The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

Glad the agents’ personalities showed through here! Funnily enough, I think the reason Jiwon’s fox traits felt realistic is because I spent an embarrassing amount of time researching what foxes do when frightened. Fixed up the contradiction near the start, too - thanks for catching that!

I’m pretty happy with how the old Cafeteria worked out as well! At least I think it did, judging by responses so far. It always felt like one of the less-explored facilities in HQ, despite the number of jokes about how weird it was in older works.

And yeah, I do wonder why the ‘eat the glitter’ part of the setting started, considering the whole in-universe idea on what glitter does. Am I missing something that makes it consistent? I might try researching the old lore, see if there’s an answer there.

To be honest? I forgot what the ‘familiar’ part of Tess’s name was exactly supposed to be - a downside of my WIPs taking months to even years of on-and-off work to finish, haha. I think it might have been in reference to the fact that there was another Tess in HQ around the time this takes place in?

But yeah, thanks for reading!

Hey, all! I've been wanting to run some CAHQ for a while now, and I have a bit of time today, so I'm gonna give it a whirl! Apologies for the short notice. If you don't make this one, let me know when would be a good time to try again.

You can find the game here. It's named "CAHQ" and the password is "Warsheep".

Fair warning: It is difficult to manage exposure to discomfort in this game, since that's sort of the point. We cannot remove individual cards, and while we strive to be sensitive to individual players' needs, mistakes happen. If you're not in a headspace where you could handle coming across something potentially upsetting, please consider sitting it out.

If you have suggestions for new cards, this thread is the place to make them. A few guidelines:

• Check the spreadsheets here to make sure there isn't already a card like the one you want to suggest. Note there are several tabs, one for each deck.

• Suggestions should not exceed PG-13/Teen, nor should they contain blatantly horrific, never-funny material.

• Try to make your suggestions things that will be funny in various contexts and to lots of people, not just you. Feel free to second suggestions you like so I know people want them!

• Avoid submitting agent names, especially your own. I will require at least two seconds (three total votes) to add any agent to the deck.

• Consider using a funny description instead of a character's name (e.g. "a flake with a camera"). These can be played without knowing anything else about the character, and getting the reference is a bonus!

• I reserve the right to tweak suggestions for SPaG, playability, and (relatively) good taste.

~Neshomeh

This fic tries to be that, but in reality it's a script fic that has overly long screaming (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!) repeated over and over with variable amounts of As, Gs and Hs. It tries to be gruesome but it just comes off as inept and hilarious. The fic still contains BL3-loaded stage directions though, so beware.

First Contact

Fun! I really feel Jiwon’s nervousness here. Meeting new people in an unfamiliar place is scary, and of course, Charlie looks like a big cat! (They could maybe also learn to open doors a little more calmly, too!) You did a great job of making Jiwon’s animal mannerisms feel realistic when in fox form; it actually reminds me of a fennec fox I know! And Charlie’s carefree attitude is always fun, but I think this scene serves as an excellent introduction to them!

On this sentence:
He couldn't see the rest of the figure, so he scooted back forward an inch or two . . .
“back” and “forward” contradict each other; it will flow better to drop the “back.”
. . . so he scooted forward an inch or two . . .

Years Prior

Yay, I love seeing bits of PPC history revisited! And I love a bit of deconstruction of the past PPC’s view of Suvians, since they had a bit of “simultaneously threatening and pathetic” going on, there. It makes sense to me that at least some of the Suvians really weren’t down with suddenly being turned into soldiers. (I wonder if the Bindweed was using all the best warrior!Suvians in actual stories, and only had Suvians built for other genres, or just poor quality Suvians, available when the Somebody ordered the invasion?) I hope some of the other less offensive Suvians made it to safety, as well! (I also like the detail that the factory Suvians also refer to the invasion as an “emergency.” A bad time was had by all!)

I really love your expansion on the Kitchens as being a horrific labyrinth! It gives better justification to the fact that the Cafeteria workers never see each other. I’m especially tickled by the idea that the Kitchen maze is arbitrarily filled with bathrooms, most of which probably never even see use! You also did a good job of showing the sanitary conditions of the Kitchens through character actions, rather than just stating it as background detail. (Tess noticing the staining, Matterhorn drinking from measuring cups and chopping with a rusted knife, etc.)

I’ve never really vibed with the joke about the Cafeteria serving Suvian meat, not on any moral ground, but just because it contradicts what the setting has established about glitter. It doesn’t make sense that anyone eating in the Cafeteria regularly wouldn’t eventually develop dangerous existential side effects from doing so. But I know that’s a long-established element of the setting, so this isn’t really a criticism of this story specifically, just me venting about our overall inconsistency about how dangerous glitter actually is.

What’s the joke with Tess’s name? It sounds a bit familiar to me too, but nothing is coming to memory . . .

—doctorlit, needing Charlie as a role model in chill

Thank you so much for reading! =) (And for linking your old comment, I definitely missed that one! Yes, that was Blessie with the reddened nose. XD) Yes, I have definitely wanted it to be clear that Blank is prejudiced. Her opinions should be framed as wrong and harsh and yes, bloodthirsty, since people around her (that are not Moira) comment on it and disapprove. Moira was in dire need of someone like Summer to voice it more directly. Autumn would be more subtle, Buddy would not have the right words, and neither are the kick in the pants Moira needs.

Summer is great fun to write, so I'm glad you like her! (And that the Buffyspeak is coming through. XD) Technically Buddy has probably been around her before, but I doubt he was very interested when she was all Sued up. She's more of a character now. We'll see where that romance goes, but I definitely think there'll be a lot more awkward interruptions by a Moira who Will Not Have It.

I know 100% what happened to Zit, and I'm going to be getting into detail in my next installment, whenever that is. It'll be an Interlude. More answers will be coming!

I'm so glad someone spotted Blank's last name. XD I've known it for a few months now. It was never a part of her original character, she's never had a last name before now, but I can confirm it was the one she had in Sparklee. I just found it absolutely irresistable, so I'm thrilled you noticed!

Thank you again for reading, and for your very thoughtful reviews!

/Ekwy

I prefer *Glorthal over *Glordal (assuming my source is correct that T -> TH is also allowed). But given the canon precedents, clearly Celebrindal and Glórindal would've been best. I think Moira's point is just that the concepts were sound, though.

Another thing that made me twitch: The fic's author had a habit of sticking acute accents in places they don't belong, hence the mispronunciation of Eru: it was written Erú in the fic. Eh-ROOOO. {X D

~Neshomeh

And yeah, fair enough on the Suvian label point. Felt like emulating the times this story took place in, but I could've probably done with restricting it to dialogue, yeah. Removing the gendering of the term does make things easier too, for sure.

It... distresses me that it was so long ago that you can title something like this "Years Prior".

Anyway, most of the good stuff I noted was already commented by Neshomeh, including nattering about Defectives and Slorp. (The original Defectives were just sort of pale and colourless, but the term just means any Suvian who didn't come out of the tank perfect and glittery; I think Tess would be one by definition, but I'm not gonna force the label on her.)

On the word "Suvian" - you're right that it only came in later, but I personally project it back as well (see: this set in 1999). My reason is that "Mary Sue" has always been, and increasingly is, used as a sexist insult to any female character the speaker doesn't like. When we've got an alternative available, I'd prefer to use it. But that's my own decision, not some sort of mandate. (It also saves me having to decide which male version to use - they're all just Suvians. ^_^)

hS

I don't really have a head for useful comments right now, other than I enjoyed it, so I will limit myself to linguistics:

"Adenessa calls her sister ‘Thie’." - chopping the elements of her name up like that makes me twitch. ^_^

"Glortál and Celebtál" - the T should mutate to a D for the second element of compounds, and I think the accent gets dropped too, so *Glordal and *Celebdal. There is actually a canonical Silverfoot (it's Idril's nickname); that version is Celebrindal, from Celeb + ren, an adjective suffix. The adjective form glórin is also attested (in Glórindol, "goldenhead"), so Celebrindal and Glórindal would probably be the Tolkien forms. Alternately Glordail and Celebdail might work (with "feet" rather than "foot"); the example of Celebdil shows that the -bd- is allowable.

hS

It's a bit short, but that's okay.

I don't know why u changed the names if u were only going to change one letter, but I guess its funny?

For concrit, it's Sherwood Forest actually... even in the Disney version. Sherbert Forest sounds sticky lol.

(( Thinking about how a PPC kid approaches fanfic is something else, isn't it? I'm trying, but it's a stretch. Doesn't help that I was never a 14-year-old boy. {X D ))

And glad you like it! This is a slight shift from the type of writing I’m used to, so it’s nice to know I’m not fully lost at it, heh. Things like the unsafety of the kitchens and the explanations for most of the invading Suvians being useless were very fun to write.

About Tess… honestly? I didn’t think about the Defectives when making her, but it does look like a neat possibility. I’d have to research them some more before deciding in full confidence, but it would explain a bit.

Funnily enough, the foreshadowing to Slorp is mostly unintentional - but this does kind of work as that, now that I think of it. A nice surprise, for sure!

I’ll admit, I think I forgot about POV consistency while I was writing this. Probably something to keep in mind for the future, or at least figure out how to manage it smoother for pieces like this one.

And I’ll definitely keep the less descriptors in mind as well. Looking back on it, I’ve noticed I have a tendency to go a bit florid and/or redundant when describing settings, so thanks for the heads-up on that! I’ll prolly give this one another check to clear out some extra descriptors.

(Also I’m glad First Contact came out fine too! Was slightly worried I’d mess something up because of how much I changed it from the original, haha.)

Thanks for checking these out!

The decks are there and playable on CLRTD, but I can't edit them if I can't log in to my account. {= / I've sent an email about it, but I have no idea how well supported this is, so... fingers crossed.

ETA: Looks like I can log in on Firefox, but not Chrome for some reason. So I'll just proceed with Firefox. New thread coming soon! {= )

~Neshomeh

Yes, good, I like this verbal beatdown! I agree with everything Kaguya said, especially in Inasuke’s case. It was well deserved! The hug was a surprise to me, as well, but I guess Kaguya is just the type to want to smooth things over more than break them. Hopefully the boys can be less competitive with Kaguya from now on . . .

My prediction about how this story arc was going to end was very wrong. I totally assumed Momoka was going to wind up accepted into the club, purely because she was the only one not feeling unhealthy pressure to conform to its standards. But then again, why would she want to join? Kaguya wouldn’t be there! : )

In the line:
Isn't that not humiliating enough?
“Isn’t” contains the word “not” inside, so you’ve got a double negative. Either “Is that not humiliating enough?” or “Isn't that humiliating enough?” are both correct.

—doctorlit is old enough to remember when the Pennacook Club was first introduced

I like it!

I guess Tess is one of the Defectives? (Or maybe a couple of them smashed together?) It seems to fit her pale, unfinished appearance and lack of obvious abilities.

And, I don't recall if it was the intention at the time or not, but it does make sense to me that the Factories cranked out a bunch of Defectives to fill out the Sue army for the Invasion. It DOES explain why most of them were so useless, haha.

You're not the first person to observe that, incidentally. Not to toot my own horn, but IIRC, one of the comments I got on "Gestalt Therapy" was that it was the first Invasion story someone had read that made them believe the agents might actually be in danger. Though even so, thinking back, I'm wondering if I could have had more people than Barker get seriously injured, and like, more on-screen... Ah well. It's a long time ago now.

I like your description of the kitchens! It's kind of terrifying, not least because of Matterhorn's blatant disregard for food safety. No wonder Cafeteria food is so hit or miss. You never know whose "cuisine" is going to make it to the buffet line on any given day. {X D

Big kudos for the foreshadowing of Slorp, too!

One critique: You switch point of view from Matterhorn to Tess, and I was thrown off a bit when we started getting her visual impressions and opinions when we'd started out following Matterhorn's. I point this out only because I'm not sure if it was an intentional choice or something that just happened while you were writing. You definitely can switch POVs in a story (without announcing it, even)—just make sure you're doing it for a reason. {= )

General writing pointer: Consider removing at least one adjective/adverb before leaving the paragraph. Some examples from the first two paragraphs:

labyrinthian maze

This is redundant. You could take just the stronger of the two terms, labyrinth, and have an overall stronger sentence.

In one of these kitchens was an old, incredibly wrinkled man in Cafeteria-standard whites, his apron and bristly gray beard smeared with thick sauce. He chopped away at an onion, occasionally pausing to wipe the fumes from his beady, sunken eyes with the back of his bony hand.

Loooots of descriptors in this paragraph; you could probably stand to lose at least two. First, I'd cut "thick" and optionally use a stronger verb than "smeared" to give the impression. Slopped or caked, maybe.

Second, I'd cut "beady, sunken" and, again optionally, use a simile instead. It's hard (for me) to reconcile beady (bead-like, round and shiny) with sunken (in shadow, possibly dull from ill health), so some imagery would be very helpful in getting across what you mean. Are his eyes, idk, bear-like, perhaps? But really, I don't think this is the place to be describing his eyes at all, since the action you're narrating has him covering them. Focus on the hand here, and save the eyes for a moment when they're important.

I also read "First Contact," but as short as it is, I'm afraid I don't have much to say about it. I'd definitely grant you Permission (again), though. ^_~

~Neshomeh

Oh my gosh, I am so glad you recruited Summer last mission! She is an absolute joy to read here. Her knee jerk reaction to ship anyone she finds “nice” is a hilarious behavior to hold over from her narrative (and dare I say, an excellent commentary on how “western culture” exalts romance to be greater than other forms of love?), and I love that it swung back around as an advantage in tricking Falathiel at the end. The Falathiel/Balrog moment was so funny to picture happening, and it makes sense that a Suvian can be easily swayed by another Suvian’s brand of illogic! And you’ve done a great job of making Summer feel like she really did step out of Sunnydale; her dialogue sounds very “Buffyspeak,” as they say, and the love-at-first-sight moment between Summer and Buddy has a similar vibe to the canon relationship writing from the show. But I especially loved how Summer really deconstructed Moira’s behavior, and her relationship with Blank. As I mentioned in my comment on your last mission (which I think you missed because I couldn’t get to reading it for a long time, sorry!), I’ve been bothered by how prejudiced Blank is, and how she’s been treating Moira, so it was nice hearing Summer point out the toxicity there and encourage Moira.

Oh, man. I read Blank’s reaction to Falathiel holding her siblings at swordpoint, and I figured it had to have something to do with Zit. And while I wasn’t wanting Blank to get hurt, I appreciated the scene where Blank tried to confront Falathiel alone and got snapped out of her fugue by the injury, I . . . Man, I just wasn’t expecting that last line of the mission. I’m sure there’s context I’m missing right now, but at the moment, I’m just sad that Zit went down due to one of his friends. : ( Poor Zit, poor Blank, poor Autumn!

I also want to say, that “She forgot the ‘y’ in ‘canyon’” scene was a masterpiece. It’s such a funny typo to have to interpret, but you made it such an artistic and beautiful moment to read! Even though I guess I should feel bad for Middle-earth there instead!

—doctorlit wonders how long you’ve been waiting to drop that “Blank’s surname is ‘Slate’” bomb on us

i really liked the part where he killed thenm all and they died :D

And with this, the Pennacook Club Membership arc is over! 🎊🎉

hello! my name is Valentine (aka HeartCandy), welcome to the board!

have a rubber duck that can change into any outfit you desire for it!

-Valentine <3

Read 'em, y'all, they're good!

-Ls

Nice to meet ya, the name's Linstar. Well, not teally, but anyway....

Have an Ice Cream Koan! It's delicious and decidedly not that deep.

-Ls

Title: When PPC Agents Need Help

Author: Glycoside Party

Summary: What happens when two PPC agents need help? Will they learn something??

ONCE upon a time there was a very old PPC agent named Tafydd Issian. He was incredibly old, like older than dirt, and everything he said seemed to start with "when I was young, back before the BIG BANG".

His partner was Nonstance Zims, who was not as old but said she felt older. Everything she said started with "ow my back aches". And they worked together, stabbing things and setting them on fire, or sometimes the other way round. And Tafydd was an elf.

Now this all happened so long ago that there were only three canons, and they were the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Silmarillion, and that Robin Hood movie with the foxes in it. And Tafydd and Nonstance went on a mission to the Robin Hood, but little did they know!

ONCE upon a time in Sherlock Forest, Robin Hood and his friends Sparrow Hat and Qua-qua Cap were playing a game. The game was called Don't Let The Sherrif Catch You, and the goal was not to let the Sheriff catch them.

"Oh dear," said Nonstance as the agents got there, "they got the name of the forest wrong."

"Yes," said Tafydd, "everyone knows it is Sherbert Forest."

Nonstance groaned because her back ached. "But we will do better than the Sherriff, because we will catch them."

So Nonstance took her knives and Tafydd took his fire things, and they went into Sherbert Forest after Robin and his two friends, because they realised that his friends were Suvians. Because Sparrow Hat was a girl, and the patriartchy says that Robin Hood wasn't allowed to have girl friends apart from Maid Marian (even though the girls in the film are cool, like the nurse and the little rabbit), and Qua-qua Cap ran around saying "I'm gonna steal from the POOR and give to the RICH", and he pretended it was a joke but the agents could knew that it wasn't.

The Sherif and King John and Sir Hiss were walking through the forest when suddenly an arrow hit King John's crown! It knocked it off and Sparrow Hat stole it.

"Get that hat!" shouted King John.

"Do you mean the girl or the crown?" shouted Sire Hiss.

"I mean the crown obviously!" shouted King John.

"Good because I don't hit girls!" shouted the Shirrif , even though HE REALLY DID because he was a baddie.

"Why is there so much shouting," asked Nonstance, "it makes my head hurt."

"Nobody should be allowed to shout," agreed Tafydd, "even when it is really important and they need to get your attention but you just tell them off for it."

"I am glad we agree," said Nonstance.

"Look, Sparrow Hat is by herself." Tafydd pointed to where Sparrow Hat was hiding in the forest while the Sheriif looked for her (but didn't find her). "Let's go and kill her."

The agents snuck through Sherbert FOrest, but OOPS! They forgot that Robin Hood had laid traps! They fell into a hole and were trapped at the bottom of it.

"Oh bother," said Nonstance.

"In my day we didn't fall into traps," said Tafydd.

"Are you okay?" said a nother voice, and they looked up to see two children! One was a fox girl with a blonde streak of fur on her head, and one was a speedy sloth who was hanging upside down in a tree.

"Hello," said the girl, "I am Thaphne and this is my bother Woleander. We live in the forest."

"We used to have parents but they were killed by King John," said Woleander, but he didn't look sad about it.

"Oh, you live in the forest," said Tafydd. "Then you must know Robin Hood."

"We do!" said Thaphne. "But we don't know his new friends."

"We don't like them", said Woleander, hissing like a snake (but he wasn't a snake). "We think they are evil."

"You are completely right," said Nonstance, "well done. They are called Suvians and we are here to kill them."

"But we are stuck in a hole," said Tafydd, "so you will have to kill them instead."

"Okay," said Thaphne and Woleander, and they took Nonstance's knives (but not Tafydd's fire things because they knew that lighting fires in a forest is really dangerous and nobody wants another Rivendell Incident) and went to find the Suvians. It wasn't hard, because Tafydd taught them to read the WOrds.

Sparrow Hat and Qua-qua Cap were by the Sherlock River, arguing about the crown. "We should give it to the poor," said Sparrow Hat.

"We should give it to the rich," said Qua-qua Cap with an evil smile.

But they weren't paying attention to what was going on nearby. Thaphne and Woleander snuck up on them, and then Thaphne stabbed Sparrow Hat and Woleander stabbed Qua-qua Cap, and they died.

"Good job," said Tafydd.

"We couldn't have done it without you," said Nonstance.

"I wish I had known you when I was a child," said Tafydd, "which was a very long time ago."

"Now I understand that children are great at doing things and don't need to be told off," said Nonstance.

"Wow, thank you!" said Thaphne. "Can we join the PPC?"

"You already have by your amazing work," said Tafydd. "Welcome, Agent Thaphne and Agent Woleander! We will take you to the Sunflower immediately."

"WHat's a Sunflower?" asked the children together as they went through the portal and into… their destiny.

FINE

[Waits for surprise]

[Nobody is surprised]

So! I have an index of every PPC story that a) was posted by and b) still existed by June 2020. There's no reason it couldn't go further; that's just when I did the archiving. The early stuff isn't entirely accurately dated, because there was a lot of detective work involved, but after 2008 it's mostly based directly on Board posts.

The index also includes author names - or rather attributions. Two authors who wrote separately, but also had a cowrite, will appear as three entries ("Jay", "Acacia", "Jay & Acacia"). I don't think this is a serious problem, but for transparency.

Note: I have excluded anything tagged "Fanfic Land" or "FanficWorld" from this data.

I also have this recent graph of Board activity. It's a bit approximate, but I can convert it into average threads per day easily enough; a very rough check we did in the same thread shows that thread count and total post count are strongly correlated.

Put it all together, multiply the threads-per-day by 5 to get them on the same scale, and shift the story count to a second Y axis so we can line it all up:

• Story count and author count are strongly correlated. That's good! It means the PPC has never been supported by a couple of authors writing profusely - the more people we have, the more we write.

• The exception is in 2002-2006, when it looks like we had a whole bunch of authors who didn't really do much. I would guess there were a lot of one-off stories in there.

• Board activity is very rough data, but it looks like it doesn't track with actual PPC content, at least generally. The big 2011 spike is entirely missing from the Board activity; that was more writing without more posts.

• Again, the exception... 2015 was a spike for everything, followed by a sharp decline for everything. The writing spike in 2018 didn't affect the Board, and everything dropped back down again after that.

• More data is needed. ^_^ Specifically, the massive Board dropoff from the other post started in 2020, so we don't have the data to know if it was reflected in the story count. At some point I'll work through the last 40 pages or so of the Board and update the index, but not right now.

Bonus graph: stories broken down by both year and month:

Um... yeah, that 2011 spike is a Badfic Games that didn't get properly excluded. Oh well!

hS