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Cracked versions of course, but those were it.

I'm glad a lot of my strengths showed through with this mission, and while I was worried that the discussions of whether Lilac is the real Violet or not would overtake the story itself, I'm glad you feel they fit in well enough! You can thank 1visible for the idea of the paper masks; the previous draft involved the agents basically cosplaying as some of the mercs, but their suggestion was even funnier and made SO much more sense. xD

That sentence you bought up as an issue was actually an artifact from a previous version of the story I had planned, where Lilac acknowledged herself to be different from Violet and, as such, was more upset at the way Violet was being treated on principle rather than projecting herself onto the canon character like in this version. When I go back over this mission to fix the typos you discussed (thanks btw!), I'm probably going to change it to:

"'I know it sounds weird, coming from me, but I at least have the decency to take my character seriously, even if I'm no longer wearing my old suit,' said the newbie."

Or something like that. And I'll probably look over the rest of it and adjust her dialogue accordingly so Lilac believes herself to be the real Violet, which actually WAS a part of her creative history. Let's just say that V-Wrex wasn't my only attempt at writing Vi over the years, which isn't surprising considering that I crushed on her when I was like ELEVEN or so, to the point where I had a version of her as an imaginary friend.

...Hmm. Now I'm seriously tempted to send poor Lilac into a Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends badfic someday...

"Name's Katarina Eagle, but everyone calls me Kat. Nice to meet you." She was at first a little startled by Farah's fur, but hid her reaction well. After all, she had feathers herself, even if they weren't immediately obvious.

I think you did a good job in this mission of laying out the tension between Lilac and the more veteran agents. The question of Lilac’s identity is constantly on all their minds, but rather than having the characters talk about it bluntly, you let it simmer in the background. It bubbles out into the dialogue occasionally, but mostly, you communicate it through speech tone and facial expression. That said, I’m not totally on-board with the conclusion to the conflict. Right in the opening scene, you establish that while Lilac believes herself to be a Violet Parr, she already recognizes that doesn’t necessarily make her the same as the one in the movie:

"'I know it sounds weird, coming from someone who diverged from Vi a long time ago, but I at least have the decency to take her character seriously,' said the newbie."

[Sarah] still couldn’t believe that the new girl had yet to accept that she was not, in fact, an alternate-universe Violet in all but name.

This at least shows that, even if Lilac is choosing to believe herself the canon Violet, she also recognizes that alternate universe versions of a character can exist, and she even refers to Violet as a separate character. So at the end of the story, I don’t understand Lilac’s surprise when the Violet in the fic turns out to be the real one. It seems to me she was already aware of the possibility of other Violets being real, so potentially, this wouldn’t even change her beliefs. Is there some aspect to her character or history I’m not understanding?

I liked that you had your agents discuss the fact that Team Fortress isn’t a very rigid canon, and that they weren’t judging the badfic on that angle. I like to communicate in the mission when things aren’t charge-worthy, or are only ambiguously so, so it’s good to see other PPCers do the same! I also loved the gag behind the disguises. Very clever!

Some typos:

"'Team Fortress 2,' Sarah explained. 'It’s like, this darkly comedic team-based first-person shooter. That’s where the Spy is from, and I think he’s a lot older than, say, Tony Rydinger, for example…'
'I’m not so concerned about that.' Sarah punched her palm. 'Isn’t Vi only fourteen?!'"
Sarah is talking to herself.

"'Besides, I’ve been wondering…'
'Of what, exactly?' asked Falchion, earning him a slightly annoyed look from his adopted sister."
I’m not familiar with "wonder of" being used as a verb phrase. I think you can drop the "of" here and retain the same meaning. It sounds a bit awkward to me this way.

"The agents stepped out of the portal and back into the base, abandoning a plate of cold bacon that had been sitting there in the kitchen. Said bacon was gone in a matter of minutes, courtesy of Falchion."
For me, abandoning food means not eating it. Unless you meant they’re abandoning an empty plate that formerly contained bacon? But "a plate of cold bacon" reads to me as a plate still containing bacon, so I’m a little confused about the meaning here.

"The agents hid in the very darkest corner of the room as her gaze fell upon them the men before her, and then focused on Violet herself."
Extra word.

"There was this one time, for example, when she and the canon Stratogale had laid eyes, and the poor agent had gone into a minor existential meltdown, not that she’d let her companions know it."
I know this phrase as "laid eyes on each other." I’ve never seen "laid eyes" used in that shortened form before. If that’s longer than you wanted in that sentence, you could also potentially use "met eyes."

"'Maybe it’s ‘cuz she’s too young for the job?' asked Sarah.
The agents were silent for a few moments.
'Or maybe,' she mumbled, 'that is NOT the real me.'"
I’m pretty sure that "she" is supposed to be Lilac, but as these sentences stand, it sounds like it’s Sarah speaking more.

"'. . . by order of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, you are hereby charged with being a character replacement on account of willingly agreeing to being conscripted to the BLU team, knowing full-well that they can’t care less about the lives of others, and are willing to take them if it means getting paid.'"
That "them" is out of place in this sentence; there wasn’t really a plural noun before it for "them" to serve as a pronoun for. Were you maybe wanting to say "take those terms" or some-such?

—doctorlit in a busy week

I had suspected it for a little while. After all, we've got jetpacks, robots for doing household chores, and modern smartphones are actually more powerful than most older sci-fi imagined, but it's nice to get confirmation :)

My first thought on seeing that that we'd caught up with the date of a piece that was set in the future was 'It's like PPC history, but opposite'. I don't know why, but that amused me.

I do find it funny that we now catching up with the times that some older sci-fi is set. Not just the future, but the cyberpunk future: 2019 is the year the original Blade Runner was set, and 2020 has long been associated with cyberpunk. We're even approaching the earlier dates mentioned in the Ghost in the Shell backstory, I think that refers to events in the 2020s or 2030s.

-Irish

A Guild seems like a good idea to me, assuming that we can get this off the ground. In all honesty, I probably wouldn't do too much RP (outside of picking my character's responses in the dialogue trees - if I'm playing the game then I probably want to actually be playing the game), but it'd be useful to have a group to go to, and I'm sure there would be other useful stuff - like access to the guild shared storage. I had a couple of high level crafters that I used to use to give my mates and I an edge when we were playing regularly, back before all the Zakuul nonsense, and ridiculous XP gain. I don't know if player-crafted gear will actually be relevant now that you can gain levels so quick, but they might be able to create some useful stuff for sharing around.

My main is an Imperial Operative named Sephler, on the Darth Malgus server. I don't really have a Republic main at the moment, because there wasn't much point once the two factions got merged into one storyline. If you do make a character on Darth Malgus feel free to drop me a line.

There's also a couple of other people I know that might be up for joining in: the guys I used to play with, and an ex-WoW player or two that used to do raids - they might be interested in the group content like flashpoints. I could reach out and see if they're interested, if you'd like? I know you originally pitched it as 'PPCers playing SWTOR', but it doesn't look like there's that many of us that play.

-Irish

This is a story I wrote for my Creative Writing MA. I hope y'all like it. Be warned, it is a story about mental health and goes to some dark places. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED

On A Clear Day

Reading comprehension. It's important, and I just screwed mine up. My apologies.

Combat Evolved, then Halo 2 for Windows Vista. I hear Halo Wars 2 is also for PC.

A garish green vending machine and his hoodie wearing friend walk in. The vending machine looked festive, wearing a gold top hat style party hat and Mardi Gras party beads while twirling one of those noise makers. "Oh yeah, time to make 2019 twenty fine-teen!"

His less than festive companion gave him a deadpan. "3 seconds in and I already need drink. Thank you Spensor."

The pair go off to find drinks at the food table.

The teachers were rather strick, and they had just tried to stamp out the Halo epidemic. Unsurprisingly, they failed.
Since a lot of students had copies, not just on the server.

I don't have too many super-detailed thoughts. That being said, I thin you did a good job of showing the contrast between Thoth and Derik's emotional states, and generally giving an insight into their characters.

Looking forward to part 2.

- Tomash

There's no reason you couldn't just write an agent who exists in the present and has that as her backstory—except possibly for the "just showed up in HQ" part, since a much less contrived option would simply be to have her be a badfic rescuee. {= )

As for the partner, a formally published property that is a ripoff of another property is still a canon, unfortunately. (A fangame would be another matter, I guess, if such a thing exists.)

~Neshomeh

Except maybe without the white hair, since it's supposed to be identifiable as Snowblaze. Maybe there's some ice/snow in your hair, like Elsa.

-Twistey

She was a random child who just showed up in HQ, and I'm not sure how anyone found out, but she was also the child of a pairing that was intrinsically breaking canon. She was adopted by a minor agent who then retired and eventually brought her adopted daughter back to HQ. Her partner was a "canon" from a cheap ripoff of a game, who had joined the PPC to escape said ripoff's destruction.

Think I've kinda ditched the idea now, in the process of rethinking all my agent ideas in preparation for a Permission request. Not only because I shouldn't start thinking about what TYH will look like if I don't even have Permission yet, but also from other factors.

-Twistey

She was wearing black breeches and a few earrings. The neon green hat she'd grabbed clashed with her brown fur.

"Hi there!" she said to the woman in the dress. "I'm Farah!"

Beyond, really, since the original TYH stories were all set in 2018.

So, hS, since you're the only one who's still around... is this officially canon now? If not, I challenge you to rewrite it so it is. I plan to do mine a little later this year. {= )

Everyone else: Wanna write one for your agents? Go for it! Bear in mind, TYH pieces have typically been short and fluffy and have often involved children, either current children grown up, or current agents with children. Check out this page for examples.

~Neshomeh

Should be for this message. Have at it! :D

In both cases where you wrote "bought", I think you actually meant "brought", and in the final notes, "spoke" should probably be "spork".

I’ve gone invisible for longer than ever, but I’m still lurking, and I still can’t not notice these things.

Happy New Year.

HG

I suppose in the vast world of fandom it’s hardly likely that we’d be the first ever to come up with this idea.

Forget my real appearance, that’s quite normal and not at all snow-queen-like. Instead...

Long, perfectly straight white hair, dressed all in white, a crown made of icicles... maybe knee-length Black boots... white fur shawl...

And of course, transport in a sleigh with reindeer.

If you can draw that. I can’t draw to save my life!