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"I remember you. Odd thing that I refer to you as such, but..."

Amber interrupted herself. It was a confusing train of thought and she was digressing anyways. She stood up from the tree stump she was sitting on.

The large patch of grass surrounded by a forest was not supposed to be there and would most likely dissapear when canon returned to normal. Amber considered it could perform one last service before that.
She started walking around in it.

"I remember you. I remember every Bubble you went to. I remember every Bubble your men went to. Every Bubble your race went to. You made it a point to remember them, and so I remember them."

Geographical distortions caused by Suefluences are a really interesting topic. The patch of grass was REALLY not supposed to be there, and it was of an unnaturally bright green color. The grass Amber stepped on immediately blackened and died.

"You also made it a point to remember your names, and a good thing you did, because they would have been lost. And you with them."

"I remember how you felt. Tension, knowing that each battle could be your last. Determination, knowing that whatever the result you'd see it through. Joy, knowing that Intervention wasn't necessary. A million times across a million Bubbles."

"And then the Mindwalker had the Reality Warper unmake you."

Amber stopped. She looked at the sky. The sun was setting down, casting long shadows from the trees. The forest dwellers would arrive soon, and they were not to be trifled with.

"They are now beyond reach. It's sad that you had to go, but it's worse knowing that you can't even be avenged."

She started pacing again.

"But you aren't really gone, are you? I remember you. 'Names are important. Never lose yours.' That was one of the creeds of your race. Even though you too may be beyond reach, your names are still there. Even if I am the only one that remembers them, it means that you are still there."

Amber stopped pacing again. She had drawn a full circle with the blackened grass.

"The Circle. It should be blue, but nobody ever really gets what they want. 'Earth exists whereever there is someone acting in its service. Where you go, Earth goes.' That's another creed of your race. The planet itself may be gone, but Earth is still here. It goes where I go"

"I remember you. And I will continue to do so, forever."

1. Mana is the red/lavender star things, down in the key as 'Regulationism'.
   2. You're above Board average for Revolutionary, so yes: warlike. :)
   3. ^_^
   4. I mean... I guess? You'd probably want a land-based map though, more like I did back in January. These maps are all done in Paint, though, so they probably aren't all that compatible.
   
   hS

Writing-wise, I think the narration helped give a good sense of how heavily Tom was taking this.

Also, Thoth is busy with Derik? Omai.

One typo I noticed eventually: "psychically" -> "physically", probably.

- Tomash

First thing is that you did a good job using description and dialogue style to get the rather intense emotional states running around this whole story across.

That all being said, I'm not completely sure what it is set Em did to set all this off. My initial guess was buying Cass another clock for her collection. By the end of the story (and this was my second reading) I'd switched over to Em fixing the watch that wasn't supposed to be fixed being the underlying issue, but I'm not completely sure of that.

- Tomash

I read the book in one day. I am now excited, this is going to be awesome.

Anyone know what this is? Sue, virus, oddly skilled fangirl?

...

Does anyone know where Makes-Things is?

Because it's confused multiple people already- this appears to be based off of Doki Doki Literature Club. Which, um. Warning, if you plug that into google, it's pretty dark in an existential way.

I'm damn excited, needless to say. I feel like my tastes in speculative fiction, especially of the weirder variety, were all spawned from this. It's so cool. Cannibal cities. And man, does it have the visuals down!

It's a really weird childhood ghoul rising up and boy do I hope it's good.

It seems Hester's going to be the main character, here, where, in the novel, she was a sort of lesser protagonist to the viewpoint guy. Er. Tom, I think.

Which is great! She was a way more interesting character, I recall, than he was.

Hi PPC,

Do any of you happen to be or know the wonderful, beautiful person I fell in love with during my club presidency of my high school's literature club? They have been avoiding me lately and I want to find them and show them how much I care. I was looking for literature groups where I might find them and I stumbled upon this one. Please reply quickly - I just can't be without my love!

Thanks,
Monika

P.S. If it's about the other girls in the club, I do apologize for their deletion, but it had to happen.

1. What does mana correspond to in this?
   2. Me, warlike?
   3. *Snrk* Window supply chain...
   4. Have you heard of the game series Axis and Allies? I had the idea to make a Board-themed parody of it based on S.P.U.D.'s and The Newbie Rebellion's fics in the last Badfic Games. Would this be compatible with the idea, or at least, would you be interested in making a map for it when I announce the idea?
   
   -Twistey

If Cursed Child was written by other people, and if Universal Studios had some control over the narrative told by Crimes of Grindelwald (making it plausible that they used that control to screw it up), is Rowling's writing and/or the effort she puts into her writing actually going downhill? I wonder where evidence could be found to confirm or deny that. Hmm.

-Twistey

I live with three other people who are good cooks and actually enjoy cooking, so it's bit hard to work up the motivation to learn a skill I don't enjoy. My brother's teaching me, though, if slowly. I can do a few simple things, oatmeal, potatoes, things on that level. Plus the family pizza recipe. That's basically a requirement for my household.

It's not... good. It can be entertaining, and it's not badly written, but it's not very good, to my mind. I also just had a hard time enjoying a lot of it, even as a kid. Too... mean, I guess? The tone's off.

There's also the fact that it is explicitly designed as indoctrination material for the Eliezer Yudkowsky's cult. That part just turned me off it. Yes, some of his ideas are right and he explains them well (usually his explanations of common fallacies), but the usual quote that shows up at this point is that the good parts aren't original and the original parts aren't good. Yudkowsky likes to act like he's an academic, but don't be fooled: he never finished highschool, he's almost never been published outside his own blogs and organizations, and he has a lot of wrong, unscientific ideas that he tends to mix with fact (see his ideas about quantum physics), ans is in fact derisive of actual scientists in many cases. His ideas about transhumanism and AI are... questionable (especially AI, seeing as he believes computers with consciousness are coming Real Soon Now™ despite a total lack of proof).

And normally I wouldn't bring the author into it: Orson Scott Card is an awful person in my opinion, but Ender's Game is still brilliant. However, HPMoR is expressly designed to spread the ideas I find suspect. And the protagonist is an insufferable Mary Sue, too, almost by definition.

So in short, you can read it, and might even find it enjoyable. Just be careful not to buy too deeply into what it's selling.

Over on GDocs, right at the bottom.

Memo from the Huinesoronic Department of Fenestration

Dear gov't,

Plz to include fleet of Twistey on future maps. We kno they r a bit warlike + anti-mana, but also v v important in window supply chain.

Thx,

DoF

((Spoilers down to 'Kerblam!' lie ahead.))

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Hey Doctor, it's me, Morgan; we met that time with the evil meatloaf, you probably don't remember. Anyway, I've been following your most recent series, and I have a fairly serious concern. To whit: why do you keep letting people die?

I'm not talking about Grace back in The Woman Who Fell To Earth; you couldn't do anything about that, and you worked hard to save people. And nobody died in The Ghost Monument, though you certainly walked through a lot of previous death - and discussion of genocide elsewhere - without feeling like maybe you should do something about it. But then things started to go off-piste.

'Rosa'? You did a whole rant about how terrible guns are, then had absolutely no problem with your buddy Ryan shooting a guy into the undefined distant past.

'Arachnids in the UK'? You let the giant spider die. I can think of a million ways you could've saved it - take it to a planet or time with higher oxygen levels, to name but one! - but you sat there looking sad while it suffocated slowly to death.

'The Tsuranga Conundrum'? I mean, you did all right, but isn't the fact that an emergency medical organisation wires their ambulances to explode maybe slightly concerning to you? That looks like a wrong that needs righting to me.

'Demons of the Punjab'... why did Prem have to die, exactly? The only answer you've got is 'because Yaz has never heard of him', but couldn't you come up with some way to save him and preserve the timeline? You did in Pompeii, and later regenerated into Peter Capaldi to remind yourself of that! I get that you were worried about this turning out like Rose and her dad, but by the end of that episode Pete knew he was sacrificing himself. Prem was just trying to talk his brother down, and given his non-threatening attitude, I don't even know why the (Hindu! Like him!) rider shot him. Even if you didn't want to interfere in the Partition - not even one tiny bit - you could definitely have saved his life.

But that pales in comparison to 'Kerblam!', where - I'm sorry, Doctor - you went full-on corporate shill. Let's review the ending of your adventure there:

-You unilaterally support the computer which killed a woman just to make a point.
-You let the mega-corporation get away with only paying their staff for half of their minumum estimate for the length of the shutdown. Two weeks paid leave for a month's maintenance? That's exploitation!
-And - oh yeah - you deliberately killed a man.

Because let's not mince words - that's exactly what you did. You let the man you outnumbered, what, four to one? Five? Run down into a room full of bombs. And then you - you, Doctor, quite deliberately - set those bombs off. You didn't have to. There was no benefit to you from ordering the robots to open the parcels rather than just making them stand there holding them. You just wanted to kill an angry young working-class man.

I get that you're trying to be non-interventionist these days. I can't say I get why - that's the sort of message they spout on Gallifrey, which you ran away from, remember? - but I get it. And I'm sure you use that to justify letting innocent creatures and people die, and allowing corporations to exploit their workers. But how - how, Doctor? - do you use it to justify cold-blooded murder?

-Sincerely,

Morgan, Tigereye Castellan of the Continuity Council of Gallifrey-in-Exile

I like how the rather detailed descriptions of what the Guardsman was doing combined with the dialogue gave an overall sense of solemnity.

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I literally just got back from seeing the movie, so I'm not 100% sure what I think yet. I have a vague impression that there are too many characters, probably due to the filmmakers reaching too far for cameos of names we recognize. Such as Nagini. I don't mind her backstory being that she was a woman with a blood-curse, but seriously, why is she involved in this story? It had better pay off later.

I also have a sense that we're following the wrong protagonist? I mostly like Newt, but I have no idea why he's our guy. Like... what is his arc here? He finally decides to take a side after seeing what Grindelwald is like in person? Okay, but... what did he actually do? What lesson has he learned? Why is this HIS story and not, say, Credence's? He's the one with real skin in the game, real stakes to win or lose. Newt's motivation is, there's a girl he likes and also Dumbledore gave him a side-quest to find and protect Credence. The thing with the blood-pact bauble was a lucky opportunity; I'm not sure he knew about it ahead of time. Dumbledore certainly seemed surprised to see it at the end.

I don't mind the blood-pact, incidentally, because it seems like the kind of grand gesture two young guys on an epic quest for power and glory might well make to each other in a fit of zeal. I'm sure Dumbledore meant it at the time, and may even be reluctant to break it now. The Mirror of Erised scene shows us he clearly still has feelings for Grindelwald, or at least that was my reading. The moment they made that pact was the moment they were closest to each other, and that is "nothing more or less than the deepest desire of his heart." Poor bugger.

... Maybe Tina would make a better protagonist. She's an auror, it could be a whole international detective thing with Newt being this weird guy who keeps turning up on seemingly innocent premises and yet mucks things up and/or helps her in oddly coincidental ways. Like, he's nice enough, maybe she's even attracted to him, but what is his deal, and what is his connection with the elusive Dumbledore? It could've been an interesting mystery from her point of view.

Once again, Jacob is more or less luggage. His motivation is also there's a girl he likes, whose treatment of him is awful and definitely needed to be called out more strongly. If they're setting her up to go to the Dark Side, fine, that's definitely a red flag. That shit is illegal, not to mention immoral. But Team Good Guy just kinda let it slide. {= /

I don't know why we need him and Queenie. They don't get enough development for me to care that much about them, and I'm certainly not rooting for them as a couple after that. I guess Grindelwald has a really good Legillimens now, but he could've had that anyway. Her story might've been better as something discovered in the course of tracking down Grindelwald through his lackeys or something like that.

... I'm liking Tina as protag more and more.

Really, who else actually did things actively to advance the plot? I feel like Grindelwald was pulling the strings the whole time and everything has basically gone according to plan.

That's all I've got now. Perhaps more once I've had more time to process it and absorb other people's thoughts.

~Neshomeh

Harry Potter and, that is. Positive recommendations, or at least "see what you think" ones, from IRL people. It's weird. I might actually have to do it.

~Neshomeh

Really, the only rule is that if a PG betas a request for you, they're not allowed to sign off on it. :)

Jack Thorne and John Tiffany. Rowling just signed off on it, but I doubt she even read it—or if she did, she just didn't care.

Eggs, sausage and spam. Spam, spam, spam, spa-
No, wait.

Eggs, sausage and some pastas, yes. With acceptable casualties.

And the trailer has managed to convince me to buy the book. It looks... like the sort of story where Peter Jackson's hallmark over-the-top work will be put to very good use.

That is to say, I'm glad to see Ave getting better. Hopefully the "not wallowing" continues into the future.