowch, that ending

Is hard to have detailed thoughts on a short piece like this, but, overall, you did a good job producing emotional impact.

I understand wanting to flesh out Slytherin; it's hard to be angry at the children of Death Eaters, or Dudley Dursley, when they're so heavily influenced by the cultures they grew up in. But while Dudley at least got a redemption arc chapter, every Slytherin student winds up fleeing Hogwarts instead of trying to defend it, not even the one student who had joined Dumbledore's Army. It would have been such a powerful statement, to have them all stand up against the privilege and power they were set to inherit, just because they knew it was the right thing to do . . . But as you said, Rowling has a very black-and-white view of who is good and who is bad.

Anyway, let me open up that other thread you linked, and read that snippet you posted with Bellatrix and Lily, which I'm sure is very normal and not weird at allwjycrgwcuwrgycfugfuiergfuwg
Argh, that's just too much hair, altogether. Despite being willing to hug several different animal species, I'm afraid human hair is quite squicky for me. Like, can't even rest my head against the wall in a public waiting room, there could be HaIr MoLeCuLeS oN tHe WaLl, squicky. So that whole . . . scenario is a big no for me. Although I am amused by:
"She is grateful that Lord Gervaise Ollivander keeps such excellent records. Else she might not have been able to acquire wood from the precise willow tree that birthed Lily’s wand."
"Hey babe, I brutalized a tree with sentimental value for you, ain't I romantic?"

Oh, also: ' . . . the only people allowed to touch a witch's hair are her father, her husband, and her son." Good to see we're honoring the traditional tradition of seeing women's bodies as objects to be locked away like property, cool.

(Also, I'm sure there's some nonsensical magical explanation for how forcing Lily and Bellatrix into marriage is going to result in Pureblood children, since they're both AFAB women, but I'm just amused because I just finished one of the Earth's Children series, where the main characters came across a tribe where the female chief was trying to slowly starve out all the men. Since the early humans of the novel don't understand what causes pregnancy, she assumed that by removing all the men, new children would be created from a mixture of women's spirits, resulting in AFAB babies only, and therefore, an all-woman tribe. That chief gets a pass on her biology fail for being a literal Cro-Magnon (although she actually should have known that some AFAB babies grow up to identify as male; people with spirits of a different gender aren't unknown to their culture), but one would think the Wizarding government would maybe be a little more knowledgeable on how reproduction works . . .)

—doctorlit apologizes for typing way to much on this, but it was a lot to think about

Check out the Unclaimed Badfic page or past badfic reports.

—Ls

Here is Mina and Carlisle’s latest mission, in which there is drama, new characters are introduced, and Draco Malfoy is turned into a porta-potty.

I also have a bonus commentary, where I comment on a couple bonus chapters of the badfic.

And here is a dramatic reading/podcast of the badfic. Warning for language.

—Ls

since Nesh, Zing, and I recently dove into a subgenre of HP fics that's just aristocracy and abstinence. It seems like in making a wholly black-and-white conflict and textually demonising Slytherin house from the outset, the books have encouraged a lot of people to advocate for the Pureblood supremacists in their attempt to make Slytherin more sympathetic. If there had been better nuance from the beginning (like, idk, one of Harry's friends being in Slytherin) distinguishing the Pureblood supremacists from Slytherin House itself, there might be fewer of these kinds of fics running around where Harry discovers he's secretly some sort of Lord Potter and also Dumbledore is evil because all the poor persecuted Purebloods want is to save their culture.

Like hS, I don't think I've read through this one before, but hey! This is a decent first mission for a spin-off! It definitely feels like it was role-played back and forth before being converted into narrative form, like (most? all?) of Jay and Acacia's are, but I feel like it actually flows a bit better than some spots in the originals series do. It also feels like they kept a pretty solid sense of the temporality within the mission, keeping the days moving at a fairly consistent pace, and making sure the agents attempted a fairly realistic sleep schedule throughout—though I can't help but notice they never ate, despite having opportunities at the Burrow's kitchen and in the Great Hall. The overall vibe of the mission is quite nice; Aria and Polaris feel more rounded out than the standard "quiet squeamish one plus bold bloodthirsty one" agent pair, with Aria still getting aggressive when Lupin is insulted, and Polaris quick to show panic when she gets in trouble in the forest. It does fall short on more minor details: there's a very jarring unmarked scene break, and Trevor is referred to as horned toad, when from what I can tell, he is a quite ordinary real toad species. Also, I don't think brooms are autonomous enough to return to storage on their own, are they? Then again, canon does try to reassert itself, so maybe getting moved by a PPC agent actively restoring canon is a small enough breach that canon itself gave the broom enough of a boost to return where it belonged. Agents shouldn't be able to use wands, but since this is only the second Potterverse mission in PPC publication history, it's not like that had been established yet, and HFA hasn't been published to establish Muggle-use wands. Plus, the disguise description is a bit vague (". . . set their disguise in order to let them blend with the Harry Potter continuum . . ."), so Aria may be a wizard at the time she uses the wand.

At least one of these cowriters has a great knack for quick, funny details, too! I liked:
-that Aria's most recent mission featured, ". . . that dragon, and Voldemort stealing her wand, and Hermione's hair-straightener . . ." Only a PPC agent would see all those as equally heinous! It's also amusing that a few lines later, it reveals Hermione had to fix her hair herself with a curling iron!
-that the record for getting lost in HQ in nine full days. It's so ridiculously long, it's perfect PPC!
-that the lack of description makes Diagon Alley look like lines from a sketch pad: a literal "sketchy alley"
-most hilarious of all, Aria unloading equipment from a backpack to hand to Polaris, ending with . . . a second backpack, which Polaris must then pack herself! Feels like it's straight out of a Leslie Nielsen movie!

And I know it's coincidence, since Rowling wasn't analyzed as heavily back in the early 00s, but:
". . . there are almost as many Mary Sues in the Harry Potter continuum, but they are easier at blending. No one knows exactly why."
Almost as though Suvians feel right at home in a piece of bourgeoisie, classist, fatphobic, gentrified media! Who would have thought?

—doctorlit joined the PPC for a very good reason, and that reason is the backpack humor

Can you please tell me which mission contains the particularly bad language/no go term? We can put a warning on the wiki next to the mission although if the author is the one I think it is, he’s inactive.

For one thing, the presidency is not actually decided by popular vote (if it were, the last two Republican presidents would not have won), but rather by the electoral college. The process for becoming an elector varies state by state, as does the degree to which electors are obligated to follow the popular vote. Some simply are not. In theory, this is to prevent the uneducated masses from making an uninformed decision, but even if there were some merit to that idea in the past (which is debatable), in the Internet age, it's ludicrous.

However, that brings me back to free access to information as a human right. I would argue that it must be a protected right in order to ensure the public can make informed decisions for itself and is less vulnerable to exploitation by corporate, government, or any other interests that might wish to manipulate the facts for their own gain. Information, like food and drink, should also be protected from adulteration by lies and conspiracy theories so that, for instance, people are less likely to believe that there are computer chips in a life-saving vaccination or that drinking urine or bleach is a good way to prevent COVID-19. I wish I were making that up.

I believe education must be protected for the same reason. How are you supposed to be able to tell good information from bad information if you're never taught basic facts, like "bleach is toxic because it destroys virtually all kinds of cells on contact," or how to analyze a statistic to see if it's being taken out of context or cherry-picked, or that you should always check the sources of your information to make sure they're coming from actual experts in the field and not crackpots?

Returning to the subject of how much your vote counts: locally, it's also determined by where the lines are drawn around your district. Gerrymandering affects local elections just as badly as it effects federal elections. This site gives several examples. It also talks about how gerrymandering has been used to dilute the votes of minority populations, who already face other barriers to participation in the election process that I won't get into here. The point is, our current system is not working as intended, and has instead been corrupted to benefit certain people while disenfranchising others. It needs to be changed so that it can work to benefit all citizens equally, as I've argued is its true function.

But how do you learn that if you don't have a strong civics and history education that doesn't shy away from talking about the ugly parts of our history and you're restricted from access to the Internet, not to mention analog sources of knowledge like libraries and museums? There's a reason museums came up on the quiz. You won't be surprised to hear I support them being subsidized so they're not automatically locked away from poor people, for whom it's already difficult enough just taking time away from work to visit one. I'll admit to being dubious about theaters being included, since a Broadway ticket is certainly a luxury, but on the other hand, the stage, the screen, and the page are all methods by which the public can criticize and ridicule its leaders as needed. This, too, is vital for a working democracy.

What I think shouldn't be protected are things literally no one needs, like the "right" to wear a new set of clothes every day without paying the people who make those clothes enough to live on, or the "right" to buy up residential properties in New Orleans and sell them at exorbitant costs during a housing shortage, or the "right" to carry around an instrument of mass-murder. In short, behaviors that directly or indirectly harm others or interfere with their liberties and entitlements.

~Neshomeh

... I think they would still be pretty sturdy by modern standards. Boromir is probably in very good shape. I think he would be pretty sturdy, healthy, and muscular because I figure he spends a lot of time outdoors, practicing with his weapons. Warriors of long ago had to be fit.

The Hobbits, though. Hmmm. This reminds me of part of the Fellowship of the Ring where Frodo looks at himself in the mirror and thinks he looks a little flabby. Not that he would be unhealthy, but not really spry, either. He was 50 when he went on the Quest. Merry and Pippin are just teenagers. They spend a lot of time horsing around. I bet that they can run pretty fast. They must have had lots of practice because of filching mushrooms from Farmer Maggot. Sam is older than Merry and Pippin, but younger than Frodo. He's sturdy and used to working.

Not that I really know much about this, I'm just theorizing.

• Bw

I missed the first, and am now solidly hooked! I love meta-narrative fiction, and the Usual Ten is (are?) delightful. Cassie has all my sympathies- she's way deeper into the story than she thinks, and the role she's been aimed at is going to be rough.

Looking forward to the next chapter!

Back to the drawing board, then...but I'll definitely take your advice and keep an eye out for major canon violations next time I go looking for badfic.

I've skimmed four chapters and I don't think she's disrupted the canon at all. The writing is a little overwrought, but a proper Austen style is hard to carry off. She's not over the top for a well-brought-up young woman of whatever vague time period PotC is set in.

That's not to say the fic is without issues - I noted a use of "Nigeria", which a quick Wiki check confirms is a name dating to 1897 - but the OC seems fine.

As far as I can tell she's off on her own plot (I left her heading to Tortuga to try and find some medicine), not even going pirate/Will/Elizabeth-hunting. So while I'm sure she'll run into them, her current plot is a "living in the canon" story, which doesn't have to enhance anything.

hS

EDIT: One way to try and answer your own question would be to start with the charge list. Not the minor things like SPG and little sillinesses, but the major ones. What does the character or the fic do that means it's hurting the canon so much that the PPC needs to kill it? "Suvian" is just a shorthand for a set of behaviours and issues, not something you need to look for separately.

Like, I think I've seen some Vambiolaria and Suemonia outbreaks played for laughs. Given the Current Events, though, I highly doubt an All-HQ Virus Outbreak is going to be played for laughs anytime soon, though, unless it's like... a rare Hobbit disease that makes your feet grow hair at 3 inches a minute.

The common cold does exist; Bilbo had one when he landed in Lake Town. Elves and Dwarves are hardier, though -- pretty sure Elves don't get sick at all? Gandalf is a Maia, so not sure why he'd be getting sick. I bet Aragorn has had basically every disease ever in his years of travel; his immune system is pretty jacked even before the Numenorean ~noble blood~ stuff happens. I guess I would worry most about Boromir and the Hobbits getting laid low by a cold........ I'm sure there's a sick fic about this!

Actually, I was talking about non-residents of California.

You are moving the goalposts, then. I was originally talking about residents of California who lower the amount of income and assets they keep in California in order to pay less income tax. Non-residents of California who move to California will eventually have to change their residency to California, or if they remain residents of another state (like college students are), they pay taxes to their home state as well as federal taxes. They are still, in the end, taxed by a state and the federal government.

Um...inflation is when money loses value. And the IRA is, per your article, projected to not have much of an impact for at least a year.

My quote assumes you know what inflation is and jumps right to how it is usually solved. And very few economic measures in the US have their impact felt immediately. I don't understand how "it's gonna take more than a year" is valid argument against making an attempt to solve something.

As for the Japanese system, it does have its own issues, such as long wait times and a rapidly aging population. Not that I like high prices, though. Those suck.

Yes. I would sooner wait three hours than pay tons of money for the same amount of care. I know not a lot of people think the same, but honestly, the way Americans are deterred by the cost of going to the doctor makes us prone to not going there until it is too late and we have to incur extra costs through the emergency room, where time is of the essence. Even then, wouldn't the sheer number of people in the ER end up making some people take forever to get tended to? It's inefficient and leads to way too many Americans developing serious health conditions because they ignore the earlier symptoms. That, I think, is worse than waiting a while to see a doctor.

I was talking more about unemployment money being greater than the minimum wage and thus disincentivizing work...but, yeah, I guess that’s not the issue here.

So... why don't people pay more than minimum wage, then? Why don't companies offer better working conditions? They won't do these things unless there's a union working with the government to force restrictions and regulations on what business can do to their employees. Minimum wage would not exist if it weren't for unions getting the Fair Labor Standards Act passed, for example. It's not the issue here, but it's clearly showing an example of the government's role in stopping capitalist exploitation.

Personally, I don’t see why employers offer health insurance plans—I’d rather have the money to choose it myself—but I guess there’s discounts to buying in bulk?

Yes. There's group plans and the premium is taken from your paycheck as opposed to you having to pay it yourself every month. Similarly, for my Japanese National Healthcare, the premium is taken out of my paycheck, so I don't have to worry about paying healthcare bills every month. I don't have a choice in the plan I pay for, but it doesn't matter, because I pay the same co-pay no matter which plan I use and there are no restrictions on which doctor I choose. That, I think, is more freedom to choose than choosing between insurance plans and worrying that the care restrictions and copay amounts will come back to bite me later down the line.

Not sure I’m making any sense. If ever was...

I've had these discussions before. When I was younger, I was on your side of the argument. But like a lot of others in this community, growing up and having to deal with the system firsthand has made me want better for my fellow Americans. I'm not saying changing your opinion on this is inevitable! We may simply agree to disagree on this and refocus our energy on PPC-related topics. But I really hope I've been able to give you something to think about.

It wasn't bad. Marion didn't seem very Sueish at all, at least in the couple chapters I read. I personally only try to report badfic with bad SPaG--it's a pretty objective charge.

--Ls also liked Eragon, so take this with a few grains of salt.

...but is this Pirates of the Caribbean fic I found mission-worthy? I'm not very good at distinguishing between proper Suvians and original characters who don't enhance the continuum by being there, but ultimately don't incur enough charges to warrant assassination.

There are a lot of areas I was conflicted about, or struggled to answer because I felt the question was wrong.

It's good to have more precise words to use. On negative rights/liberties, I still think it's crucial to recognize that those can only exist if society at large agrees that they do and will enact consequences for people who violate the liberties of others. See any point in history at which any group of people has been persecuted for their beliefs with no consequence for the perpetrators because the majority and/or the authorities agreed that it was okay to do violence against that group of people at the time.

Yeah, I can’t disagree with that.

I'd also argue that safe drinking water, food, medicine, etc. can be considered negative rights in that they should be protected from interference by contamination, false advertisement, price-jacking, and so forth. I'd further argue that I don't see how it can be more important to protect people's liberties of speech and religion than it is to protect people's entitlement to access things that are physically necessary for survival.

Okay then. What things wouldn’t fall under that, then? I don’t believe internet access is essential for survival? Should it be protected thusly?

*Re. chart - Well, just for a partial example, the Paris Agreement is an international "chart" outlining an economic and social plan to limit global warming, which nearly two hundred governments have signed on to (including ours again, since President Biden reversed #45's withdrawal). For another example, I refer you to the conversation you're having with Lily about the Inflation Reduction Act.

See, that's the thing about national governments: it's literally their job to make plans like that and execute them on a national scale. That's why I think they should be the ones to do it. That's what my vote says I'm paying them for, and a democratic government is supposed to work for the people, not the other way around.*

I would also argue that, when possible, it’s best to have a more local government in charge of making local decisions. After all, your vote is relatively more powerful in your state than in the nation as a whole.

—Ls, Neither Mad Nor Angry®️