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Hey, this is a nice little story! We've seen new recruits apply from posters and signs before, but this version with an actual person handing out applications is unique! I love the intro package getting shipped out (the "department shirt" is hilarious, considering it should just be a black shirt!), and I shudder to think how much postage Jasper needed to send mail between universes. And hey, a new door into HQ! Difficult to say where it is, though. The only geographical hints about where Jasper lives in World One are the heat, and a Pet World store being within commuting distance. Looks like Pet Worlds are scattered about a fairly random set of United States; the most likely candidate is Florida, but Kansas, Colorado and Virginia can get pretty warm in the summers, too.

Does anyone have a clue what this sentence means?
"'Experience with alarms?' Well, she could win mechanical splatter contests with her pitching."
Because I . . . cannot parse any meaning from this whatsoever?!

—doctorlit, very definitely not a robot. Do you have any questions?

Snippets from when both agents of RC 381 were in high school. The last two snippets are not in chronological order.

But since you (probably) understood what I meant to convey, I don’t really see the point in correcting it.

Separate note to self: Be very careful with Cute Animal Friends when doctorlit's involved.

When you mentioned Atticus Finch, I wondered if there was To Kill a Mockingbird fanfic. Because in my mind, that is a continuum that should never have any fics in it. At all.

Sigh. Google, you've confirmed my fears.

(edited to maintain title consistency)

Ah, what a lovely palate cleanser after "Daughter of Darkness!" This is a very PPC spin-off, and I quite enjoyed reading it. peeps ahead Only two missions? Blast. Wish AnyAmy had written more! I think the joke rooms/hallways she makes about HQ in her opening paragraph are some of the best I've seen anywhere, and I need to try to live up to that standard from now on. Although, I'm not sure why HQ would have a mini-Balrog training room? That's very much OFUM's responsibility. Unless it's maybe an early incarnation of the Mini Adoption Center? It's kind of great that this story's depiction of the cafeteria fits into the timeline of the PPC's downward slide from financial security following the Reorganisation. There's still some good food in the Cafeteria now, but you can only get the good stuff through a lottery. (Although I suspect the agents who "win" the pudding will be hungry a lot sooner than the "losers" who got the asparagus!) During the assassination, I love Ela supplying her own surname and shrugging off its pronunciation, as well as Aragorn getting so disgusted by Ela tampering with Arwen's family tree that he straight-up abandons Ela, even while ostensibly still under her influence. I really love the charge about the horse's hoofbeats. It would be so easy to just say something like, "making a horse's feet unnaturally loud," but AnyAmy looked at it from a more physics-based perspective and made it more of a reality-warping point about tampering with atmospheric conditions. Clever!

There are some choices that confuse me, though. That pronoun joke has aged poorly, and . . . what's this about Legolas sleeping with a lot of women? I can't find anything about that on Tolkien Gateway, and it sure doesn't sound like something Tolkien would have written about his elves. And what on earth is Downstairs? Retroactively, it feels like a reference to the DIA, maybe as a co-opted holdover from the DIS's time, but of course, neither of those concepts has been introduced yet at publication time. And you can guess what I'm going to whine about next: they kill the horse, but take the wolves with them? Just a weird, weird decision. The way the horse gets described is maybe meant to signal to the reader that AnyAmy was interpreting it as a Suvian horse, but I still feel like leaving it in Rohan with Ela dead would have been fine for canon. The Rohirrim take real good care of their horses, so an unusually healthy one wouldn't have stood out too dramatically. The fact that this is meant to tie in with the OS's impending flame-based barbecue does give it a little pay-off, but. Still feels weird. I also would have assumed the wolves could assimilate fine, but it turns out Middle-earth is weirdly short on non-demonic wolves, according to Gateway? Middle-earth does have a white wolf that seems to be an analogue of Earth's Arctic wolves, but nothing like Earth's more common brown or grey wolves. The mission doesn't describe Ela's wolves, so maybe they were stated to be brown/grey in the original fic and they couldn't assimilate. Still don't know what Amy and Brent are going to do with wolves in their bathroom now, though. (Oh, hey, look! The first private bathrooms we've seen, I think? Maybe that's where the food budget disappeared to after Reorg?) I won't timeslide ahead, but I am VERY curious. I hope we can justify saying they end up in roman's pack in the modern day!?

Brent is . . . different. I got very bad vibes off him at the beginning of the story, but he did seem to mellow out further on. He's almost got an Atticus Finch vibe to him: stern and unquestionably an authority, but still pretty compassionate and thoughtful when it matters. Brent just needs to learn a bit of patience from Mr. Finch! Oh, and I think this is the first agent team we've had where both agents are veteran? (Other than Jay and Acacia, of course.) Brent does feel more experienced, but it's clear from Amy's comments about HQ that she's been living there a decent while.

—doctorlit feels bad he isn't catching up faster, but it's 30 minutes past bedtime, and 4:30 am will be here all too soon

(As a gesture of affection, of course.)

And we still have a yellow-headed Amazon parrot that repeats that noise to this day!

—doctorlit makes that bird's husband jealous whenever he rakes their yard

This sounds very fun.

Mediaeval/fantasy stuff plus PPC sounds like a wonderful nerdy combination. I found it while I was looking through random pages on the wiki. Then I read through some of the Cyclopaedia. I am now beginning to think about a story for a Plort!me and I have a rather specific question. Would it make sense to be an ex-Marizu on account of my Quotev account which has some badfic in it? I just sort of stumbled into Quotev from some other corner of the internet, read too many Legolas/OC fanfics, and proceeded to write some bad fanfic of my own. I eventually stopped and found my way onto the PPC wiki and then to the Board. I've written some original fics here and there as well as some (hopefully better) fanfic.

I agree with your assessment on the fic's quality.

I'd want to forget that too.

That one's my favorite.

For all the details the mission failed to focus on, the detail on the bird scene is kind of weird. Like, I'm not even saying it shouldn't have been included, just . . . there are ways to make violence funny, and this wasn't it.

Just to quickly modify the scene a little:

It was cold. The ground was hard. And to make matters worse, it rained. Kage and Sakira didn't manage to get much sleep, and just as they were about to get some semblance of rest.....

"TWEET! TWEETY TWEET TWEET TWEEEEEET . . ."

Sakira groaned and fumbled for her bow and quiver. Without opening her eyes, she notched an arrow and loosed it vaguely in the direction of the bird call. The arrow went thunk, and a moment later, the bird stopped calling.

"Mmmm." Kage stirred, but was starting to get worn down from exhaustion. "Nice shot, Sakira."

"Thanks." Sakira paused, then said, "I mean, don't think I actually hit it, but at least I got it to—"

"TWEET! TWEETY TWEET TWEET TWEET!"

"KUH-KA! KUH-KA! KUH-KA!"

"FWEE-URRRRRRRRR! FWEE-URRRRRRRRR!"

"DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW!"

"GRGRGRGRGRGR WHOOOOOOAAAAAAA!"

"BLAH! BLAH! BLAH! BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH! BLAH!"

"PLONK PLONK PLONK PLONK!"

Sakira finished lamely, "—pipe down."

The rain grew stronger.

—doctorlit owns the copyright on "FWEE-URRRRRRRRR!" All the rest are public domain. Actually, "plonk" is the noise the dodos make in Thursday Next, but the rest are public domain.

Therwin actually isn't new; he appeared in a story I wrote during PoorCynic's blind beta workshop, five year ago. (Major language warning therein!) And I always planned him to still be in the DMFF (he's maybe a lot older than I intended now, but no harm done there!), but I haven't gotten around to starting that spin-off . . . someone else will have to handle the CAFs! I still don't recall how I came up with that name, gosh . . .

I do see your points about the story's positives; they just get covered up a little too much. I think the agents really needed more presence as persons, rather than just as riffers. Also, what does "DEM" stand for?

—doctorlit, with characters more obscure and buried than Sakira and Kage are

I had pretty mixed feelings about this spinoff, but the ficlet thing you wrote was really nice! The bird scene bugged me a lot as well.

Er. I don't know what else to say, to be honest, just felt like saying I enjoyed it.

I don't look at quotev anymore because I got annoyed with it.

and because my own badfic is up there, which is something I want to forget about

I love this. Therwin is a fine name. Does he take over for Agent Kai at the Cute Animal Friends Adoption Agency? {= D

If the Medical Department can't help the velociraptors, maybe DAVD(m) can? They are technically canon characters...

Thank you for redressing these crimes against wildlife and also spelling. "Tetrodoxin," argh. Maybe it just morphs into Ye Olde Poisonous Poison?

---

Changing gears, I will say this for Sakira and Kage: the story is self-aware enough that their bickering and dumbassery is treated as such, and does get them into difficulty. They forget sleeping bags and have a terrible night's sleep on the cold ground; they don't properly plan out the Sue's disposal and have to run from irate Fellowship members who want to kill them, only escaping through the intervention of the non-Sued canon characters and immediately winding up in another situation where they could have died if they hadn't had a distraction for the 'raptors. Their luck is explained well enough that it doesn't feel DEM-ish.

It's also nice to see explicit non-white representation early in the PPC's history, though it's rather "blink and you'll miss it" with all the Japanese obscuring the agents' actual ethnicities (Kage is Korean and Sakira is Filipino). Because of that, it feels a bit tacked on, but I'mma give them the benefit of the doubt that the writers actually shared those ethnicities. It's not like only Westerners can be Japanese-media fangirls, right? Not if our own K. n. Shirayuki is any indication. ^_~

I DON'T approve of how they ripped off Jay's little moment with Legolas from "Rambling Band." And instead of Jay's compassion ("It's all right. We're here to fix it."), we get Kage raging so hard that Sakira has to tie her to a tree to stop her from murdering Melody on the spot. Ugh.

I think the spin-off could have gotten good if it had continued with some solid concrit on board. But it didn't.

~Neshomeh

I just pilfered quite a few concepts from her along the way, is all.

hS

I enjoyed that very much.

Okay, I'm really going to push to get caught up on reviewing these today! . . . Although, it's already noon, and I need to get groceries, and I'd better take a nap before my work week starts tomorrow . . .

Boy oh boy, do I have things to say about this one. (I did not read any reactions to this chapter from before the time slide, so I may be making redundant observations here.) Let me first quote this line:
"'I hate amateurs! I REALLY hate incompetent morons. AND I HATE INCOMPETENT AMATEUR MORONS MOST OF ALL!!!!!'"
Alas, this mission is written both incompetently and amateurishly. Both of which are forgivable, especially considering the authors were probably teens at time of writing, but the hypocrisy is a lot grosser. This whole story is riddled with typos, many of which would make for rather amusing imagery in a badfic being missioned. (Especially annoying to me are "Mydraal," which would be a Wheel of Time mini of "Myrddraal;" and "tetrodoxin," which should be "tetrodotoxin." What is with these early PPC Boarders misrepresenting marine life!?!?) The agents have nearly indistinguishable personalities, and they're introduced with physical description dumps of the sort we often charge for. Despite doing missions in the Tolkien fandom, the authors/agents misidentify "Morwen" as being stolen from another canon's character, rather than recognizing it as Elvish for "dark maiden," which is clearly what the original author was going for. (I only know that thanks to the current most recent review on the mission; thanks, Narwen!) Between all of this and the overt aggression towards fanfic, there's no question that this story must look terrible to any non-PPCer reading it.

Okay, I do have some compliments to give. At least it has a bit of intertextuality, mentioning the report as having come from Architeuthis. I like the doorhanger mentioned at the end, and suspect such hangers are common throughout HQ. I also appreciate Gandalf calmly smoking his pipe while the assassination is about to go down, and that he and Gimli are largely unaffected. (Though even then, I don't see how Gimli can manage to trip multiple others of the Fellowship when he's among their slower members, and Gandalf's barrier spell feels a little Dungeons & Dragons to me.) Also, the following passage is legitimately excellent:
"She paused as she felt a familiar tingle going through her body. The land welcomed her, it knew she was there to help. Thus it hid her from its denizens and protected her as best as it could. It was humbling, to feel the gratitude of a land as ancient as this one."
Just beautiful; I love that. Also, I don't know if this was intentional or not, but I love the double meaning in the second clause here:
"The land could hide them from the natives, but the Mary Sues were another story."
Get it? Mary Sues are literally another story from their surroundings! On the other hand, we have this passage:
"The two assassins wandered around Rivendell, taking in the beauty of the Last Homely House. It was breathtaking, and Kage never grew tired of it."
What a weak, tell-don't-show imitation of Jay and Acacia's tendency to go sight-seeing on missions.

Ultimately, the badfic itself would have made for a much better mission in more competent mission-writers' hands. The Boarders missed an opportunity to riff on the fact that Melody, of merfolk descent, is almost definitely plagiarizing one of those "beloved" direct-to-DVD Disney sequels, Cinderella 4: Simba's Pride, I think? Which released two years before this mission was published, so the original fic probably published within that time. And hey, the fic's author gets kudos for getting a most excellent song stuck in my head today, even if their story predated it by roughly 15 years!

What's that? You're surprised I, the local zookeeper, didn't comment on literally killing a bird for its song, back where I was listing the mission's problems? That is because, I have done far more than comment . . .

---

Sakira stamped her feet on the way to the RC door, growling. She flung it open and demanded, "Who's there? I was watching anime!"

Outside stood a young, slightly tanned man in cargo shorts, holding a bird speckled with brown on one arm, while his other fiddled with his universal translator. He wore no PPC black; instead, his clothing was all khaki.

Oh, thought Sakira, when she saw his flashpatch. One of those DMFF agents. "What do you want? We aren't interesting in buying birds, or whatever other dirty animals you weirdos deal with."

"This is the RC of Sakira and Kage, right?" asked the man, with a slight professional lilt to his voice, as though he were talking down an angry customer. "Your RC didn't have a number printed on it, but the—"

"Yeah," interrupted Sakira. "Almost like we don't want unexpected visitors or something, especially not from other departments. You and your bird can take a hike, buddy," She started to close the door.

While she had been talking however, the DMFF agent had given the bird a questioning glance, and the bird had responded with a slight bow forwards. Now, the man stopped the door from closing by shoving his well-worn brown boot in the way. "Uh, sorry, but no." The customer service was gone from his voice. "I'm agent Therwin, of Misplaced Fauna. The Waterlily Commander sent me—"

"We don't answer to any Lily." This time, it was Kage who interrupted, stepping into view behind Sakira. "We're DMS, so if you're done interrupting our precious free time, we'd like to get back to—"

"Here's a fun trick," said Therwin, his voice and face suddenly hard. "Grab your universal translators, and set them to 'Throsel-tunge.' I'll just stand here and wait while you do so." He kept his foot in the doorway, and stared. The bird on his arm started calling out, "TWEETY TWEETY TWEET TWEET"

Sakira stared and him and glared, growling. The man just stared back. She huffed and started clicking around her UT, looking for the obscure language, and Kage followed suit. "Fine," Sakira grumbled, "but can you at least shut that bird up? It's so annoying, it sounds just like one I—Ooooh. Oooooh no."

As she arrived at the correct language, the bird's TWEETY TWEETs had abruptly started sounding like English words: ". . . didn't meant to disturb your slumber, but really, to simply fire an arrow without even asking me to stop first . . . I always thought better of the race of Men! Really!"

Therwin said something, which came out garbled to the assassins while their UTs were still set to Thrush. They clicked them back, and he started over again. "What do you know? A sapient animal in a fantasy series! Who would have thought?" He tilted his head, eyebrows raised high and mouth drawn down in a scowl. "I mean, I would have thought a pair of agents in the Tolkien Division would have thought of it before indiscriminately firing on wildlife, but apparently not. Did you even attempt to read the books?"

Kage sputtered, while Sakira sneered and said, "Uh, excuse me? Like, first of all, I had no way of knowing that bird was a magic talking bird, I was trying to sleep and it was being noisy! Second, you're telling me we can't hunt wildlife if we're stuck on a mission running out of food? There have to be hundreds of birds in Middle-earth, you're telling me killing one is some big deal? Bullcrap."

"Well, Sakira, believe me: I know bullcrap. Quite familiar with the smell, actually." Therwin gave a wide humorless grin. "But let's just consult the bullcrap detector, shall we?" He pulled a CAD from one of the big pockets on his shorts, aimed it at the thrush, and then offered it to Sakira to read.

Sakira crossed her arms and scowled. Kage's curiosity got the better of her, and she reached for it over Sakira's shoulder. She read aloud, "Ancient magical thrush. Tolkienverse canon species. 0% out of character. Critically . . ." Her eyes bugged out, and she raised her head to look from the thrush to Therwin and back. "Critically endangered?"

"They're critically endangered by the end of The Hobbit," Therwin said. "We don't even have numbers data during Fellowship."

Sakira snorted air out her nose. "Well. So?"

Therwin put a hand to his face and stroked his chin in mock dramatic fashion. "Well, so don't shoot things for no reason. Part of restoring canon means not removing things that belong! Make sure to scan wildlife—and flora, for that matter—with your CAD, before messing with them. I know they don't have the same functions as the DMFF models, but it should still at least tell you when you're looking at something other than common wildlife."

"Fine, whatever. Are we done here?" Sakira made to close the door once again.

"Yeah, we're—wait." He put a hand to his ear, listening. Sakira held the door half-closed, practically vibrating with impatience. Therwin narrowed his eyes at the assassins. "Did you feed meat tainted with tetrodotoxin to multiple Velociraptor?"

"No, actually!" Kage said, looking confused. "We've only ever used tetrodoxin."

There was a beat.

"Kage, double-check the label on our tetrodoxin."

"On it." Kage disappeared behind the door. After a moment, she said, "Well, crap."

Therwin grimaced. "Ladies, boot up your console for a portal south of Rivendell. We have a thrush to neuralyze. After that, we're going to Jurassic Park so you can help me lug some dinosaurs to Medical."

---

I had to. I'm not sorry. Well, I'm sorry for making another defunct variety of CAD, but you have to admit, it makes sense the DMFF would need slightly different info from theirs. I know there isn't enough to go on in the bird scene in the mission to definitively say the bird was a thrush, but it isn't too unreasonable, and it made for a good narrative(?) The Veterinary Ward didn't exist yet in 2002, so hopefully something was figured out for those dinosaurs? Also, wow, Therwin. I need to come up with a better name than that . . .

—doctorlit no longer feels like he's going to make much progress today; it is nearly 2:00 as he finishes this