The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

I’m now ... 25. I’ll also be starting a programming job in a few weeks (which involves moving to Austin).

It definitely feels like I’m starting a new chunk of my life, but I do know I’ll still be around here.

Anyway, enough serious reminiscing, let’s have cake!

. . . which feels weird, because I'm so used to finding forgotten details in archived spin-offs, I never expect anything I've written to contain anything unique!

In my interlude "Because We Like You", I wrote the following in describing the Nursery:

The walls of both the hallways and the social area were plastered with papers. Some were posters, or other official imagery from various canons, but the majority was fanart. Drawings ranged from crayon scribbles to impressively neat sketches and paintings. Fanfiction and poems were in multiple locations, clustered around quietly vibrating wall-mounted devices with soft lights, which Vania assumed to be short-range creativity shields.

I didn't put much thought into the actual mechanics behind them, since Creativity Shielding is such an abstract concept, and because it would have derailed the actual story. I also kept the description intentionally vague, since I didn't want to step on the toes of potential future developments in how the shields were portrayed. Which is the point we've reached, it seems!

So, yeah. If my presentation of the concept is useful to you, Lily, you're welcome to use it, but if not, you're welcome to disregard it and come up with something else. I would be happy to edit that scene of mine to make it match up to whatever develops!

—doctorlit has gone so long without writing, he remembered he had written that scene, but not whether he had published the story yet or not

I added an ETA section now 😅 sry

You might want to specify what you're requesting a beta for--scrolling down I found that it's probably your permission request, but it's handy and good practice to let people know in your post :)

Personally, my plate is kind of full right now (especially since Lily's return has apparently come pretty quickly to mean that we're dusting off stuff we wrote in 2013?? There will be backstory??) but I'm sure you'll be able to find someone!

Best of luck, ~Z

From my perspective, it looks like the existing Creativity Shields are raised more or less by Powers That Be -- authors requesting no fanfic for their verses, or the Flowers That Be in case of HQ's. While the, haha, Will experiment didn't quite work, I imagine installing a Creativity Shield takes an incredible amount of energy. I mean, if it was easy to just pop one up, then all any agent has to do on a mission is to Creativity Shield the fic and call it a day!

So then what could exist out there in the Multiverse that has enough energy to power a portable, non-PTB-fiat Creativity Shield? Would, say, multiple Eyes of Harmonies from different PPC TARDISes do the job? Or a week's output from DoDAEG (which probably wouldn't be a likely offering, given that depowering HQ for a week would be a Bad Idea)? Does a portable Creativity Shield need to work within the rules of the fic's continuum (so does it have to work with the magic system set up in MDZS)? Or does it have to work specifically with the fic being quarantined (do they hook up the overpowered Gary Stu character replacements claiming to be God and Creation in this fic to power the shield)?

Anyway, yes, I've assigned Lori and Bill to DAS-SWEAR as of the last-last mission (since I emailed you the previous Last Mission and then I found the new one for the Last-Last Mission, -deep sigh-). They're still working on de-Glitterification technology as a sort of collab between DAS-SWEAR and the MRD -- ten years of R&D on that has made de-Glitter tech look like death rays now!

Up until now, my beta has been Midnight, but due to technical and real-life reasons, she is often not available or takes long response times. With her permission, I've decided to request a second beta in case she can't respond or to give second opinion in case she can.

ETA for clarification: for permission request and future writings if the request is accepted.

Since, as you say, creativity shields haven't really been deployed in the field before (my memory is that they're mainly used on Fanfic Land, around HQ, and on the works of authors who say no fanfic - honestly I'm not sure there's evidence for a device at all), why not make it highly experimental? Or, possibly even better - why not make them experimental?

The Department of Analytical Science has no doubt been working on trying to invent a functioning portable Creativity Shield since their inception. DAS-DAMP are probably the driving force behind it - they wrote about HQ's version before the department was even formed - but you know they're all trying to make their own version. The chemists think they've found a glitter-opaque gas, the astronomers want to use starsong (they're a mystic and a white hole, they get a bit strange), and even the archaeologists have been digging through records of Conan Doyle and Cervantes to figure out how they did it.

So my... suggestion? Offer? ... is that I lend you as much of DAS as you want to borrow, to bring every version they have into the field and try to set it up. They would (or could) need as much or as little help as you'd wish, depending entirely on what you wanted to write. (You could of course add more DAS agents if you needed them - and perhaps assign Bill and Lori a division? ^_^)

~

The Sunflower Official folded his fronds and gave off a distinct impression of a glower. Another Tangled Webs incident could be disastrous for the modern PPC. We need that Creativity Shield. Do I make myself clear?

The Thistle shifted uncomfortable. Sir, all our prototypes are, well, prototypes! I can't guarantee their stability in the field-

Don't be such a worrywart, the Flowering Leek chided, nudging her co-department-head in the stem. Ow, prickles; you really ought to shave those.

No. What? No. The Thistle turned to offer a pseudo-frown of his own. And I've told you before, science isn't like other disciplines - it doesn't work just because you want it to.

Flowers. The SO leant forward across his desk. I don't want to hear about your problems. I want you to fix them. He paused for a humanoid heartbeat. So go fix.

hS

Can we call that thing the My Immortal of the 2020s now? Also (looks warily at other China-oriented canons)

By which I mean the infamous "Sexy times with Wangxian" (link is incredibly NSFW and NSFB).

My return to the PPC is mostly predicated on wanting to write more interludes and less missions. I have recently finished a mission in the MDZS continuum which I think will be Eledhwen and Christianne's official last mission, and I made a resolution not to write further PPC missions with the exception of STWWX if it comes back. Now it has come back, and I am calling dibs on it.

STWWX is an incredibly long and brain-breaking PWP series where all of the chapters more or less exist within small universes within the larger universe of the fic itself, which I've decided to interpret as the fic trying to create its own continuum. The agents handling this fic (not E and C, as it's Bad Slash and they're functionally retired) will realise that and decide that the safest course of action will be to erect a creativity shield around the fic, to prevent it from damaging MDZS canon as well as the horde of other continua it has dragged in as increasingly implausible crossovers.

Since creativity shields haven't really been depicted in a mission before (at least to my knowledge), I'd like to ask the community at large to help me figure out how to set one up and deploy it. Currently, I'm thinking it would look like one of those barrier spells that would require multiple people at various points of the fic to activate at the exact same time, but if anyone has any better (read: funnier) ideas, please feel free to share.

And, of course, if you would like to volunteer your agents to help set up this creativity shield, please let me know as well and give me whatever information you have on them.

It is so nice to see Ix not jumping at absolutely everything. She still blushes and demurs at anything too much like praise, but she's not aggressively self-deprecating anymore. Thank goodness! ^_^

Biggest laugh: “How do vampires wipe their asses with these talons?” Charlotte, asking the important questions! {X D Yes, I am a mature adult, why do you ask?

Not too sure I buy the accurate prediction of the Sue being a daughter or incarnation or whatever of Zeus? It's not a huge issue, but it threw me for a second. I read it as the agents just joshing about D&D and stuff that Sues pull in other continua up until it turned out to be exactly the case. I think maybe going from D&D to Greek gods in Castlevania doesn't quite track. Not sure what pantheon would make more sense in Castlevania... Roman, maybe? Or they could've stuck with the D&D analogy? And that would put them in the right ballpark without seeming precognitive. Anyway, not a suspension-of-disbelief dealbreaker or anything, just a moment of "oh, really? 'Kay." {= )

I liked the bit at the end with the three mains discussing what had happened. It was refreshing, seeing them act like themselves.

Couple additional typos:

• to mingle with the survivor’s of last night’s attack - survivors

• ‘verse, ‘Sides, ‘cause and other such abbreviations - ’verse, ’Sides, ’cause, etc. (Need an apostrophe, not an opening quote. Nitpicky as it gets, I know.)

Overall, I enjoyed this. Netflix's Castlevania is great, the Sue was really annoying, and the agents were fun to follow along.

~Neshomeh

(Edit: Muphry's Law strikes again. >.> )

Behind the Name pointed me in another direction for the meaning of that element. The postulated proto-Germanic origin of heid is haiduz, and it has several meanings, including "kin" but also including "manner, character, -hood," as BtN suggests. Looking at its Old English descendants suggests the suffix -hād. So, Æþelhād or Æðelhād might be the most Old English version, translated "Nobility" and modernized perhaps to Athelhede. Or, then again, maybe Æþelnes, as Wiktionary says is the Old English word for "Nobility."

... Or just Alice. But any way you slice it, yes, very appropriate indeed!

Anyway, probably not going to pursue the Old English angle for horse names. Rēad + ling would be fine, for example, but I like the Sindarin options better. ^_^

(Just for fun, "Polynikes" translates nicely, too! Poly + nikes = many + victories = lhaew + (tûr + plural) = lhaew + tuir = Lhaewduir or Lhaewthuir. Probably the former, to be less crunchy?)

~Neshomeh

So here is a copy found on Google Images

I'm not even in the SW fandom and thus can't really analyze what's wrong with this piece of fanart, but I just find it funny as heck for some reason 🤣🤣🤣

... they seem to be split between Modern and Old English.

Modern: Shadowfax, Snowmane, Lightfoot, Firefoot

Old: Arod ("quick"), Stybba ("stubby"), Windfola ("wind-foal")

We can add Brego from the movies (OE, but named for a person), and Felaróf from before Eorl rode south. And 'mearas' itself is simply OE 'horses'.

There's some hint that the modern names are actually translations within the Red Book - Tolkien Gateway talks about Snowmane's "proper Rohirric name" being Snawmana, and cites Tolkien's "Guide to the Names...". So a plausible case is that they have Old English names which are routinely 'modernised' by and around outsiders.

Coming back to Alice... I don't know if J&A realised this, but it's actually a perfect name for a mearh. It apparently comes from Adelaide, which means 'noble kind'. Wiktionary is helpful in telling me that her OC "Rohirric" name should be made from cynn ("kin") and either Aethele or Haeleth (noble/hero). Aethelcynn or Cynaethele would work, being modernised as Athelkin or Kinathil.

She's probably best to stick with Alice, is what I'm saying.

hS

And peach blossom jam too. Dunno how they taste like, but damn if they don't look aesthetically pleasing.

If you think I could beta without the knowledge I'd be happy to try, but it's out of my field by a lot.

Both are names for the fruit of either Lycium chinense or L. barbarum. The practitioners in my office recommend them sometimes. (I'm a receptionist in an acupuncture clinic.) I'm sure I've tasted them dried, but the memory doesn't stand out. Just kinda vaguely tart-sweet, I guess? But don't trust my memory here.

I'm not familiar with osmanthus, but I'd try osmanthus tea in a heartbeat if I came across it. Apparently the flowers smell like apricots or ripe peaches. Sounds nice!

~Neshomeh

My horizons have been expanded! More PPC stuff to read!

It was filed very badly, but I found it.

See the picture book. The picture book is good. Be good, picture book, be good.

hS

Thank you so much for reading! I was honestly disappointed by the lack of cool monster fights in the fic, too—the Sue spent so much of her time just aimlessly running around or hanging off of Trevor's arm when she's supposed to be just as great a monster hunter as him. rolls eyes But I'm glad I achieved what I wanted to, using the chance to highlight Ix and Charlotte's relationship now that they've settled into married life.

The arse vs ass was intentional—Ix has been hanging around Americans enough she tends to switch between the two depending on the sentence. (Don't know how other Brits on the Board say it, I'm just basing it off my IRL UK friends whose speech patterns and my own started mixing the longer we knew each other, haha.)

Thanks for the other two, though! Fixed. :)

Knowledge of the canon isn't required, but the canon is Rescue Bots for the most part. The Little Mermaid is touched upon, but most of that canon was thrown out the window (aside from... two things?) The fic in question was the mermaid one we sparked in badfic on Discord (I think you were there?)

TL;DR: Technically Rescue Bots and The Little Mermaid, although the latter is mostly just touched on rather than fully integrated.

-kA

What canon is it? If it's one I know, I might be able to beta.