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So... I’m going for Permission, but I need someone to look over what I wrote. A beta would be appreciated.

Also, depending on Circumstances I may not be able to respond for a few days. Sorry in advance. Have a wonderful day.

*drops recent, coincidentally apt quote*

“My people didn’t ‘do’ writing. Given how much trouble it causes, I think they had the right idea.” —a Scythian warrior hailing from the fifth century BCE

Also, can you imagine the sci-fi PPC around 1930-1970? {= D

*subsides back into the morass of partially-finished writing projects*

~Neshomeh

Yeah, I can't stop thinking about this.

So, it's obviously ludicrous to try and break (Western) literature down into easily-identifiable periods, and therefore that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Obviously all periods are... kind of loose, but that's the way these things go.

-Early 2000s: the Era of Diversity. While non cishetwhitemen have always written and published, this is the era when their works have finally managed to break into the limelight. Currently very little PPC coverage of this - we're working mostly in fiction from:

-Mid to late 1900s: the Geekdom. From Tolkien to Rowling to comic movies, this is the period when geeky stuff went mainstream and became acceptable. Very much the playground of the PPC.

-Early 1900s: the Golden Age of Hollywood. Is it coincidence that a lot of what we remember from this period is detective fiction (Agatha Christie, loads of crime films, the entire Noir genre)? Maybe, maybe not. This is where the Noir PPC would slot in.

-Late 1800s: Escapism. This is the era of Wells and Verne, of Kipling and Twain and Conan Doyle. They took the seriousness of the previous era (see below) and threw in some seriously weird fantasy. This is probably the spot for the Steampunk PPC.

-Mid 1800s: Literary Realism. The Brontes, Austen, Dickens - during this period, a whole bunch of people thought that what we really wanted was a well-researched depiction of real life. I'm imagining a PPC equivalent set in a stately home.

-Early 1800s: Gothic Emo. Hello, Mary Shelley, have you met Lord Byron? Mr. Poe introduced us. The PPC of this era dresses in black and is prone to dramatic fits and torrid romances. Basically a whole bunch of horror-loving Byrons.

-Early to mid 1700s: The Uncensored Years. This period saw the rise of both satire - Jonathan Swift and Voltaire - and smut - Fanny Hill and (I believe) Tristram Shandy. Gods only know what their PPC would like like, though I imagine they wouldn't be very happy with the association with gods. There would be a small contingent trying to do things seriously, working fields like Robinson Crusoe, but they'd be a very small minority.

-Late 1600s: The Puritan Reign. Starting with the Commonwealth of England in 1649, and continuing with the Puritan domination of North America, this was I think a very religious era for literature. I'm not sure what the Puritans themselves thought of Milton's Paradise Lost, but a village of PPCers in daft hats musing on religion and condemning literary heresy would work.

-Late 1500s to early 1600s: The High Days of Theatre. Shakespeare, Marlowe, and their contemporaries. The Army for Protecting the Stage Worlds had a lot of work to do.

-Late 1400s to early 1500s: The Age of Printing. I don't know what this PPC would have been like, but I'm imagining them being founded right before the printing press was created, and being utterly overwhelmed thereafter.

Prior to this point I think things break down. You'd have a Chivalric Age when the Arthur stories were being written (which extends down to the Age of Printing and the Morte d'Arthur), probably contemporary with the Charlemagne stories and the Matter of France. That's your PPC Knights and archers, though how much they'd have to work with I don't know. Prior to that I suspect it's going to be a bunch of monks dealing with quirky visionaries claiming the Blessed Virgin told them she was really a lizard person.

Then, of course, we hit the Romans. I bet there's a lot of time periods we could break down in there, but I'll leave that for another day. ;) They segue into the Greeks, still playing with mythology, and ultimately I think we have to get back to the Epic of Gilgamesh. We know there were variant accounts of that story, so perhaps the earliest PPC was a group of Babylonian scribes scribbling brief tales of Gilgamesh and Enkidu killing off fake versions of themselves from then-current tablets.

hS

There's a criticism of solarpunk that runs something along the lines of "the solution to the environmental crises against which [solarpunk] pushes appears to be... farmer's markets", which is a slightly roundabout way of saying that the majority of solarpunk stories are a whole lot of pacifist worldbuilding and a whole not-very-much of stories where anything interesting takes place.

Basically, the plan going forward is to build the world organically (badum, and furthermore, tish)around a compelling narrative. Which, well... I'mma do my best. =]

Worst case scenario I'm out with family on errands, as is usual. =P

I found the whole concept utterly adorable (and heh, 'Guardens', that's pretty good). Though I'm not sure whether 'things happening' is kind of against the whole ethos... ;)

hS

It just needs, er...

A better ending.

And for something more to happen in the plot.

=]

As usual, thanks for the feedback, Doc - I'm really glad you took the time to read this one, as I feel that this is where my style really started to become solid after my first few missions. And yes, I do seem to write a lot of TOS-style stories; Zingenmir said the same about my next mission that he's currently betaing. I do read all sorts of PPC fiction now, but I started out with the older stuff, and writers like Jay and Acacia or Trojie and Pads really influenced the way I approach missions. I'm glad that it works in my writing; and I'm really glad that you appreciated Faelwen's scenes. I have quite a lot of plans for her character.

Also, I agree with you on the lobstrosities. :P I always appreciate unique monsters. And it's good to find a fellow Dark Tower fan here.

Recently we've been watching Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, which (aside from being extraordinarily tongue-in-cheek) plays with the idea that there have been multiple similar teams over time. I've also been reading The Wicked + The Divine, where 'every ninety years, twelve gods return as young people'. It's no exaggeration to say I really like this whole concept, and I'm wondering: can it be applied to the PPC?

(This post will use my timelines and histories; obviously if you choose not to accept those into your own understanding of PPC canon, that's your lookout.)

The Protectors of the Plot Continuum was founded in 1973, at the close of the Civil War on Origin. But... what if there were other organisations with a similar purpose, founded before the Flowers ever Awakened?

-The Plot Protection Agency follows many Noir film tropes. Those films seem to be set in the 1920s-40s; could it be that a detective agency, run by Flowers and with an alarming level of 'coincidentally' similar agents, protected the canon worlds in this timeframe?

-The Transfictional Canonical Defence Authority seems to have been active in the mid-1800s; its characters seem familiar, but that might simply be human pattern-seeking at work. It had its own community of writers, too. (It should be noted that the TCDA has explicitly crossed into the current PPC, which was assumed to be trans-multiverse travel... but could have just been time travel.)

-The Army for Protecting the Stage Worlds existed in the late 1500s, at the time of Shakespeare. Rather than narrative reports, its authors seem to have used spoken word to convey their message.

-Going in the opposite direction: the post-Sundering PPC was once explicitly a part of our PPC's future, but has been relegated to an abandoned timeline. That isn't to say that a remarkably similar organisation might not come into existence sometime in the 2060s.

-The tragically briefly-described Solarpunk PPC makes use of technology and attitudes that seem to be some way ahead of our own: I've always pictured Solarpunk as a whole fitting into a period after massive sea level rises, as a kind of recovery period. Could they spring up in the early 22nd century? It's entirely plausible.

This seems to be settling into a pattern of two 'PPC-esque' organisations appearing every century, with our current PPC semi-breaking the cycle by turning away from becoming the House of Rhodes. This opens up a whole lot of interesting possibilities - how about a Puritan PPC under Cromwell? A 1700s incarnation protecting the likes of Gulliver and Crusoe? - but the biggest one is this:

Where did it come from? All these organisations are too alike for coincidence: lots of them have Flowers, usually with the same or similar names, and there's a whole bunch of obvious-copy agents out there. Is there some ur-PPC that somehow managed to get its very nature imprinted on the Multiverse, and if so, how far back were they?

The Sunflower Official // supernal soul
Looked at the land // of the Lord of Fate
Decreed that domain // too dark, undetermined
And considered his capacity // to create a new World.
--from The Lore of Origin, a myth of the PPC's creation

I'm just saying... ^_~

hS

As usual, Huinesoron has--

--actually not quite. There is of course the Protectorate of Plort, Konti-Nyuum, but that's a PPC community AU, not a PPC canon AU.

For alternates of the PPC itself, the furthest back I've gone is Shakespeare. The Duke of Sparta and Dragonfly his fairy servant do most nobly defend the Stage Worlds in the Army of the Emperor Louis, but Tudor England is not medieval.

The inaugral issue of the Journal of Investigating Veracity by Experimentation features a paper mapping the known PPC multiverses, which links to the ones I know of. The Volatile Multiverse has been seen a bunch of times, showing up as a universe in which everything is themed around one canon - we've had Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars, and Doctor Who show up. The theory is that it's all the same 'verse, it just occasionally shifts without warning.

(I'm sorry - bringing up alternate PPCs is a surefire way to get me talking.)

One last point: the Steampunk PPC community refers to our PPC as 'electropunk'. It all goes both ways...

hS

If no one's written one already, I have a couple suggestions.

Option 1: Robin Hood AU. In a multiverse ruled by the tyrannical League of Mary Sue Factories, a group of outlaws led by the mysterious and elusive Flowers rises to fight the League and defend canon.

Option 2: High fantasy AU. Knights, castles, wizards, dragons, and all that.

I just think it would be fun to have everyone in the PPC talk like they're from Middle-Earth or Narnia.

Sounds good

That is:
- 2 PM Central
- 3 PM Eastern
- 7 PM UTC
- 8 PM Britain
- 9 PM Eastern

- Tomash

Mostly because poor Rodney's overbearing parents who would accept nothing less than the absolute best from him reminded me way too much of my own parents.

So I was on a "fic where Reality Ensues" bent and found a few of Harry Potter fics that really scratches that itch... (As much as I love the books, a dose of reality every now and then is quite refreshing...

(By White Squirrel):
Justice, Justice, You Must Pursue
Rated K+, Parody
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11961978/1/Justice-Justice-Shall-You-Pursue
Summary: Goblin courts are inhumane, the Ministry thinks it can arrange marriages, and Voldemort wants to oppress everybody. The muggle government is not amused.

Petrification Proliferation
Rated K+
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11265467/1/Petrification-Proliferation
Summary: What would have been the appropriate response to a creature that can kill with a look being set loose in the only magical school in Britain? It would have been a lot more than a pat on the head from Dumbledore and a mug of hot cocoa.

The first one shows what happens when the Muggle and Wizard Worlds collide. The other is a more reasonable take on the basilisk crisis in the second book.

(By JoeMerl)

Whatever Happened To Harry Potter?
Rated K+
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12579522/1/Whatever-Happened-to-Harry-Potter
Summary:
In which the other residents of Privet Drive are not as dumb as the Dursleys seem to think. Drabble

Basically, there are people who have noticed how the Dursleys have treated Harry, and they're not happy about it.

Or not that Wicked?

hS

I think all parents can be divided into those who are certain their child is a Chosen One, and those who are worried they're turning into a Rodney. Good stuff!

hS

Kinda gave me Wicked vibes? It's always fun to look at the day-to-day parts of fantasy worlds. Thanks for posting!

I feel like I've maybe said this before on one of your missions, but I'll say it again: I love how much you make this feel like a classic TOS-era mission. Especially impressive considering the NSFW subject matter, which Jay and Acacia and their contemporaries rarely ever touched. But the lust object moment, the getting spotted by canon characters and having to escape, and one partner having to restrain their partner from attacking the Sue early, all classic stuff that I love seeing in modern missions still.

I loved the gag with all the house elves accidentally getting yanked out of the Wizarding World. I also appreciated the assassination method; I have a weird fan love for the lobstrosities, despite what they did to Roland. This was a much more acceptable person for them to be swarming over!

I also liked that you treated the disillusionment and recruitment of Faelwen with an appropriate amount of serious emotion. I know we're primarily a humor community, but sometimes the reality of a situation needs to be apparent on the page. I hope Faelwen and the other elf do well in Headquarters!

—doctorlit, lobstrosity fanboy