The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

but yeah, no, he's gotta go in order for Slughorn to show up :P

Knowing you, it'll be a really great read, because you're really talented.

--Ls

Health issues kicked me in the rear a while ago and really sucked dry my motivation to do much of anything since I'm mostly just laying in bed all day. I'm still slowly poking away at Final Fantasy XIV fanfics and the sequel to my book, and I keep thinking about finishing the My Immortal mission but always stall out because tackling the legendary is a bit intimidating, haha.

I'm still looking in on the Board from time to time. I do miss it here, but I just don't have much to say these days.

My partner has been capital letters Going Through It since January. Turns out he has an autoimmune condition that affects less than one in eleven thousand people in the UK, which was only discovered after spending nearly two months in a medically-induced coma. He also needs a wheelchair for the moment to help with his at-home convalescence. So in terms of writing, I haven't been able to really do all that much. The exception is getting back into the Parahumans series and writing a fic for that, which has somehow acquired over eleven thousand hits on AO3. They can't all be hateclicks, right? Right?

So yeah. It's been pretty goddamn rough here at Scapegrace Towers. But at least I don't have to worry about my life partner possibly dying at any moment. Which is nice. =]

. . . proofreading the second of (many) unpublished novels by our very own RosieAzrael! They said the next one conatins "puppies!"

I also started what I thought was a short story on my phone at lunch one day, which wound up taking multiple months to finish. And since I limit myself to two long reading sources at a time, that means I was doing screen-based reading only for quite a while there. But fortunately, I finished off the phone story while shaving Tuesday night, and I happily get to put a paper book back into rotation at last! Hooray!

—doctorlit, reading

Though lately I've been doing more prep work on the next story arcs rather than actual writing, also due to the fact that I'm in a bit of complicated phase of my life (Nothing to worry about thought!)

I've been doing a lot of cooking for my folks, and that has been going very well. I have grand plans of trying to make pho sometime this week. I'm done with school for the summer, so now I have time to sit around and read books and work on all my projects. I read A Game of Thrones by G. R. R. Martin for the first time this week and now I am debating whether to read the next one. I am very annoyed with the Lannisters, I wish Eddard hadn't been executed because he was a really decent guy, and I hope Arya doesn't get discovered. I could give you a whole rant on that. It was interesting and I liked it, but I will say that my first love will always be for Tolkien.

In other news, I got myself a mandolin and I've been figuring it out for a few weeks. I love it and I've been practicing a lot, but this is a bit of a problem because I have not been practicing my violin so much.

Purely PPC-wise, trying to finish up a standard 'old shame' mission abandoned/started in 2022, another CYOA co-write with Lin, and an Interlude concerning Makes-Things, gumiho, and childhood fears. And, if I can finish some of my other projects, a 'mission' bordering the worldbuilding angle, with jurisdiction issues and the impact of imagination and creativity as a threat to the multiverse, and also of short-lived universes and even fics crafted by dreams.

In non-PPC works, I'm been chipping away at some longer-form stories I've wanted to finish for half a year now. Struggling a bit with that old classic 'wow, old me wrote so much better' feeling, but trying to push through regardless. (It's probably just because my 'good writing' comes in spontaneous bursts impossible for me to plan out, so I get the feeling I can't write well when I basically do on accident.) I think I have... what, 50,000 words worth of original fiction by now? A decent amount considering my usual rates, haha. It's just healthcare golems and wizards being launched into space, low-stake stuff.

It’s taking a while. And it shall continue to take a while (namely another two months) because I’ll be at camp.

Specifically, my riff of Wild At Heart, a stereotypical Suefic on Wattpad with glimmers of potential. The last three segments are still scheduled and should be put by the end of June. Feel free to go back and comment on previous riffs!

--Ls

I love omelets, and I love seaweed. Shame no one else in my family likes it, for some reason.

Um, the only favorite food I remember establishing was that Mina liked dreamsicles, which I would rather buy than make.

--Ls

which of course I can't start on yet because Demonly Kings is still ongoing.

The Board's been very quiet and I wanna change that. So, what have you been doing or making that you can't show off yet because it isn't finished?

With only 3 ingredients: eggs, grated mozzarella & dried seaweed. It was nice.

Have you tried making your agents' favorite foods?

Oh boy, the relationship between Harry and Qiu was even less healthy than I realized! I don’t blame them too much, mind you, they’re both traumatized just from growing up in this freaky culture, let alone piling the Cedric situation on top of that. But yeah, this chapter was a bit of a slog for me, not because of your writing in any way, just . . . I don’t care about all this teen romance drama. Don’t get me wrong, I loved, “Harry hadn’t been paying that much attention to Draco’s growing list of admirers, but: [enumerated list],” as well as Crookshanks sensing that Harry is deceiving himself and trying to correct his direction towards Draco, excellent use of Kneazle instinct! And you’re really writing Harry at his peak, core essence here, what with immediately abandoning his own conviction against courtship practices to save Qiu from bullying, and then immediately abandoning his date with Qiu to save Draco from drowning. (He couldn’t have known how shallow the lake was before he got into it!) But overall, wow, let’s get back to toppling fascistic authoritarians, my eyes are ready for it!

Oh man, “THE FALL OF AVALON BEGAN WITH A SELFISH HIGH QUEEN”. Oh man, I so rarely think about the whole Guinevere/Lancelot affair because again, don’t care about romance drama. If Guinevere and Lancelot and Arthur are all doing right by the kingdom and protecting their citizens, I don’t particularly care what level and frequency of bed-sharing is going on in the castle. But I can see how, in the extremely healthy culture that is New Avalon, Guinevere would be turned into a symbol of adultery, similar to how the names of Jezebel and Delilah from the Bible are still used to similar purpose in the real world. But it’s so gross! Even if she was real in this universe, it was over a millennium ago! And her name is still being used to shame and control women! The leader of the Jewel Riders deserves more respect! (Jeeze, I remember those characters looking so much older in the early 90s . . .)

One scene you did especially well was the Legilimency lesson. All the various memories being described so quickly gave that sequence a dreamlike vibe that really added to the feeling that Harry was being dragged along through his own memories, just really perfect pacing and description throughout

My face when the narrative gives Harry’s pronunciation of Madam Yue’s name, and implies it’s wrong, and I was reading it as exactly the same as Harry pronounces it . . .

Man, the second I saw Marietta’s face covered, I knew it was coming . . . Anyway, the political debate at the end was a very welcome breather from the teen romance stuff! Gaunt is being nasty up there. As much as Silverstream’s plan to revitalize Knockturn Alley is blatant gentrification, it’s sure a nicer outlook than Gaunt’s “let rich people do what they want and everybody else can bite me lol.” Honestly, my estimation of Silverstream has gone up a bit, just seeing how she’s willing to stand up for herself against Gaunt and call him on his own points. I know Regulus is still the best option, and he’s still giving the best responses up on that stage, but my hope for him winning is gone. But the society will certainly be able to survive Clinton Biden Silverstream getting elected. (In before she gets Imperiused and forced to drop out, just like Thicknesse probably was.) Anyway, I see we’re rolling towards the final confrontation against Umbridge, and I am quite ready for it! (Boy, this year feels so different without the Department of Mysteries plot!)

Oh boy, I don’t know if I’ll do very well at guessing the Lady Polixenes stories, but I’ll give it a shot:
-“creative couple, families in conversation, namesake, golden bangle. . .” Yeah, I’ve literally got nothing.
-“two young men” with all the song titles, that one’s obviously Dean and Seamus
-the “gemstone mine” situation, nope, don’t know these people, way too many background characters in this series . . .
-the “plant-loving heir” and “new bloods” are obviously Neville and the Creeveys, not sure who Colin is trying date, though it’s obviously the girl who walked in on Luna in the bathroom.
-And the last story, of course, is Harry, Draco and Qiu, no bonus points for me on that one!

—doctorlit notes that Hermione ♪wrote her way out♪ in a way that hurt her loved ones and turned them against her, in a way reminiscent of a certain U.S. Secretary of the Treasury . . .

I mean, yeah, I didn't really talk about the fact that Hermione has absolutely hurt her friends and some other classmates, and is very much overlooking their immediate feelings in favor of the bigger picture, but I'm also a big picture, long time scale kind of guy. I spend more mental energy on hoping for a healthier planet and more supportive human civilizations 200 years down the line than I do my own personal finances and whatnot. And, of course, I'm not really in a position to thwart any teen romances or get anyone shunned from society based on their family tree, so those elements of what Hermione is dealing with right now are rather outside my frame of reference to feel sympathy for. (Also, I have the reader's privilege of assuming you don't have an endgame of "the four break up forever and never speak again" in mind, so that element of Hermione's mistake feels lower stakes as a result.) tldr I recognize that Hermione has done a lot of bad today, but her goals are understandable and I applaud her for what she was intending!

No Jacques for a whole year? : (

—doctorlit never shuns people for their family trees, only for their literal trees

--because some of the commenters have been Mad at her! (And Harry in the next chapter, too.) I think a part of it is because they like Draco and therefore anyone who hurts Draco is immediately on their s*** list.

The Lord Slytherin Scandal did expose Gaunt as the leader of the Knights, but Gaunt has been taking a sledgehammer to the truth there with the "lying Longbottoms" conspiracy, and as we're unfortunately seeing irl with the Dumptruck's supporters, there is no lie people aren't willing to swallow if it gives them the chance to destroy their opponents, and wizard supremacy even in the books is taken as a given even by well-meaning characters like the Weasleys and Dumbledore (their view of Muggles is highly paternalistic--there's rarely anything about engaging with Muggles as people, it's more about protecting them haha they're so silly we can just mind-wipe them and tell them whatever we want), and in Purityworld it's probably even more prevalent and baked into the society and some people are still mad about the Muggleborns being initiated in 1950!

Yeah, Jacques has been fun, and there will be more for him to do in the final year!

The Hallows are considered heirlooms of the Hallowed and Most Olde House of Peverell in Purityworld, and High Lord Peverell is the one who unites all three of them and becomes "master of Chaos". That's the lore Grindelwald is using in his rise to power, but he only ever got one out of three Hallows, and it poisoned the whole concept in Europe. Like how certain religious symbols have been poisoned because of the dictators they're now associated with....

Thanks for catching the mini!!

Harry turns to Qiu Zhang for solace in the wake of Hermione's exposé of Regulus Black. However, one thing leads to another...

Warning for allusions to consensual underage sex (Harry is 15, and only a couple months away from 16, which is the age of consent for m/f intercourse in the UK + Bonding age in Purityworld), and emotional infidelity (which was in the tags, but it seems like it does bear repeating).

Man, I’m feeling so much solidarity with this version of Hermione right now! That paragraph about Hogwarts feeling “so small, so petty,” when measured up against all the problems in her world . . . there’s so much to fix, yet we’re asked to keep clocking in and out, and paying our bills, and buying our groceries, because forcing us to fixate on the everyday keeps us from looking at the big picture and trying to change anything. We’re all so stuck repeating our actions on the assembly line, that no one has time to go looking for the off switch . . . And then, when Hermione thinks she finds the off switch, it brings down the whole factory instead of letting anyone rest! She wanted so hard to try to make things better, and instead Gaunt is seizing the moment to demolish his strongest opponent, leaving only the hope that Clinton Biden Silverstream can manage to pull ahead in the end so they don’t get stuck with the worst option, even though Silverstream herself was never the best option. (Having the privilege of the reader’s eye, I forget sometimes that most of this culture doesn’t realize Gaunt is the leader of the Knights, so it was a bit mind-blowing to see Gaunt blaming Dumbledore for that!) It’s so frustrating, and I feel so bad for Hermione just wanting change, and coming up against the bad actors in her culture who are desperate to stall and halt change as long as possible. The end to this chapter is crushing . . . All the same, it’s given me a thrill to see Hermione drift from Lawful Good to Neutral Good this year; at least Umbridge is teaching some of the students that not all laws are legitimate!

I hate to have Jacques lose his role in the story; he’s been a delight whenever he appeared so far. But I am glad he and Liu were finally able to be open about the three-way Bond! Even if, as Umbridge said, the “extra” Bonds aren’t recognized on paper, at least people will realize there isn’t any sneaking behind each other’s backs going on.

That scene with Victor Krum was interesting. We know the “Peverell crest/Mark of Grindelwald” is a representation of the Deathly Hallows, but since the Hallows seem to have a lot less cultural significance in this timeline, it makes sense that people would associate it more with Grindelwald himself than with the original legend and items. And in light of that, even knowing that Xenophilius wears it as a symbol of the Hallows, it does feel insensitive for him to wear it in public . . . I can understand Krum getting angry about that!

Some minor points I enjoyed today:
-“Thank the hearth” is an excellent invention for a house-elf saying!
-Dobby just can’t get away from thrown daggers, can he?
-As much as I dislike Astoria, her mustering up the power to fire off that Stunning Spell, and she and Luna dancing in celebration afterwards, was pretty darn cute!

One mini-Aragog:
“Hermione could feel Ron tensing beside her, probably because of the mention of the Drumstrang headmaster.”
Perhaps the Free Elves’ Orchestra could use a drummer? And eight-legged drummer?

—doctorlit, waiting for change . . .

I should chuck my agents on a vacation to one of my ??? gacha stories that never ended up getting put to screenshots

Yeah, the adults circling the wagons was definitely not the way to rein her in! I think they assumed she could be reasoned with but then dogpiled her instead and made her double down. Sometimes grown-ups really forget to listen and take teenagers/young adults seriously!

That being said, whoops! She's definitely messed things up! Callouts/exposes aren't inherently a bad thing, but one has to be fully cognisant of all the risks involved, especially when there's the possibility of a strongman getting elected as one of the consequences. And I think it goes to show that Hermione, even with her cleverness, can still get blindsided, especially when it's about how people might react to her actions.

Yes, hold the thought on what the grown-ups are trying to do with Silveryholt... :3c

Yeah you were right the first time! I also don't know how you derailed yourself, haha, it wasn't really that much of a mystery! But I guess the herrings distracted you >:D

You can thank Nesh for writing Jenni's lines there. I mean, what is the point of having a therapist infiltrate Purityworld if not to give some HP characters some much-needed therapy lolol

Hermione continues to deal with the fallout from her exposé.

Warnings for BL9 burn injuries (Ashwinder explosion), BL10(?) implied creepiness from Lord Nott about his much younger wife and his house elf, implied police brutality (the Ministry put-down of the house-elf strikes), stabbing injuries. Also a bit of internalised anti-Muggle/Muggleborn bigotry (stemming from radicalisation in the wake of a violent terrorist attack) in the last DA meeting, where one of the Creeveys calls Hermione the m-word. And, of course, Hermione's continuing C-PTSD.

Also feel free to vote in her AITA poll here (most likely requires a Tumblr account, sorry)!

I never added it to the vacation page so I went ahead and did that. (I think I might have just overlooked the story collection on that page entirely until now!)

Might be fun to drop Charlie and Jiwon into Harry is a Dragon again, but without the pending demands to kill everyone there hovering over their heads this time...