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"Ah, Ethel the Eagle," Huinesoron monologued, "you're just in time to witness my newest invention, the e-stop-inator!

"You see," he continued, momentarily lapsing into a flashback, "for far too long, all the other mad scientists have been ignoring me when I talk about safety and best practices! They've even laughed my out of the room, saying mad scientists aren't supposed to care about that.

"But that ends today! Once I've turned it on, my e-stop-inator will emit a powerful suggestive field, making all the mad scientists put easy-to-press big red buttons on all their experiments, thus reducing the rate of laboratory accidents in the Greater London Area! Mwahahahahah!"

"Hold on," Ethel asked, cutting off the evil laugh, "how's this supposed to be an evil plan?"

"Oh, I'm not evil, remember?" Huinesoron said. "I'm just mad."

Ethel shrugged. "Fair enough. I don't see anything to heroically thwart here. Carry on, then."

With that, Ethel the Eagle flew away, leaving Huinesoron alone in his mad science lair.

"Wait, come back!" he shouted at the disappearing bird. "You're supposed to audit me!"

(( It's good to know that that joke was even more OOC than I thought it would've been - I didn't know your subfield was safety stuff ))

The first day is upon us!

So! If I remember correctly in between days you can, if you want, put out an interview response for your competitors. Responses seem to vary - sometimes it's how they're feeling about what happened that day, or how they're doing at the moment, or... well, whatever the writer decides, I guess. Also, if you didn't write an interview for your characters before the Games began, feel free to add them alongside any post-start ones! Better late than never, and all that.

(Also, if you find a typo or something? Feel free to say! It's the PPC, after all, and I want this to be legible. Thanks!)

-OrangeFox

Feel I should put a post up, first of all thanking Nesh for this honour (it is an honour, right?), and also Phobos at some point given he was the one who gave me Permission in the first place.

Can confirm that I am in the middle of formulating a reply Sierpinksi and I'll get back to you on your Permission Request soon^TM

Nova Currently a little too excited about being a PG.

I was marveling at how nearly in-character my dialogue sounded until the schoolgirl dress line, and then it became a proper Shipfest fic. Well done! {X D

~Neshomeh

Sierpinski, I am very sorry your first post went unanswered. Most of the technically-still-active PGs are consumed with adulting and/or just burned out. (For instance, I've spent all my free days in the last week literally packing half a friend's apartment for them; my brain is melted cheese right now.)

That's why I've gone old-school and directly selected Novastorme to get a shiny new PG hat. I've noticed in the past that he's been willing to put in his two cents on requests and has had intelligent things to say about them. I've asked him, and he's agreed to take on the role. Therefore, without further ado: Congratulations, Nova! Bear it well.

He will be along to check out this request shortly.

~Neshomeh

How very dare you imply my laboratory would be unsafe?! It would be the safest mad science lair in the world.

hS, former health and safety chemist, now regulatory chemist, basically this has always been what I'm like

My fic for the Dean/Cas Pinefest (Big Bang writing challenge for SPN fandom, yes, I know) is now up!

The Prince and the Guardian, rated E.

Summary: This is his final year of training. His practicum year, so to speak. The Guardians are not officially recognised by the Queen, so it is imperative he keep such affiliations to himself. Nevertheless, Claire is right — he would only be here for a couple of months, practicing his hunting techniques in the Great Forest or wherever else his daytime duties might take him, preparing himself for his first Mid-Autumn Harvest. It would be the initial three-night sojourn in the heart of the Wild that would make or break his initiation as a full-fledged Guardian.

Guardian-in-training Dean Winchester is posted undercover to the Duchy of Edlund, hunting monsters to prepare himself for the initiation. However, as he gets closer to the Duke’s youngest son, Castiel, he can’t help but wonder if there are more dangerous monsters lying closer to his heart.

(A Regency Fantasy AU.)

Please heed the rating and warnings for graphic violence, character death, and BL 2, 3, 4, 9, 11. It's also exceedingly long, so no rush.

The reason I've plugged this here is because this fic's worldbuilding is actually the Western portion of the fantasy world that Agent Liu Siyuan comes from, so it's just... a tiny tiny glimpse of what he has to deal with at home, haha.

"You know," Huinesoron said to the two absolutely dashing women standing around in his mad science lab, "bashing space into submission to get us together for wild raunchy fun is getting boring." His lab was, in true mad scientist fashion, full of machines that went ding and unlabelled glassware full of brightly-colored fuming chemicals. (Of course none of it was in a fume hood - since when did mad scientists care about OSHA?)

"If you're suggesting we try alien sex pollen again," Neshomeh declared. "I'm out. I couldn't walk straight for two whole weeks after that!"

Lilly giggled. "I'm not sure you could ever walk straight after the thing we did with the whipped cream, the industrial fan, and--"

"Not in front of the narrator!" Nesh interrupted. "They're not supposed to hear about that."

Lily sighed. "Ok, fine. It was a good time, though."

"Yeah," Neshomeh smiled. "Yeah, yeah it was."

"Anyway," hS continued, "no, we're not doing that again." He reached over to pull a bedsheet dramatically off a machine that had been standing in the corner. The machine had space for a person to stand inside it surrounded by way too many exposed and arcing wires. Half off the electrical bits didn't do anything, but the aesthetic was important with these sorts of things.

"What's that do?" Nesh asked, eyeing the control panel suspiciously.

"Time travel!" hS announced, almost bouncing up and down. "We're going to the 90s!"

Nesh and Lily groaned. "The 90s sucked the first time," Nesh said.

"No, no," Huinesoron rushed to clarify, "the 1890s!"

"Wait, why then?" Lily asked. Then she remembered important facts about that time period. "So I can walk around in a corset without it being weird?"

"I can wear a frilly schoolgirl dress!" Neshomeh added. "I've always wanted an excuse to get one of those!" She'd pulled her phone out near the end of the sentence so she could buy one of said dresses as soon as possible.

"You've both read my mind," hS said. "I was planning on a fancy suit. And, as a bonus, all those clothes take a while to take off, so we can be very sensual about stripping."

"Oh, yes~" Lily agreed. "I think Neshy and me will have plenty of fun seducing a handsome aristocrat like you."

Neshomeh blushed. "I'm 'Neshy' still?"

"Oh, of course you're Neshy after all we've done to each other," Lily replied.

"Hold on," Nesh said, suddenly realizing a potential problem with the plan. "How do we get back?"

"The machine will pull us back after two days," hS said. "It'll be fine. You trust me, right?"

"Yep!" Nesh said. "Even after the one time with the centrifuge and the really long cucumber."

"So, it's settled, then?" Huinisoron asked. "We're all in to go make a bunch of Victorians faint?"

Neshomeh and Lily nodded enthusiastically, and, some amount of preparation later, the trio went off to have a bangathon that has been reverberating around the timestream to this day.

(( Brought to you by the early PPC stuff going on up the Board and my inability to write endings ))

It seems like Jay and Acacia may have used their "long break" to write a whole string of missions, because we get three pretty much back-to-back here. Having just read #7, we launch straight into:

Protectors of the Plot Continuum: Why Am I Here?, by Jay and Acacia

More when I've reread it, but this mission features the best characters I have ever borrowed.

hS

Because 1/ too tired, 2/ I finished the series with Tediousest Day, and 3/ they were always about writing the ships that had been suggested, which so far is me with Kaitlyn and Scape.

hS

As established in an interlude, Urato is homosexual. As I'm neither gay nor a man, I'm aware my portrayal of him is more likely to contain homophobic implications. If any such things crop up in my writing, feel free to inform me.

There's no need to have been here when it was written - if it was I'd basically be talking to myself and Nesh at this point - so this is great. Another permanent Medical nurse is a really good thing to have in the toolbox.

You're quite right that I'm Planning Something, but I also want this to be a snapshot that anyone can take a look at if they need to reference something from back then. Even if I don't mention Doc Gloc (I don't know that I'll have any need to touch on Medical or the Psych departments), it'll still be there for the future of the past.

hS

Admittedly I wasn't around when the Reorganization was written, but I made a character a year and a half ago I always pictured as being around since the earlier parts of PPC history?

Said character is Dr. Glocktopus, a professional enough Nurse that just happens to be a sapient giant Pacific octopus. I think it was supposed to be a one-off character at first, but I guess it grew on me and now it's in two missions. (It would probably be more, but procrastination's a Thing.) I think I even had an Interlude in the works at some point where some Agents found a box of old, torn-up Black Cat badges it kept as keepsakes or war trophies or something of that likeness.

Dunno if it'll work for what you're planning, but I guess it's available if you needed another Medical worker or something?

-OrangeFox

I believe they get killed in the Reorg? I can give you their 1st/2nd/3rd personalities and regeneration looks over DM.

It's been quite some time since I posted and there's been no response at all. I think my submission just got buried. I've done some minor editing to it but everything seems to check out here. As a note, I probably won't be missioning the fic in the report as my first - it's quite a long one.

This also qualifies as Interlude 0, the first of many planned Interludes.

Obviously Psych must be the department that looks after the agents, but... in the DIS' police state, would you trust the Psych department? There may be nothing to it, but there are guaranteed to be rumours that a bad psych report will get you picked up by the Guards.

Falling out of that, Freedenberg's presence (and reputation, per Nenya, as the one who actually cares about agent wellbeing), and Suzine's recent promotion, I've put down that Nurse Freedenberg has just been demoted as Head Nurse of FicPsych - because he was sneakily seeing agents on the side. Of course there's no proof that the DIS ordered him punished for working around their monitoring setup...

(Thus solving the problem of how Suzine can be Head Nurse without thereby outranking Freedenberg, in the period before he became co-director and took the title of Doctor.)

For Archi, Despatch, Nenya and all the other early spinoffs: I'm trying to avoid just shotgunning the period with everyone who might have been around. I'll pilfer a few if they have a good reason to be there - for example, Joe Bob Brentwood, from DMS: X-Files, who fills a hole for me - but I'm trying to keep it restrained. :)

hS

Good thing I just came up with a name for the DIC agent who was in RC 999 before Nume! Catherine "Kit" Steever is a former redshirt from TOS. Notably, she's an engineering redshirt rather than a security one. Specifically an electrical engineer. She's the one who set up the Trekverse doors and replicator in RC 999.

The backstory Lily and I have hashed out is that she more or less caused a plothole just by existing, since for all the progress TOS made, women in STEM didn't have much of a showing. She chose Action rather than DoSAT because she actually wanted to live a more adventurous life than a job installing and maintaining control panels allowed for. I quote, "You mean they let women go on away missions here? Sign me up!" (I checked: there's all of five confirmed female casualties in the show, only one of whom was a redshirt. Of the others, three were blueshirts and one was a goldshirt who was later brought back to life.)

I don't have a physical description in mind for her, but probably Caucasian. She gets assimilated and killed in the "Tangled Web" fiasco and I don't wanna commit a "bury your minorities." >.>

You can also use Bogglish and Pablum from (current) FicPsych. I have no idea when they joined, or if they started in FicPsych or just Psych, but in 1999 they'd be 26 and 34, respectively. Freedenberg was probably around? Suzine could potentially be somewhere between "new" and "head nurse" at the time (or just "newly head nurse")? There's possibly also Dr. Kinkade, from a mention in one of Oracle's stories in 2003.

I'd consult Architeuthis for a list of agents who were around as of at least the early aughts and possibly earlier. I think Despatch refers to some older agents, too?

If I think of anything else, I'll let you know!

~Neshomeh

This is extremely funny! I think Thalia's point of view is hilarious fun to read in; no need to apologize at all! She really has the manic tone of a classic PPC agent down.

I'm curious to learn more about Fred, too! I wonder how it got there, and who boarded it up? And whether Doom will survive his two roommates?

—doctorlit

I've been working up a snapshot of the PPC in May 1999 (ie, just before the Reorganisation), and I'd like to include any agents that people know were around. I'm not asking for people to start inventing new agents to fill the gaps - gaps are good, they leave space for later writers - but if anyone has any agents that they've written or intended to be in the PPC at this time, please let me know!

I've done a cursory trawl of the Wiki (I literally pulled up any page containing the word "Reorganisation"), so I've got some, but any more would be welcome. I've outlined in the link above how I think the Departments and Divisions line up - take a quick look, because there are some differences! Most DMS agents are in Trek, X-Files, or Buffy; the Fantasy Division is actually full with only two teams! It Were A Different Time, and I'm trying to reflect that.

Also, it's a long shot, but if anyone happens to have a Klingon woman going spare from that timeframe, Morgan has an unnamed one as her partner, so it'd be fun to combine them. (Again, I can always create one if I need her - this is just if she already exists.)

hS

PS: The department numbers are a little loose, but I think they line up with both the statements so far (including, by the Valar, the TOS Untangler "some dozen"!) and the reality of fic numbers at the time. It's not like we're going to hit them anyway, so I'm not worried about precise counts.

This time, things are about to get chaotic as 'guya is temporarily partnered with Urato. Also, yet another score of new minis is racked up.

She set the table, filled two glasses with water, and put two bowls of soup on the table.

They ate without talking much. The soup was good. Claire had made the broth herself instead of buying it.

"I think it tastes better, and besides, if I'm the one making it there won't be any unpronounceable chemicals in it," she said.

After they finished their soup and put away the leftovers, she cut them each a slice of the still warm blueberry pie.

"This is even better than your soup," doctorlit told her.

"Thanks. I used my Nanna's recipe. She can make even better pie, believe me. When my family visits her, that pie only lasts about five minutes."

They finished their pie, and did the dishes. Claire sang old anti-war songs written before she was born as she dried the bowls and put them in the drawer. doctorlit joined in the choruses. After they were done washing, they decided to watch Dead Poets Society. The ending was sad, and Claire failed to pretend that she wasn't crying about it.

"It's not fair, him dying and then those blasted men forcing his friends to sign a letter saying it was the Professor's fault," she said between coughs. doctorlit hugged her.

"Thanks."

They sat there for a while, not saying anything. Claire was starting to fall asleep, but she woke herself up and said:

"I think I'll go to bed. Nice as this is cuddling with you, I'd rather sleep in my own bed than on the couch."

I don't know a lot about the kind of tech wizardry you get up to, but I appreciate it.