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I only read August 25, 1997, but wow. You have such a talent for description. I really enjoyed reading that, and I thought it was a really cool concept.

--Ls

I'm glad you liked it - I remember I went back and toned down the disguise war a bit, because the first draft got quite mean-spirited at times. If you liked it, that means I got the balance right.

hS

Though I feel like you may have averaged more skin than my equivalent three pictures... not sure, though.

I can neither confirm nor deny the occurrence of "action" in the later parts of these missions (if you can even call them "missions" when not one of them was actually completed). Well, no, I can deny something - Envinyata: Wedded Bliss, strongly implies that their "elvish wedding" took place in May 2006, immediately after Dafydd proposed. But as Dafydd says somewhere in the Black Reports, a 21st century relationship is a long way from Elvish norms, so who knows what he would have thought it acceptable to get up to?

(Heck, technically an Elvish wedding consists of "action" and an exchange of vows. If Constance views Dafydd's proposal as that exchange, that would explain her comments in "Wedded Bliss" while saying nothing at all about their prior relationship.)

You asked why I used real badfics. Partly because I don't really like using fake ones - it feels like cheating, plus I always wind up making them into obvious parodies (Dafydd came from one with a character called, like, "Marianna Suzeanna"). And partly because it was fun to dig through the FFn archives and find fics which were written early enough to use. I did the same thing for (some of) Apples and Oranges, which I really ought to get back to someday; and I have a lingering desire to write a 1992 (Lofty Skies-era) spinoff using stories from the various zine archives.

hS

There were a few reasons behind that decision:

1. I've decided - and I think canonised somewhere in the Black Reports - that Dafydd learnt modern English through children's entertainment. He started with Dr Seuss, and then picked up Disney. So he actually knows the canon, which he doesn't for most other things.

2. The Black Reports grew out of a collection of similar, shorter tickets in a broader range of canons. I think it was an early version of the Aladdin one, then Labyrinth, LotR, and... might have been a version of the Peter Pan one? When I decided to make a themed collection, I stuck with what I'd already started.

3. I drew the Aladdin picture before I decided to write the Black Reports, so I wanted to keep it in.

4. They're canons I either knew or could easily look up. Having faced difficulty with things like The Parent Trap or Skulduggery Pleasant in the past, I appreciated the ease.

5. It was funny. ^_^

hS

Pffft. Of course the censorship committee only removed books that were already restricted from student access without special permission. It’s almost as though Hogwarts was already being responsible with the literature, and didn’t need totalitarian oversight or something!

Oh hey, Aberforth gets an early appearance! Along with the most wholesome of all Potterverse characters, goat. Hi, goat!

Ah, the duality of man teenage brothers. Ron hears about Ginny and Michael Corner and immediately seeks out direct confrontation. But Fred and Goerge already had the problem taken care of, in a much more subtle and less violent manner. “The flu, you say?” I love it.

I’ve been seeing the “trans female Luna Lovegood” tag for a while now, so I don’t have much reaction to the reveal. Poor little year one Luna must have been so embarrassed to have her deadname read out in front of the whole school; the fact that Astoria was one of the only students to support her goes a long way towards explaining why Luna remains defensive of Astoria now. Oh, and I love that Harry seizes on the first opportunity he’s seen to try to stop Luna’s stuff from getting moved around to torment her. I hope Qiu follows up on that . . . (had similar treatment when I was in grade school, I do not recommend for a young person’s psychological health . . .)

—doctorlit, one of those pathetic bullied nerds with no inkling of how to defend against it due to growing up in a Quiet Calm Household

Oh, and: . . . hovering by the bench next to the entrance to Honydukes . . .

Slightly more seriously, I have read the thing and I liked the thing - the whole back-and-forth disguise warfare worked quite well, I think.

• Tomash, somewhat too tired to have extremely detailed thoughts

I think it's really cool you went to the lengths of drawing for each section. I do find it a little ironic that you choose Disney canons of all things for this, though.

-Ls

And, to be fair, I think it's quite "safe" on the smut scale - there's flirting, there's kissing, but I dare say most of it doesn't even fully qualify for making out, let alone actual smut. Still gets you to wonder "wait, did they then go on to do it like that?", but it fits with general PPC weirdness just fine.

And, well, let's get this straight: we have a lot of bad smut appear as the mission's focus in many PPC missions, it would be silly to say that some good not-so-smut shouldn't have a place in the PPC! If we have to nitpick, that's roughly on the same level I kept in some bits of The World Without Authors, which is definitely tame - you hinted at the fact that kind of action was going to happen, without showing it, and that much was more than enough to get the reader to understand they're getting more intimate and less awkward with each other.

That aside, I feel you've neatly filled in a missing link in the chain - with these snippets you really get the progression from "definitely into each other, but still awkward about it" to "definitely a coiuple", really closing in towards the dynamics we're used to see them in as a married couple! It helps that it is an insanely fun piece, too (Dafydd as a merman because Constance decided to turn the tables on him gave me a good laugh!). The only thing that left me puzzled is that you actually went all the way to find seven actual badfics when making them up on the spot would've sufficed! I assume none of them would've worked as an actual mission, though, which imakes a perfectly fine usage case then.

This piece also reminded me of a couple things. The first is that I still have to get working on that "Nikki accidentally ends up in the underwater section of HQ" interlude, and the other is that I did originally plan on not making her and Sergio retire after Blank Sprite and so I would've likely ended up doing some similar pieces myself! Probably more focused on the two of them adjusting to living as a couple more than about the flirting, but it would've surely included them trying to find spare time during a mission to... do things.

Which inspired me to do some 3D shenanigans that are shamelessly plagiarized from liberally inspired by Dafydd and Constance's outfits! Trying to keep them as worksafe as I can, on average there will be less skin showing than Huinesoron's. Also, there's just three of them as not all of those situations fit with something Sergio and Nikki's canons of specialization offer. In fact, these three are a bit of a stretch already...

1) A Whole New Timeline

"So, uhm... What's the idea here?" "Come on, don't tell me you're not enojying seeing me in a dancer outfit! It will be a good enough disguise for the SEP field to work, and maybe we can try to spare some time for some dancing later." "So that was you plan... Deal."

As TWWA has shown, Nikki isn't above teasing Sergio from time to time, so in this occasion she chose a belly dancer disguise just for his eyes. Now, it would be quite improbable for them to get an Aladdin mission, but at the same time pretty much any AU fic with a 1001 Nights theme could result in this. So, yeah, I chalk it up as "likely happened" in the "Sergio and Nikki remained at the PPC" timeline.

3) Follow That Boat

"A cutlass! My ARX-160 turned into a frigging cutlass! I hope Corolla fixes our DORKS soon, because rules or not I want to use my guns as such." "Maybe you can give it to me? I have more experience in fencing after all." "Yeah, that sounds like a plan. But why did you decide to go as a mermaid?" "I wanted to have a swim, that's why! Together with you, of course."

Making a pirate-ish outfit for Sergio was trivially easy, and I already had a mermaid getup for Nikki, since she canonically can transform into one. Though this model is the one I recently made for TWWA, after Nikki recovered her powers - her tail is no longer pale blue but green as the mermaid transformation "melded" into Lyrical Nanoha powers becoming her Rare Skill. As such, the tail's scales now take their pigmentation after her eyes', and she now sports gills while transformed (thoug this detail isn't set in stone yet). They're not in Peter Pan, of course, but likely in some kind of crossover between one of their usual anime canon and One Piece. Or perhaps a Cardcaptor Sakura pirate AU. Name any kind of AU, someone's bound to have made a CCS fic with that theme. As whether this leads to any "underater action" by the two of them... well, they did a lot of underwater diving during their honeymoon, Keiko was conceived during said honeymoon, Keiko's magic is water-themed. Corolla thinks the last one is no coincidence. Sergio and Nikki never managed to refute the allegation.

6) Hawaii Undercover

"So... We're PPC agents undercover as tourists, tailing a Suvian who fooled NCIS into thinking she's a part of their team, while said team is also undercover as beach bar staff." "Yeah, it's silly. Not really the typical Hawaii vacation, huh?" "We're sticking aroung for a proper one after this mission." "Deal."

While I never wrote any mission in those, Sergio is also "cleared" for several police drama series, NCIS being one of those. And NCIS has an Hawaii spinoff, while there is also Hawaii 5-0 set there. Goes without saying that if there's a place that a young couple from Earth will gladly get liberal with how long the mission cleanup took, that's Hawaii.

At the sign of the Hog's Head...

Just under a year ago I posted The Heir of Feanor, a retroactive DOGA mission which finally showed Dafydd Illian and Constance Sims officially getting together. In the Author's Note, I promised more on the development of their relationship. This is that more.

Tales from DOGA: The Black Reports spans something like 6-9 months after "The Heir of Feanor". It is an in-depth exploration of the question of what happens when you go on a string of missions with someone who is also your brand new romantic interest. Spoilers: it makes you kind of distractable.

The canons are various Disney animated shows, all appropriate to the setting (early '00s). There are also illustrations. Some of them show a fair amount of skin.

Overall I'm not sure where "The Black Reports" fall on the fluff-smut axis. There's a lot of quite intense flirting, and much kissing, but I don't think anything actually dirty happens on-screen? If you reach the first picture and are fine with it and the scene around it, you'll probably be fine with the whole thing. I don't recommend pulling it up on a work/school computer though, because... pictures. :)

I've been sitting on this story for over a year, because including the pictures made me nervous. I hope you enjoy it.

hS

Italians may have invented pizza, but America raised it to an art form. Would anyone Italian restaurant make you an oyster, banana, and chocolate aphrodisiac pizza? No! You have go to the US of good new-fashioned A for that. Or, more to the point, to New Calzonea, possibly after they're closed, possibly with lockpicks. But oooh, let me tell you, after we finished it we--

No thank you, Agent Luxury. - The Nightshade

In particular, the section about the restaurants. It came to my attention that it talks about "real American pizza" - the only way you can put "real" and "pizza" together in the same sentence is if you put "Italian" in it, as pizza is an italian dish! I can't believe I found the misconception of pizza being an American dish even among my former PPC colleagues, jeez.

At least tell me it's not Chicago deep dish. If it is, I'm burning the place down.

-Former Agent Sergio Turbo (DF-SOD)

Please excuse him, we tend to struggle finding a good pizzeria in Japan and during our latest vacation in Italy we somehow ran into a place that offered Chicago deep dish. Seeing it in his country kinda traumatized him... but I do kinda agree that you can't call that a pizza.

- Former Agent Nikki Cherryflower (DF-SOD)

[Yes. there are apparently places offering that style of pizza here in italy. It seems to be mostly a thing of American-style restaurants, though the fact someone would order the americanized version of an Italian dish in Italy is something that still baffles me]

She's not so much embarrassed as she's protecting his reputation. That's all I'm saying about it in this post; further explanation will be saved for a future story.

Nice to see Kaguya’s parents welcomed Momoka into the household so warmly and fully! Too bad she was so embarrassed to hang out with Kaguya in public, though.

. . . she lived in same house as the Vermilion Bird . . .
A missing “the” before “same” there.

. . . penning Japan's first diary novel and lauching the female diary genre . . .

—doctorlit, drinking grape juice

That was quite the adventure! I'm not too sure if anyone learned anything or if anything will be different because of it, but it was fun to revisit the Ground Floor and the Pool, and I really enjoyed your take on the Escher Room with the melting (and scurrying) clocks in. For me, I think you described Charlie getting pummeled by the Escher Room a little too well, though. I get that they have D&D physiology and were fine, but the injuries seemed pretty upsetting while they were happening. ^_^;

The surreal contrast between the noisome trash heap and the pristine, empty pool was great, though.

Now I'm wondering if my Nurse Alex wound up in the PPC via the trash heap, since he's a discarded character from one of my unwritten novel ideas. I could understand him not wanting to talk about it if so!

~Neshomeh

I have a friend who describes their gender as "two scoops," some of each. Maybe Dax got a swirl cone, possibly with sprinkles. ^_^

~Neshomeh

Also for Nursery Children and PPC Enemies, because why not.

~Neshomeh

The point to highlighting the underrepresented is to make people who are often excluded feel seen. The value is in letting real people who have those characteristics know we proudly include them in our world where we can imagine anything. Those of us who are white, straight, and cis don't need help with that; you can't swing a cat without hitting one of us in media.

Well... yeah! I do not think this is in any way a bad thing! I happen to believe that people can and do relate to fictional characters, and "feel seen" (so to speak) for a wide variety of reasons, some of which may be related to intrinsic attributes. Being of a religious minority, I do think I can personally attest to the value that such a characteristic can have in helping one relate to a character and perhaps feel better about oneself. I don't think it's exclusive to the characteristics that you list, though I would say that it is due to people valuing those traits, insofar as it helps someone feel better about themselves. I personally feel no obligation to meet any specific quotas in my writing, mostly because I don't think it's possible to have an ideal representation of reality in fiction. That said, I certainly don't try to limit myself to characters that only match myself, because I am boring and that would be boring. [= )

I feel that "of Color" is rather more of an out-of-universe classification than going by a more specific categorization would be. And it would also be a bit more helpful if one wanted to find someone they would relate to personally, but I guess only 50 agents isn't much to work through, so... eh.

Wait, would Mina count as non-human? I... genuinely am not sure. Gah! This is certainly tricky.

--Ls does not throw cats, he pets them

Everything’s coming to a head! I love the paired imagery of chapters 12 and 13, with kaito seeming to finally accept the narrative nature of reality in 12, and Naomi realizing that she’s basically a plot slave herself. The imagery of the snowstorm and Naomi’s despair in 13 are especially powerful and affecting. I see Tanner is starting to get second thoughts about the assassination as well. We must be close to the finale now, yeah?

Typos:
A freezing wind blew through the open-air airport¹ . . .
This superscript has no follow-up.

This was a good use of Kaito’s time, which is precisely why said time he time from . . .
I think this sentence will read as intended if the bolded section above is replaced with “the”

I’ve seen that look before on some of uour benefactor’s servants.
“your”

Tanner said it like his gods had been killed.1
This superscript isn’t formatted as a superscript.

—doctorlit, sleepy

Just wanted to poke my nose in to add that Agent Dax (D&D changeling) changes gender as quickly as bodies and switches pronouns mid-sentence. I use male pronouns for him as default because that's his preferred body, but she was born female and her natural body is just as much Dax as his elven form is just as much Dax as any other body he slips into. Genuinely I don't know what I would put for his gender because "fluid" feels like a gross understatement. :P