The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

offers cookies, left at your doorstep and handled with surgical gloves to avoid violating social distancing

May vodka flow for you in abundance and may your supply of potatoes never end!

basks

Thank you!

I hope you and your family are alright! Have this rag doll shaped like a Mary Sue, just in case you need something to beat up.

We are (for now) the same age.

Last March, the legendary badfic turned 15. I cannot think of any fanfic character more OOC than this fic's Dumbledore.

I wish you a happy birthday, and hope to see more awesome missions in the future.

... for the 'new post' dot to refresh when a post is edited? That wouldn't work for very new posts, but for older ones being edited it would.

hS

It would be nice to have a "new information here" signal for edits after the first right on the main page, but I recognize there may be practical limitations on that.

A timestamp on the post itself to indicate when it was last modified would be great.

~Neshomeh

Have a bottle of Glitter repellent!

I haven’t met you personally before, but welcome back!

Also have this colour wheel in the shape of a question mark.

~SomeRandomPersonAccount

Attempts to sing happy birthday

Happy birthday to you!

Happy birthday to you!

Happy birthday Mirage!

Happy birthday to you!

Also have this horse wearing goth make up!

~SomeRandomPersonAccount

HAPPY BIRTHDAY. I HAVE DEFINITELY NOT BEEN REPLACED BY A ROBOT.

An interesting 22nd birthday, that's for sure - but at least I get to spend it with my family, since we're self-isolating together.

though I can't tell from an immediate look at the code whether or not we actually collect that time, so we might only be able to do this going forward.

My first thought about what to do with that info is to put it on the notice when you click on the edited post.

Since we haven't had one of these in a while, and there are newbies, the way Write-Offs work is that, at the appointed time, I'll post a prompt in the Discord and everyone'll have half an hour to try and write something that's at least vaguely inspired by the prompt. The results don't need to be perfect or anything, and the aim of the half hour limit is to get people to sit down and write something. (If you can't quite make the start time, it's OK to show up somewhat late and take your own half hour, but it's best if that doesn't happen too often)

After the writing is done, people share their stories and get concrit from the other participants. This is the other important point of the exercise, as it gives everyone the opportunity to practice giving feedback and to help each other improve.

Finally, we take the stories and link them on the Board so folks don't have to dig through the chat to find them and so more people can read them if they'd like.

Now, for the usual content of this post, the time above is equivalent to:

• 7:30 PM Central
• 8:30 PM Eastern
• 1:30 AM on Friday Britain
• 2:30 AM on Friday Europe (sorry y'all)

No idea if I have any need for randomly generated fire lizards at this point, but it is pretty cool!

The Notary is probably wondering where he went that he could pose like that, the little drama queen. Oh well, as long as he's back in time for his kebab. Obligate carnivores they may be, but I have a cat that eats Brussels sprouts so a triple combo chicken shish wrap with all the salad and Day-Glo orange burger sauce for a fire lizard is comparatively normal. Especially when it's Lolus, who is the Notary's special boy.

Her very special boy.

He is rock stupid but bless him he's trying his best. =]

I've been wondering, would it be possible to add a date beside the [Edited] tag to show when the most recent edit was made? Or maybe have it viewable on hovering over the tag, so as not to have clutter in the event of multiple tags? It would be helpful in cases where posts get edited multiple times.

Cheers,

~Neshomeh

Yeeeeaaaaaah uh. Been reading these. So.

Spoiler warning for the entire Oedipus trilogy of plays, and of course, content warnings for incest, suicide and eye horror. (not safe for Calliope, FourMoonsWatching or Scapegrace)

And on that note . . . I just want to say for the record I really really hate the topic of incest. I’ve known too many people hurt by it, I don’t like reading about it, and I refuse to do any missions that involve it. I don’t even know why I bought this book; I guess just because it’s a classic . . . Whatever, here we are, I read them, I’m reviewing them, let’s just get it over with.

Oedipus Rex

Okay, wow. This was significantly shorter than I was expecting it to be. Granted, I clearly already knew the big “twist” of the story, but there’s so little setup it really doesn’t even feel like a twist at all. It’s given away pretty overtly by dialogue almost immediately. It feels like the kind of story that really deserved a lot more suspenseful buildup. Although, as I understand it, the basic story itself was already a well-known legend before Sophocles adapted it into this play, so I suppose his audiences would have already known what was coming anyway. Welp. At least the next two in the trilogy are completely unknown content for me.

Even knowing the “twist” ahead of time, I didn’t know/remember what happened to Oedipus and Iocaste. Man, what a horror. While the rest of the play felt like a lot of talking heads, Iocaste’s suicide and Oedipus blinding himself really hit me hard; it drove home the utter shame and ill feeling that incest entailed, even back in those ostensibly less civilized times. (Mood whiplash, but I feel a need to point out that Iocaste is one of the coolest-sounding names I’ve ever read. What a shame it’s probably never going to make a comeback, considering the context its owner will forever be remembered for.)

Um, I kind of want to know more about how Oedipus took down the sphinx? Sphinxes need more representation in fantasy fiction.

Oedipus at Colonus

Well. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it certainly is a whole lot of Oedipus being in Colonus. I’m honestly not convinced I really understood all that was going on this time. I liked the parts where Oedipus interacted with his daughters, because the emotional bonds between them felt real, even with the centuries-long cultural gap between me and this play. But the main plot, where Oedipus’s sons are at war with each other to take over his throne, and they want him back to help him settle the war for . . . some . . . reason. Yes, things were going so well in Thebes while Oedipus was there. Definitely not a terrible curse from the gods ruining the whole city, no. Yes, let’s just bring Oedipus right back home, maybe the gods won’t notice this time.

I don’t know, I just don’t feel this one the way I did OR. There, the conflict existed because the gods weren’t down with the incest and patricide, and I’m not down with those things either, so I was invested in the conflict. In this play, though, the conflict feels one step removed from the original crimes; they don’t want Oedipus back in Thebes because that’s what they said last time, weren’t you mortals listening? It’s more abstract, and harder for me to care about. Maybe it’s just my reading comprehension not being compatible with the language in this translation? Oh well. There’s one more play in the trilogy, and Oedipus won’t be in it himself. Let’s see what the future holds . . .

Antigone

Yes, this one started out a lot more interesting! Antigone is a real headstrong sort of character, the sort of female character we’re only starting to see a lot of in recent decades. It feels so rare to see female characters like that before, say, the 1980s, let alone in ancient literature. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but I actually feel like there’s a trace of feminism in Sophocles here, because our antagonist figure, Creon, goes on a nasty rant: “And no woman shall seduce us. If we must lose, let’s lose to a man, at least! Is a woman stronger than we?”

Creon was in the other two plays of this trilogy, but I didn’t remark on him in my reviews for those titles because . . . well, he was just kind of . . . there. In OR, he certainly wasn’t this weird, angry proto-men’s rights activist jerk, to the point where it almost feels like he’s a different character in Antigone. And while he was in OaC, and cast as an antagonist there, he was ultimately trying to save his country from war, so he wasn’t really an evil figure—just cast against the abstract will of the gods, and at cross-purposes to the protagonists. In Antigone, he actually reminds me quite a bit of Dolores Umbridge in Half-Blood Prince, the way he furiously spouts off about the absolute power of kings, and of citizens’ obligations to follow the law. Maybe it’s a simple matter of the crown going to his head, going to his head?

So while he’s an unlikable figure, I do wish his comeuppance didn’t come at the cost of his wife and the two nice, likable characters in this play. Yes, I know, the genre is “tragedy,” and the point of an ancient tragedy is to be a morality play where people die because of poor choices. But I can’t help being a modern reader and wanting the story to end nicely for the good guys, especially a good guy as cool as Antigone.

—doctorlit, ready for something a little more recent next reading

“I am so afraid for you!”
“You need not be: You have spoilers to consider, after all.”
“I am so afraid for you!”
“You need not be: You have spoilers to consider, after all.”
“I am so afraid for you!”
“You need not be: You have spoilers to consider, after all.”

How did I know you wouldn't take the out on the recolor? She's gorgeous. Thank you. And Cain looks very well, too. I'm amused that they both ended up with spines and fancy-pigeon frills, which really fits perfectly with them being from an AU future with genetic aberrations. Much love. ^_^

I think smooth ossicones laid further back is the right idea for the head knobs, yeah.

And, let's see... Neshomeh is a light green fire-lizard with blue eyes, frills, no ridges, smooth wings, raised tail and forelegs, in the mountains. Pretty! ^_^

~Neshomeh