The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

Guess we'll be checking out some "lands to the East," then? Are we going to be learning something about the Blue Wizards, perhaps?

As for the Sea of Rhûn, the John Howe map of Middle-earth hanging on the wall over my desk DOES have an island in that location, but it does not appear to be a sunken one. Curious. And, is it just me, or is there a bit of the "sunken island" ring outline that looks like it might represent a gate, such as a ring-shaped lake town might have? Curioser and curiouser.

~Neshomeh

Amazon have started a Twitter account for their Middle-earth series.

Wroop, wroop, this is not a drill.

The first tweet is an unlabelled map of Middle-earth. Mostly so far so canon, but - paging DOGA - it features what looks like a sunken island in the Sea of Rhun (that might be pilfered from the old RP game), as well as a brand new eastern forest and mountain range.

hS

D & G = S.S. Sturm und Drang? {= P

~Neshomeh might be uncool for naming her own characters' 'ship, but oh well.

Though last we saw them, Ilraen had just given her that disastrous Monster Book of Monsters present, I believe. We should really rectify that sometime. :P

Okay, they got hitched in 2018, but they're still cute. {= )

Other contenders may include Derik and Gall, but that's just terrifying.

... Ix, we should figure out if Ilraen and Farilan are still a thing. Like, I assume yes? Probably?

And let's not even get into the fluffy love polygons of HQ's resident polyamorous pansexuals...

~Neshomeh

Also, Ix and I already came up with a Spanish place in New Cal called Sabor del Mar, which presumably does quite a bit of seafood. {= )

Which reminds me, I think I found where a bunch of the other restaurants were originally mentioned, in one of the 2013 Multiverse Monitor issues. I'm gonna go add that reference to the article.

~Neshomeh

I'd had the idea for a seafood restaurant with prismarine décor inside, but prismarine seems to have been made up for Minecraft. That makes it a no-go for construction in the New Caledonia base, I presume?

(Disclaimer: Not actually Valentine's Edition, except when it is.)

Fandom News



IO9

This has literally just dropped onto my newsfeed, and it utterly drives out the release of Civilisation VI: Gathering Storm to take top spot in the news: Lego are making a Jurassic World prequel mini-series, and releasing (obviously) tie-in toys. One of which is a T. rex mecha, complete with Rexy to fight it.

But I guess you can talk about computer games instead, if you're boring.

Old News



Wikipedia, National Geographic

102 years ago on Wednesday, Mata Hari, AKA Margaretha MacLeod-Zelle, was executed by France as a German spy. An exotic dancer and famous courtesan, it's pretty clear that the only spying she actually did was on behalf of France, and that her arrest was the result of a frame by the Germans.

In what's either a hilariously blatant loophole, or massive cultural appropriation, she apparently got away with breaking obscenity laws (Wikipedia has a picture of her in just a bra, for instance) by claiming that all her dances were based on Far Eastern temple rituals.

New News



NASA

Also on Wednesday, NASA finally announced the end of Mars rover Opportunity's mission. 15 years ago, it landed with an expected lifespan of 90 days; contact was lost in June 2018 during a dust storm, and never restored.

The last message received from Opportunity, on June 10th last year, can be summed up as 'My battery is low and it's getting dark'.

The last message sent to it was a series of recovery commands, accompanied by Billie Holiday's version of I'll Be Seeing You:

I'll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I'll be looking at the moon
But I'll be seeing you

PPC News



This week, HQ has been rocked by the quest to find the Official PPC Couple for the Year of the Incontrovertible Skunk. The Multiverse Monitor's campain, What If We Just Make It Christianne And Eledhwen Again?, got off to a strong start, but has foundered after PPC Radio ran a What If We Don't counter-campaign. Radio Nutmeg's efforts to organise a holographic deathmatch for candidates grabbed the enthusiasm of former agent Dafydd Illian, but he dropped out in a sulk after being told that, as a retired agent, he didn't qualify. The REAL Multiverse Monitor's planned event, Naked Mud Wrestling Valentine, has been shelved until further notice.

Clerical News



DeviantArt

INT: Roll to geek out.
CHA: Roll for persuasion.
DEX: Roll to sneak past.
WIS: Roll to find a better route.
CON: Roll to just keep rollin'.

Six comics in, and we have our first actual dungeon! The goblins here owe a lot to classic gremlins, but I think we can all agree that Magic Geek Goblin Kid needs a spinoff of his own. ^_^

hS

Lieutenants of the Iron Hands are named Naysmiths and are charged with challenging and cross-examining their Captains' battle plans to test for errors of human logic.


-Space Marines Codex, 8th ed.

There's a shot of Anna running onto a balcony to see a host of floating crystal things in blue/purple colours, with little designs on them. It's totally an alien invasion. ^_^

I think the whole autumn thing is just them travelling to another land, with the teaser using it to set a different-season theme in a film that isn't actually about the discovery of autumn. The comment about the heart-shaped fire was pretty tongue-in-cheek; it's an idea that's bounced around the internet for a long time, but there's no reason to think Disney have even heard about it.

And... it's not surprising that the shipping in Frozen fandom is pretty messed up. The characters available are: two princesses, a manipulative villain, a human weasel, a reindeer and his human buddy, some rock trolls... and a snowman. Elsa and Human Sven Kristoff never really talk, so unless you want the canon ship or to include a literal villain, who are you going to go for?

hS

Disclaimer, I haven't watched the trailer

Are they, like, literally described as aliens, or are you just calling them aliens casually? Because if they're actual aliens, in a freaking fairy tale world, I have a huge problem with this. Also, the designs, from your description, are way too sci-fi for a fairy tale world. I know that Disney's trying to break tropes to keep themselves in good standing with increasingly feminist parents, but honestly, making sense and fitting into the story comes first.

I also have problems with what really seems like Disney giving in to the Frozen fanfic/making fanfic-level of sense. The discovery of autumn sounds like someone's building off of the mistaken assumption that it's winter all the time in Arendelle. Although I do admit that fire is the logical next step if you already have an ice character, that's also what most fanfic writers use for the other character/their first Elsa recolor/Anna's headcanon powers. The vague heart-shape is probably you overanalyzing, although the idea of Disney giving Elsa a girlfriend isn't as impossible to me as I once thought, as they do already have gay characters in their TV shows. On the other hand, those are targeted towards older kids, whereas anything with princesses is for younger kids, and you know how the younger the kid is, the more threatened the parents feel if they run across something in kids' media they don't like...

I'm probably overreacting, but that's what happens when I dig into the Frozen fandom and find that the most popular ship is Annacest.

-Twistey

Have some return chocolate and enjoy your stay!

There seem to be quite a few in the yo kai watch community currently, especially on fanfiction.net.

In honor of Valentine's Day, because we all know that every Mary Sue's main purpose in life is to hook up with whatever character her author thinks is hot, are there any fandoms currently experiencing a flood of annoying and unrealistic original characters? My fandoms' heydays came and went long before I got into them, and I'm curious.

(Do they count as spoilers when they're for a trailer?)

Things I spotted:

-Elsa doing magical research is really interesting! She doesn't seem to be trying to achieve a specific goal, just to "test [her] limits/and break through".

-The alien invasion is... spooky. Are they purple/pink, to match the fire Elsa's fighting off later? There seem to be three different designs: concentric diamonds, a bird-foot with dots, and a teardrop/tree that looks lighter in colour.

-Nothing much to say about the Charge of the Sven Brigade, except that I think those trees are some kind of beech.

-It looks like Anna gets trapped somewhere, underground or down a ravine or something. Her clothes match the autumn scene from later.

-Magical fire! In a vague heart-shape, for anyone still hoping for Elsa/fire-queen 'shipping. ^_~

-New character! I actually get Brave vibes off the whole of Autumn Land, though this definitely isn't Merida. I think the magical pop-up is Anna, but I'm not positive.

-Aaaaand hero shot, where the gang discovers... autumn? I don't really know, there's no reason 'gasp - trees, but orange!' should be a thing. But apparently, per the stinger, there's... something in the woods?

Kaitlyn pointed out that the aesthetic seems to draw a bit from Coco, for which they clearly invented a leaf-simulator. It looks a lot darker than Frozen itself, colour-wise (the plot of Frozen is pretty darn dark), so... yeah, looks good.

Dangit Disney I need some of my money.

hS

When I say obscure, I’m talking “throwaway line in book probably no-one else has read”. So I’m not expecting anyone to get it. And I’m not telling, either. *evil laugh* Well, not yet, anyway.

Have a suit of used Imperial Guard flak armor, guaranteed for life.(Average life expectancy of deployed guardsman: 15 hours)

Hehe, I'll have to read the fic at some point. Funfun. ^_^

We have heard from Saphie occasionally over the years. Unless it was Andy sometimes. I believe they're still working together, and eventually plan to publish a book based on the (heavily tweaked) concept of "Suedom."

I've just remembered I have a link to Saphie's blog, and I should remember this more often, because wow, I like what she has to say!

~Neshomeh may be telling you something you already know?

And it looks surprisingly good.

I didn’t actually watch it. (I would need a German dub to understand people talking, or a script to read what they are saying.) This guess is entirely based on poking into Mark Watches to get more of the pop culture references I usually don’t get.

HG