The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

Looks okay so far - a bit chilly and damp, but it should dry out. The number one TV channel in the UK did ring it in by Rickrolling the entire nation with actual live Rick Astley, so, y'know, we're off to a good start.

Happy New Year!

hS

As it's now midnight Board time , and as I'll probably not be.able to make a post at my midnight... Happy New Year, everyone!

Here's hoping we all have a good (or a better) 2024!

Your request for future installments to focus on Tanner will be granted! In fact, you've given me a more interesting idea for mission number 2 than what I had before.

I'll go back and clear up the action and typos at... some point. Maybe after I get the mission finished?

I'm looking for a beta for a story about PPC paramedics in New Caledonia. 1859 words. OCs from several different canons, and some Eldar biology, but it should be readable without having any canon knowledge. The hardest thing to understand is probably all the medical jargon.

Just let me know via Discord or email if you want to beta and I will send you the story link

CW: Sue consumption, needles

Yor-hor!

. . . they would be Mr. and Mrs. Sanders-Flanders!

—doctorlit

Whoops did not mean to post yet. ANYWAY "Naomi Sanders" is funny because the person she's trying to romance is Ned Flanders. Might have to go back and establish that...

Usually, missions just have the word world already warped by the fic’s description, so it was cool that you showed Springfield actually morphing to accommodate the newly imposed narrative, especially with the generic hotel having to flip up and land on an existing building.

I like how Kaito uses his various inner voices to process what’s happening around him, both observing that Tanner was trying to teach him (though Kaito doesn’t seem very open to learning, all the same), and how he starts recognizing Naomi’s influence over the world on his own. The scene where Kaito finally realizes he’s literally inside a fanfiction is funny; I like both his and Tanner’s dialogue in that moment. Using the fic’s “zoom in” effect, in that final scene of chapter 3, was also a clever way to have Kaito learn how the read the Words!

I don’t get why Tanner laughs at the Suvian’s name being “Naomi Sanders.” Is that a reference to something?

You also do a good job of communicating which Simpsons character is which, despite Kaito not knowing the characters’ names. His narrative assessments of them are funny, especially his politician’s eye view of Homer as a “free vote.” I’m curious about that unlabeled voice in parentheses, that tried to get Kaito to apologize to Tanner. His conscience? Or his “true self” that’s underneath the controlling facades he developed as a politician?

typo list!
Kaito’s dialogue that starts with “It’s part of the wind now” ends with one of Tanner’s telepathic >s instead of a quotation mark.

In the line, “. . . up and down his face,³ growing louder, ³”, that first superscript should have been a 2.

“Lady Luck protects her from what she won’t protect you!”
I think stick another “from” at the end of the sentence? It’s a bit of an awkward construction; might flow better as “Lady Luck protects her, but not you!”

“DESTROY HER.1,2,3,4,5
1No.
??????????

“²Or ibuprofen. ~ Constitution”
The “2” is missing from the actual text before this footnote.

—doctorlit doesn’t have a cow, man

Tee-hee!

Aw, I thought we would get to see Harry under the Veritaserum’s effects! But uh . . . sounds like maybe that’s for the best? I guess the happy memories used to fuel a Patronus charm don’t need to be “wholesome” ones? Extremely funny, Lily! Marlene is very professional, I bet she’s really good at her job. Harry’s lucky to have her as defense! And she’s certainly more interested in preparing him for the court than Dumbledore was in canon, though I know he was trying to avoid getting spied on through Harry’s link to Voldemort at the time . . .

That was a very nice scene between Harry and Regulus! They haven’t gotten a lot of one-on-one time together, and it’s good to for Harry to hear from the more stable uncle. I can really sympathize with Regulus, seeing so many relatives disowned by his mother, and especially seeing Sirius sent to “jail but it’s constant psychological torture,” over the concept of blood supremacy . . . yeah, I can see why he’s running on the reform/progressive ticket. That story about the three-year-old is especially heinous. “My perfect family line could never produce a squib; it’s much more likely that a literal toddler offended god and had his magic taken away instead. Yes, perfectly reasonable, my faith is undiminished.” Yikes, what a culture!

—doctorlit looks forward to seeing Arthur and Gary conquer both the Wizarding and Muggle worlds using magical-mechanical robot troops constructed from 90s junk drawer kitchen appliances

Yoo-hoo!

... wanted to make an army of horcs to take over the Shire. Because why send in the big hulking orc-elves when you can instead breed a half-orc, half-hobbit army to do it instead? >.>

I swear I lost a few brain cells typing that all out.

Kaito is certainly a unique character. His history as a politician and persuasion power make him almost a deconstruction of a villain archetype, and there’s something enjoyable about seeing such a character out of their element and no longer in control. At the same time, Kaito’s arrogance and self-absorption make his narrative voice a difficult one to get behind, and his angry outbursts towards other PPC characters, while arguably justified, feel like they come more from a place of feeling insulted by inferiors, rather than defending himself among equals. I really just don’t enjoy reading Kaito; he’s too opposite to me, because I’ve learned to expect nothing to go my way, and to generally stay calm (unless I make a mistake, ha ha!). I guess I just don’t see the world the way he does, and it makes it hard for me to empathize with him.

There are also a couple of scenes where I couldn’t really follow the action well. When Kaito hears banging while he’s inside the bathroom, he moves to a door to wait for someone to enter, and I thought he was still in the bathroom. But then he opens the door, and he’s outside in a corridor, so he must have been standing at his RC’s door, The thing is, you never narrated him leaving the bathroom, so it feels like he kind of drifted through rooms magically there. It’s also really hard to follow what’s happening when the giant bird steps on Kaito and starts running through walls with him. I think it’s partly that you take so long to describe what the bird looks like, which does make sense, since Kaito doesn’t understand what’s happening right away either. But the effect of “suddenness” upon the reader gets hampered by Kaito’s hyperbolic rambling about it being “born specifically to torment him.” It slows the physical action of the scene down, so what should be a startling moment of slapstick violence (door breaks down, talons latch onto Kaito, Kaito gets pulled through multiple walls) is instead three paragraphs of metaphors and Kaito feeling victimized by the universe, with the actual actions being dispersed throughout. It gives the scene a kind of suspended feeling, where Kaito’s very thoughts seem to be slowing down time, and it feels like it’s working against the feeling you were trying to convey there?

I’m sorry, I didn’t want this review to be primarily negative, but I just didn’t vibe with this. Not that you have to make it vibe with me; I’m only one audience member here, and it’s good for all the different spin-offs to have different tones and styles. My thoughts just don’t really line up with Kaito’s well. Perhaps some entries in this spin-off will be written from Tanner’s viewpoint? I rather like him so far, though I doubt Building Maintenance agrees with me! I did like the little visual gag in the prologue’s heading where Tanner’s pen clearly ran out of ink midway through. Oh, one last thing, with all the swearing and the NSFW element to Kaito’s prayer, you should probably put a warning at the start of the chapters or the Board post so folks know what they’re opening, yeah?

So, ready for that list-of-typos thing I do with everybody?
“Prologue”
“Kaito was a powerful proponent of the paramounce of personal grooming.”
I’m not finding “paramounce” to be a word. Did you perhaps mean “paramountcy?”

In a footnote: “Hey, were at the end of the hall before...?”
I think you meant, “were we at”

The footnote that begins, “²Ow! Stop. Please,” doesn’t seem to be connected to the narrative with another “²,” at least not that I could find.

“. . . heard screams, curses, and other. vocalizations. he'd rather not . . .”
Some extra periods snuck in here!

“Chapter 1”
“The limin between sleep and wake.”
I’m not finding “limin” to be a word either. (Other than a French verb, that is.) “Limen”, maybe?

“. . . the SCKS had made less possible things happen for his torment . . .”
No typo here, I’m just curious what “SCKS” stands for. I assume that’s some group from My Hero Academia?

“. . . nice massage being administered to him the cracked, grainy sidewalk . . .”
I think “. . . to him by the . . .”

But guess what!? New words you taught me this week: “paramountcy” and “limen!”

—doctorlit gives Tanner some chicken crumble and a nice, hard-boiled egg

Let's start with the obligatory illustration! (cobbled together quickly because I was forgetting it)

(I know, Ami has actually never been a PPC agent, but I felt like having a Nikki and Ami illustration this time)

As for what they are doing, I have to break it down by timeline.

In the main timeline, I think it is pretty likely Sergio and Nikki invite Corolla over, alongside Sergio's only surviving relatives (Colonel Johnson, his grandfather, and Virgilia, his aunt). Quite likely they also invite Aya and Kuroko over - aftert all, they're honorary aunts to Keiko too.

In the TWWA timeline... it's a bit of spoilers, but I can say it is a much bigger family reunion!

hey there! welcome to our little community :]

I’m HeartCandy, nice to meet ya! I’m not on the board much, you’ll mainly see me in the discord if you decide to join it :>

As a welcoming gift, I give you a rubber duck whose outfit can transform into anything you desire it to be!

see ya around :]

Wow, 6 years older! That's pretty impressive. Thanks for the plushie!

Harry does some hearing prep.

yeah, the adults had a point to keep the kids out of the Order stuff. Jesus Christ I would not trust 15 year old me with a screwdriver, let alone plans to defeat wizard fascists!

Harry was also long overdue to explain magic to his friends, so here they are! A bit different from the Dursleys, but hopefully just as absurd, haha.

And yes, you did pick up a Hamilton reference there!

Luna endorsing batshit conspiracies isn't out of character for her, though. In the books she believed that Fudge had a private army! So yeah, a bit of digging at Big Doxycide there, even if it has some creepy anti-vax vibes. Also, honestly, I wrote it because her banter with Hermione was funny.

You'll see more Marlene next chapter! And thanks for catching the missing quote!

(Well, albatrosses have literary symbolism!)

Fun fact, the PPC is actually 6 years older than the SCP Foundation! I know we have a few SCP fans around (Damian, though he's more activeon the Discord) and while I haven't read any Pratchett (yet), I know we've got some fans of that as well. While TOS is a bit dated in a few aspects, it's definitely good reading and a guide to where we are as a community.

I'm Linstar, nice to meet you, and thanks for posting! Have an urple plushie.

-Ls

Edit: spelling.

Hi. I'm QuietCognition, and I'm very excited to be here! I found the PPC through TVtropes (which is apparently pretty common), and was quickly drawn in by the absurdism/surrealism and metafiction, which I love. (I also love parentheses.) My main experience with collaborative fiction projects comes from the extremely large (for a collaborative fiction) community of SCP, but I had been looking for a smaller community to possibly join, and was pleased notice that the PPC had both the good quality standards and maturity (in both age and writing) that some collaborative fiction communities seem to lack. (I also noticed a lot of Terry Pratchett related content, and he's my favorite, so that's a major plus in my book.) I'm currently reading my way through the Original Series, and will probably not be very active here until I'm done. I hope to learn a lot here and maybe get (or possibly give) some constructive criticism/critique. Thanks for reading my introduction!

I did leave a couple of otherwise very missionable fics alone because the author answered positively to my concrit - in fact, in one case I ended up in a message exchange in which the author proceeded to then ask my thoughts on the parts they hadn't written yet so as to whip those into shape too, and in another case the author went so far to discontinue the original version of his fic (was something like only a couple chapters in) and incorporate my advice in the reboot so as to fix the glaring inconsistencies with canon they had unwittingly introduced.

Proof that a subpar story might not be the result of sloppy work by a self-centered idiot, but simply the early, imperfect work of an inexperienced but earnest author who did the best they could at the time.

I actually don't think I ever ran into someone snapping back at me for leaving a non-stellar review, but I do remember an unsalvageable story being taken down soon after I left a review. It was in no way a scathing one, I mostly pointed out that several of the things they claimed about planes didn't work that way in a polite manner.

Nowadays my policy is to not make "proper" missions based on real badfics anymore (I'm fine with making missions about my old shames or made-up badfics, though, 'cause I still love the PPC setting), but then again my current works are pretty much "outside" the PPC so there's that.

What are your agents doing to celebrate?

Have we really had that many trolls try to tell authors about missions, though? Just curious.

-Ls, wishing everyone a merry Christmas.

Missions were never meant to be posted as direct reviews of a fic. I can't swear no one ever tried writing a mission in comments or reviewing in-character, but I'm pretty sure it would've been considered out of line even in the beginning. Flaming an author to their face was never encouraged, either, even when it wasn't as stringently discouraged.

I don't recall anyone within the PPC ever thinking it was a good idea to tell an author one of their stories had been missioned, either; that did happen, but as far as I know it was 99.9% trolls.

~Neshomeh