The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

Not on Discord, but email should be clickable.

You could just say that Melissa and May's neuralyzer also got broken from the backpack hitting the rock. That way, it's only the part where Faelwen and Ketevan arrive that would need to be changed.

—doctorlit, helpful?

Incidentally, how will the document(s) be transferred around - Discord PM or email?

Alright, I'd like to start up something new! I'm writing up short beginnings for stories, and I'd like to make them into an anonymous round-robin thing. PM me on Discord if you want to be the first writer for something, and I'll send you the doc. Add a bit and send it on, but don't say who you got it from! We'll keep passing it around until the story feels complete.

Anyone else can feel free to start their own stories as well. If you're interested in being involved, reply to the post so everyone knows who's fair game to send things to!

Doc, you're entirely right about the neuralyzer. I did my best to explain why the agents got stranded in the fic, but that's a nice big plothole I left there. (Feel free to drive a bus through it.) The only explanation I can give for missing that detail is that I usually use neuralyzers during actual missions when the agents interact with canon characters - and since I wasn't writing a mission this time, I forgot to give them one.

I might take down this story and rewrite it, or I might leave it around for the character interactions, I'll need to figure out which. Either way, thanks for the feedback and for noticing what I didn't.

I'll go stand in the corner now.

It's good seeing some of the infrastructure departments getting some spotlight, and I like the way you framed the story so that it isn't told purely through the field agents' perspectives. I especially love the imagery of DIA agents charging into Middle-earth on horseback, and with Alice and Delroch, no less! Also, that opening line about DoSAT having a quiet, ordinary day, complete with swearing and explosions, was quite funny and definitive of DoSAT.

I think the fight scene was well done. It felt realistic to me for the agents to be able to get in some good blows, while still ultimately getting overwhelmed and suffering some pretty bad injuries. The orcs all felt in character in their actions and strategies. However, I can't really overlook the fact that no battle should have been necessary? Because assuming Melissa and May had a neuralyzer with them, all they would have needed to do was flash the orcs and tell them to move on and forget they saw the agents. Even if the field agents' was broken, the DIA agents almost certainly should have brought one with to minimize canon interference—and wiping out an entire squad of orcs is certainly interfering, "semicanonical" or not.

Some typos:

"Makes-Things gave Tuilinn a grim l."

Part of "look" got cut off.

And this might just be a difference between dialects, but in the following two lines:

"'I’ll better go and have my hide darned . . .'"

"'I’ll better get going, too.'"

The phrase as I know it in U.S. English would be, "I'd better go . . ."

—doctorlit, wanting to emulate greater infrastructure inclusion like this

First, try to get good grades in university. Because, you know, I'd hate to spend tens of thousands of dollars and end up with a horrible GPA.

Second, engage with this community more. Because I haven't exactly been the most active here or on the Discord over the last three-and-a-half months, and I'd like to change that.

Third, write something. Anything, so long as I actually post it. Because somehow, I actually haven't done that yet.

Here's to hoping tomorrow, January, 2020 and the 20s in general go well for everyone!

In which a routine mission into Middle-earth goes horribly wrong.

You can find it here.

Many, many thanks to Neo Skater for betaing this story. Content warnings are included at the beginning.

I mean, all three options are people that I feel make very good candidates for mod personality-wise, and if there was more than one position, I'd vote for more than one. But, as multiple others have pointed out, Larfen fills the main gap in time coverage, so I'll vote for him based on that if nothing else.

I've now fixed all the typos and formatting errors. The bit with the dormitories was partly me forgetting to add that bit at first and partly getting confused because the Sue was re-Sorted into Slytherin later in the fic. I do definitely plan to explain a bit more about Mira over the next few missions and interludes - in fact I'm probably going to start work on an interlude going into some of it soon.

... I... think I would pick Thoth. If I have to pick.

This was a quick read, and a nice mission.

One complaint I have is that is sort of felt like Mira's magic came out of nowhere to save the day - then again, the agents were also confused by this in-text, so really I'm hoping that, at the very least, we get an interlude exploring what happened there.

If any of y'all have playlists/fanmixes stored there, today's appears to be the last day to get them, per this news article about the shutdown

Boy, Elisabeth really leaned into the whole dark wizard schtick, didn't she? Made for a simple, straightforward mission for Mira's first, at least. The gag where the elder agents couldn't explain everything out loud to avoid spoiling Mira was a unique idea. I also liked taking advantage of the third partner to play different card games, and the detail about collecting chocolate frog cards.

The assassination got a little dark, there, with Mira's actions. I hope that's addressed in future missions? We don't want actually evil agents, after all. Also, I'm not sure the squid would actually accept a body like that, since it protects students in canon (rescuing Neville)?

Some typos: There's a missing paragraph break between ". . . pulled an item about the size of a finger from her pocket and put it down." and "Edward was attacked by a fit of curiosity . . ."

There's an extra paragraph break in the middle of the sentence, "'. . . but I know that’ll set you up for the inevitable pun so I’m not going to do it.'"

And in the charge list, "'. . . being the uncanonical nephew of Sirius Black . . .'" Aelin had female pronouns in the fic, so this should be niece.

Also, I feel like you should have some kind of clear scene change indicator before "The Sue had apparently been annoying her godfather with stupid puns for the entire car journey." As it is, it seems like the agents are just abruptly walking from Elisabeth's house straight up the steps to King's Cross, and it's jarringly sudden.

Also also, I'm confused by the following paragraph:

Kat grinned and closed the portal, then opened another one to what looked like the Slytherin first-year girls’ dormitory. “Just something I need to do before we go,” she said, and stepped through the new portal to what looked like the Gryffindor first-year girls’ dormitory.

It reads like only one portal has been opened, but two different dorm rooms are visible at once? Halp?

—doctorlit, seeing too much of girls' dormitories, but in a spacial inconsistency way