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I've seen badfic that tries to characterize a Sue as "intelligent and rational," usually showing no evidence of any such thing, and that downplays emotion and moral thinking as irrational and deplorable. The fic I'm thinking of had a not!harry Sue that rejected ideals of courage in order go to along with and even support Voldemort's regime, deeming it to be the safest and most rational choice for personal advancement. And then it wallowed in Edgy Sue gore and squick for a little while anyway. She also had many supposedly intelligent plans to gain power and wealth, most of which took place entirely offscreen and consisted of hiring other people to do the thinking for her. It usually falls under "Dark" or supposedly "Grey" Sues. I haven't seen enough of those types to necessarily justify a categorization. However, there are potentially interesting points to be made about the importance of depicting emotions well, the importance of writing a character so that they actually seem smart, and suchlike, as well as the usual dark!sue criticisms of "separate character morality from the message of the fic so as not to promote doing this awful stuff". It could also be that I haven't seen that many of them, as my badfic trawling is near-exclusively Wattpad and is mostly dark!fem!harry, dark!percy or fem!percy. So those are my thoughts. Make of their tangledness what you will!

I think I actually read most of the prompt pieces before, with the exception of the Jacques one, oddly enough. That one is really good. It helps that I have a vested interest in the guy, but the imagery is fantastic and the dream-like quality comes through very well and increasingly creepy as it goes on. And then he just gets up and gets back to work, argh, are you even going to talk about this later??

Sorry, I think Jenni hijacked the keyboard for a second there. ^_~

I don't remember if I commented on the Dawn one or the Gerry one before, but I enjoyed them both.

Having never broken a bone or experienced any serious pain myself (nothing that couldn't be treated with extra-strength ibuprofen, heat or cold, and rest), I can only faintly imagine what Dawn must've been going through, but I'm glad she had good friends with her. Seeing Abaddon realize he was being a jerk and actively do better was really nice. T'Zar's brand of logic, "I know this helps so I'll do it even if it makes no sense to me," is also really nice.

I look forward to getting to know Gerry better and seeing if he's really a princess-rescuing shape-shifting dragon-guy. ^_^

I think I followed "Keys" as it was being written, too. ConCoun stuff is always fun. I admire the Notary's surface composure in the face of everything being ridiculous and absolutely no one giving her a break, really. And, I couldn't help but pick up on this line of hers: "I understand the 2020s were a troubled time on Earth," she said. "This seems about right for human incompetence." Yeah, we're off to a great start on this decade so far, aren't we? >.>

And, well, you know I like the song reaction. ^_~

~Neshomeh

Caution: Humans May Be Fragile

Well done with the emotions in this piece. The dynamic between Dawn feeling hurt by Abaddon’s laughter but still needing to lean into him for support, and Abaddon feeling obligated to give it even while knowing Dawn is upset with him at the moment, feels like something that would be difficult to convey—but you’ve done it here, quite handily. Same with T’Zar being comforting towards Dawn despite not entirely understanding human comfort.

Continuity: Keys

I was following along with this as it was originally posted. I’m always a sucker for these sorts of “crossover events,” even without knowing any of the Doctor Who stuff going on. The character interactions are quite fun to read, especially with the Council’s obligation not to get overly involved in canon, and the Notary and Morgan having histories with the Doctor to make things awkward.

I would love to see the conclusion to this adventure, if the time is ever available . . . please?

Though Every Thread is Torn

Wooow, this was good. Again, I don’t know the Who universe well, but I do know about Harkness’s immortality (and therefore Jacques’s). So I guessed pretty early on that Jacques was dead, but I wasn’t sure about Ianto, like maybe the whole thing was a hallucination Jacques tends to experience when he dies and un-dies, or if Ianto is dead in canon and came to visit. What I definitely didn’t guess was that Jacques had died in a world with a canon afterlife, and was experiencing it while waiting for his body to undo the damage. Wow. That came as a real gut punch after all the suspense you set up leading up there. Also, did I imagine it, or did fake!Ianto touch and freeze Jacques everywhere he had been injured? Amazing detail if so; you really have talent for this sort of story!

Gerry on the Wing

This is definitely intriguing. I like the idea of a fantasy-genre Hulk sort of character, transforming into a dragon under anger. But I also like that his anger is something he feels on behalf of others, and not just senseless, violent rage. I wonder, if he becomes too calm as he’s flying, does the transformation reverse itself? I do hope to see more of Gerry in the future.

I didn’t really have any comments on “Bigger on the Inside” or “The Wandering Baron.” Sorry! I am sad to see yet another part of Desdendelle’s legacy get retired, though. : (

—doctorlit, reading, reviewing, and getting chores done all in one step

That is, assuming there is a genre of fics like this and it's not just (taking a guess) "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality" and copycats of it. Further questions I have are: What makes a Rational Fic? How popular are they? What, if anything, distinguishes a Rational Fic from any fanfic whose author employed rational thought while writing it? What, if anything, distinguishes a Rational Fic from a good Fix Fic?

And, since a quick Google search turned up a TV Tropes article about this, which seems to answer my questions well enough, do you, members of the PPC, have anything to add on the subject? 'Cause if there isn't a strong PPC perspective on this to represent, I don't think we need to rehash the information that already exists.

~Neshomeh

I laughed at the song commentary piece, for sure! (I was mostly just pleased to see that song again - it's been ages!)

Looking forward to seeing what's next~

There are already articles on illness and smut and those can be types of fics. It would be nice to read how Rational Fics can be done both well and poorly.

"You" could be anyone, but since you, N. Harmonik, brought it up, it would be helpful for you to explain what you're thinking and why so as to enable a proper conversation about it. {= )

~Neshomeh

Or rationality in general?

This is a combination of prompt fills spruced up a little (or a lot) for wiki archiving as interludes, and a little new stuff, hence putting up six together. They do also cover a range of genres, so to speak, so hopefully there's something for every reading mood (okay, except fluff; somehow I don't have a super-fluffy piece ready to go)! My hope is that y'all get some amusement and/or entertainment out of at least some of these. I'll note the genres by the titles, for fun and as a guide if anyone wants to read based on that.

Here we go:

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Caution: Humans May Be Fragile (historical interlude, hurt/comfort)

Summary: Seventeen-year-old DOGA agent Dawn McKenna is injured in a new way while on a joint mission with her partner and her partner’s former partner. Set June 2010. Originally published May 29, 2018.

--

Bigger on the Inside - Jacques Reacts (mildly NSFW, mostly for innuendo and some language) (utter silliness prompted by Neshomeh, humor)

Summary: Jacques Bonnefoy reacts (in MST format) to a song about Doctor Who.

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Continuity: Keys (Continuity Council interlude, humor/adventure) (unfinished, but the longest piece of the six)

Summary: The Continuity Council gets caught up in an...interesting situation after the Reader accepts a simple mission from the Doctor. Set who knows when, probably 2019 or up to a couple years earlier. Originally written and posted on the Board July-August 2019, by (in order of joining) Zingenmir, Huinesoron, and Iximaz.

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Though Every Thread is Torn (historical interlude, horror. No, really. I do write horror once in a while!) T-rated.

Summary: Jacques Bonnefoy finally goes on a long-anticipated date. It goes differently than expected. Set January 30, 2016. Originally published May 13, 2018. Very minor spoilers for Torchwood season 2 and Supernatural seasons 4-5. Warnings at the end of the doc if wanted.

--

Gerry On the Wing (possibly extracanonical interlude, adventure)

Summary: In another world, Nurse Gerry must look within to save a child. Semi-canonical. Originally published October 30, 2019. (See ending a/n for details on who Gerry is--this is his only written appearance so far.)

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The Wandering Baron (Plort interlude covering three years, reflective)

Summary: Eshakhar, now a baron, builds a castle and rearranges her life.

--

Hope you've enjoyed! I'm open to comments and concrit, as always, though for the most part I don't really plan on doing extensive editing for any of these. The 'Jacques Reacts' piece is unlikely to be edited at all, past typos and so on; I'm not even sure it's going on the wiki.

I do hope to add more stories to this thread eventually; I'd say 'stay tuned!' but I don't expect them to be ready too quickly, so it's more like 'check back in a week or so, or possibly expect a new thread when this reaches the second page'.

Wishing you all the best,

~Z

Assuming you fixed them in the same doc, I'm not really sure what's going on, but eh. These are really minor things; I'd be shocked if either actually affected your Permission request.

~Z

I really couldn't detect the errors without your help. But anyway, if you'll do the honours...

The missing space between paragraphs:

She stopped in the act of pulling off a sock. ‘You’re a ghost, for goodness’ sake!’ ‘Yeah, and what have I done? It’s not like I’ve inflicted an unbreakable curse upon you and your response centre!’

The faint blue highlight starts in this paragraph and continues to the end of the document:

She found Ghost outside the door of RC #9L0121F4114C3, blowing into the semi-transparent kazoo as loudly as he could, making some of the most obnoxious sounds ever known to the universe. And that was coming from someone who used to attend high school.

Specifically, it starts with "RC #9L0121F4114C3", which is why I figured it happened because the number had been copied in from somewhere (which, I don't blame you, that's...quite something to type out!) If you can't see it, try tilting your screen back--if I tilt mine forward enough, it's invisible, but if I leave it at my normal angle or tilted farther back, it's much more obvious.

~Z

The errors aren't showing up on my end. Maybe you can point out which paragraphs they're in?

Silv urged me to post this on the Board, so here I am.

This fic is based off of the world and concepts of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games, but none of the games themselves in particular, so you don't have to worry about spoilers or know the series super well to still understand it.

You can find it here on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22178413/chapters/52946659

Feedback/constructive criticism is definitely appreciated.

I'm surprised at the source, but hey, that's a pretty neat idea.

You have two very minor formatting errors that I spotted--an extra 'enter' between paragraphs (of dialogue, at the top of a page in...the first prompt, I believe) got lost, I expect due to a previous page division that later shifted, and the pale blue highlighting from copying in the RC number and continuing to type, which, man, I'm pretty sure we've all struggled with in some form or another before. IIRC, the way to get rid of it in GDocs, besides retyping the number immediately and continuing on from there/adding a new line after before pasting it in/pasting random text from somewhere else in the doc after it and then typing on from there (and erasing the copied text)...is to select everything with the blue highlight and click on 'normal text' (in the style options, next to the font options in the toolbar). This is going to get rid of any bold, italics, etc in your selected text, though, so make a copy/note down where they are first so you can put them back in after.

Overall, though, after a quick (and not too deep) reading, I see just about no technical errors, the pieces you've written are amusing, and I can certainly follow what's going on. There are other elements I'd expect the PG who takes a much closer look at this to weigh and comment on (mostly to do with the PPC elements and possibly character interactions/plot?), but at the very least, you're certainly on the right track, and I definitely enjoyed the read. Well done, and good luck!

~Z

Here's the Google Doc. All up to fate and the PGs now.

And here's the fic. Good luck.

Okay, so this actually was a sort of a poorly worded throwaway jokish thing, but alrighty, time to go diving into the dark abyss that is the obscure corners of the internet!

Binges internet

"One of Santa’s elves’ defining characteristics are their pointy ears, which really help in anticipating repairs on Santa’s sleigh. They have a large pinna... (that) helps elves localize sounds like a screw that’s become loose on a sleigh’s runner. Their brilliant hearing means they also have a talent for echolocation... handy because it gets dark as anything on Christmas night and Santa doesn’t want to be seen." -Santamory, someone's OC from an edutainment website

Tell me your strange Christmas elf theories, and you may be able to repent. (I'm curious now pleeease)

mumbles something about Santa's elves despite it being late spring

Huh what I said nothing nosireebob no Christmas blasphemy over here not at all

Even though you warned for content, the subject line is visible to anyone viewing the main page, which means we can't choose to avoid reading that word, even without clicking through to your post.

—doctorlit

Long story short, I don't trust you with the PPC universe yet. I think your writing is decent mechanically, but... I don't know if there's some cultural dissonance in play or what, but something just bugs me about your characters, and did in the last bit of your writing I reviewed, too.

The biggest "nope" moment I had here was in the first prompt. You've got Vanille, who is described as being the size of a child, who mutters to her daddy in her sleep, having been cuddled "like I was your baby" by her partner... and then she turns around and starts acting seductive. My eyebrows literally went up and the only thought in my head was a horrified "What." Thank goodness Bert doesn't seem to reciprocate at all, because that would be SUPER creepy rather than just plain creepy. You've coded Vanille very heavily as a child in this piece. Doing that AND trying to portray her as sexy squicks me right out, and I don't condone it.

That's not the only issue—Nova raised several good questions, too—but it's the one that cemented my decision.

I'm not really sure what advice to give you about this. Maybe you're a young person and you need a) more world experience to gain a better understanding of how people work, and b) more reading experience to gain a better understanding of what makes a good character. Maybe you should try writing some normal World One human characters for a while; figure out how to do that in a way that feels natural before you tackle the extra complications of writing anthros. Maybe all of the above.

Whatever you do, keep working on it.

~Neshomeh

If you're implying the eagles were natural predators of the elves, that really throws a pretty dark perspective on the series.

Fingon hitching a ride on eagle to rescue Maedhros? Parasitism. Or some weird elf mind control.

Eagles fighting in the War of Wrath? Scouring the battlefield, for, uh, supplements.

But where does that place hobbits, if Eagles are predators and elves are prey? And where does that place Gandalf?

I see a whole realm of possibilities, and it is not safe for either of our minds.

(Hello, Hidaney! Good to see you!)

The YouTube algorithm was kind enough to suggest to me this official video, written by Neil Gaiman and voiced by David Tennant and Michael Sheen. It's quite delightful. ^_^

~Neshomeh

Very old elves. Because Elves are closely related to Time Lords*, and we know what happens when they get super old.

*Long-lived, standoffish, think they're better than you... Time Lords, Elves, and Vulcans, it all fits.

hS