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Well, the ending was a nice twist, and I overall liked the story.

One thing I didn't get, maybe because I didn't read the line about Tiger ruining everything. It felt out of place.

- Tomash

-Drat, it cut off. =p Hopefully my message remains obvious.

And I really like how Vania explained traversing HQ. These discussions are always a treat to read!

And YAY for the Pinkie Pie cameo~

Doc's reaction to the [SPOILERS] was priceless. X)

I think this response did a good job of telling the story with almost entirely dialogue. I got a good sense of both agents' personalities (well, it helps that you sort of spelled them out :p) too.

I also liked the reference to Larfen's characters. That sort of interplay is fun.

- Tomash

I was one of the people working on Lost Tales, and I primarily did automatic conversions. I did these conversions using a tool called "regular expressions," which I thought might interest some of the more technically minded among the boarders. Well, the technically-minded boarders who don't know what regular expressions are already. I get the feeling my audience will be vanishingly small... we'll see. Anyways, basically, regular expressions can be described as text search on crack. And also search and replace on crack. Sound interesting? read on.

Normal search functions allow you to search for a precise fragment of text. Maybe you can search out all the instances of "Hello sweetie" in a document. Maybe case-insensitive search if you're really fancy. Now look at this:

/ ... /

That, believe it or not, was a regular expression. They're typically surrounded by slashes when we write them out like this, for reasons which could take too long to explain. Anyways, a dot is regular expression for "any character". So this will find any three characters (doesn't matter what they are: punctuation, letters, numbers, whitespace, whatever) surrounded by spaces. Cool, huh? No? It's basically useless? Okay, try this:

/[0-9]{3}-[0-9]{3}-[0-9]{4}/

This will find any standard-written, dash-separated phone number in a document. How does it work? Well, those brackets ("[" and "]") signify a character group—that is, a list of characters where we want any of them. You can also specify ranges of characters. In this case, I specified the range 0-9. So any digit. The braces say we want a range {3,5} specifies we want between 3 and 5 of whatever came before it. In this case, I gave {3}, and what came before was a character group meaning digits. So we want three digits, then a dash, then three digits, then a dash, then four digits. Simple, no?

Actually, wanting digits is so common there's a neat shorthand: \d. So the previous can be re-written as:

/\d{3}-\d{3}-\d{4}/

Much simpler.

"But Thoth!" I hear you cry. "What if I want to match a literal period? Or maybe I want a literal brace, or something?" Fear not, my friends. Just stick a backslash in front of the character you want. So:

/.{\*/

Will search for ".{*" exactly. Right, here's a real regex I used (sed ERE, for those of you who already know what's up and are wondering) to lowercase all the HTML tags in Lost Tales. Okay, not the actual one, that one had a really nasty bug. This is a version without that bug:

s/<(\/?)([A-Z]+)([^>]*)>/<\1\L\2\E\3>/g

Okay, that's terrifying. Let's take it apart. That 's' at the front isn't a regex thing, it just tells the tool I'm using that I want to do a search and replace, or a "substitution." The g at that back, likewise, tells the tool that I want to replace every piece of text that matches, not just the first. That forward slash in the middle separates what I'm searching for with what I'm replacing it with. When we take all that junk out, and just look at what I'm searching for, we get this:

/<(\/?)([A-Z]+)([^>]*)>/

Okay, that's terrifying. Let's break it down.

<

This just says to find the literal character <. That's it.

(\/?)

Okay, these parenthesis mark out a capture group. They're not literal parenthesis, they're just here to group together parts of the expression. Also, every capture group is assigned a number. This is capture group 1. Which will only matter much later.

Anyways, what's going on inside? Well, the backslash is a literal escape. So we're looking for the literal character "/". And then there's a questionmark.

The questionmark means "maybe". So, we're saying there might be a slash, or there might not be. If there is, put it in group 1. If not, just put emptiness in group one.

([A-Z]+)

Group 2. We have another range of characters. This time, it's all the capital letters. The plus means "one or more". So we're looking for one or more capital letters, which we'll put in group two.

([^>]*)

Group 3. Another character set. But there's a caret at the start! that means that we actually are looking for the reverse. So, this character set matches anything that is not a ">". And the star means "zero or more." So, if there are any characters that aren't ">", stuff them in group three. If not, don't make a big deal about it.

>

This is just a ">". It means that there's a ">" here.

So if we put it all together, this regular expression first looks for a "" (those characters, or lack thereof, make up group three). Finally, it wants a ">".

Gee, I hope that makes sense. I'm kinda bad at explaining things. Anyways, here's what we're replacing all that with:

<\1\L\2\E\3>

Let's break this down too.

<

Okay, the first thing we're going to put in is a "<".

\1

So, what this means is "whatever was in group one on what you matched." If you'll recall, that was either a forward slash or nothing.

\L\2\E

\L means "turn anything between me and '\E' into lowercase." \2 is group 2, the uppercase letters.

\3

Just put down group 3. That is, recall, stuff between the uppercase letters and a ">"

>

Put down a ">".

So, if we put it all together, this:

s/<(\/?)([A-Z]+)([^>]*)>/<\1\L\2\E\3>/g

Means, "Find every piece of text that starts with a '<', which may or may not be followed by a slash (remember if it is), proceeds with a series of capital letters (remember them), and then whatever else (but remember what's there), followed by a '>', and replace it with a '<', and then a slash if there was one originally, and then that series of capital letters, but lowercase, then whatever came after, and then a '>'"

Phew, that's a mouthful. Aren't you glad you can just write that mess of punctuation instead?

Now, regular expressions (which work more or less as I described, consult your local text editor/tool documentation for variations) don't work everywhere. However, they do work in most programmer's text editors (If you don't use one of those already, then on Windows, I suggest notepad++, and on Mac I'd endorse Atom). If you work with HTML or other plaintext all day, you owe it to yourself to learn them, and there are a lot of excellent online resources to help you do just that.

Hopefully helpful and/or informatively yours,
Thoth.

Today is a rare treat! doctorlit actually publishes a full-length PPC work!

This takes place back in 2011, immediately after my mission "Pick Your Poison" and during the tail end of the Poison Joke Incident—in fact, we finally see how that incident got resolved, since the solution was never covered during the RP.

The action picks up with Vania speaking in text boxes; Doc's near vision being reversed, leaving him in a terrible mood; both of them bringing two small, not-very-glittery Sues back to their RC because Vania wanted to recruit them; and a large number of inky minis far too close to Doc's bookshelf. I hope you enjoy reading! Why? Because we like you.

—doctorlit, a very reasonable seven years behind in his writing

Oh omt, I an Pagan/Wiccan. Hover do not ask me to hex/curse someone,please!

Anything that's Nihongo(Japanese, iirc), eating, killing Sues,poetry, ripping bad poetry a new one... procedurals... Almost anything by THE Stephen J. Cannell (lookin' at you Scarecrow and Mrs. King)! Really love playing RIFT and shooting the ever loving Skleros outta the planar invaders and raiting dungeons. If (and when) we meet, look for the crazy Eth with aqua aceents on her armor (Sakinhana)or a pyro cleric by the name of Teylin.

Hey! It was the DMS missions I found and the Redwall missions of /That/Series. But The original series is what drew me! I mean, killing Sues? That's awesome! And I figured you might need a new agent to handle the Toku side of fandom.

Oh. Andromeda's pretty straightforward After The End sci-fi, you can buy the episodes on YT or watch some clips. Super Sentai... That's where power Rangers gets their fight footage &some of the plots. If you like to watch some, ther's a facebook group that has some of the older series and Shout! Factory has some on their site. JAToku has a lot and is running the current series (Kaitou Sentai Lupinranger VS Keisatsu Sentai Patorager)! Ohand kamen Rider!

I would start with Chouriki Sentai Ohranger for Sentai and Kamen Rider Decade/Drive

(Since the other matter seems to just be a loading issue...)

The back button on mission two of the TOS links back to itself, instead of the first mission.

(Well, when I clicked the link posted on the 8th chapter anyway. In all other cases it seems to work.)

That said, it appears to not be working on this page.

Going through the links in order, starting with the TOS, to make sure all the links DO go somewhere. ;) That's the first one I hit upon. 'S good work!

Thank you to Nesh and everyone else who contributed to this! =D

Hey, everyone! Thanks to the efforts of the Lost Tales team, including Hieronymus Graubart, Tomash, and Thoth, PPC: The Lost Tales has now been almost completely recoded in CSS and has a new appearance!

The only section we haven't touched yet is Anamia's Corner, because it's a big, tangled mess and looking at the current code makes my eyes water.

SIELU, the JAAKSONS, and the PPC Handbook are as close to their original appearances as I could get them. There is necessarily some slight variation. Where possible, all pages have a link to their original version on Wayback Machine or elsewhere, down in the footer. (This should be the case across the site, but may not be yet. There are a lot of links to track down.) Feel free to check it out if you want to compare. If you have any pointers, I'd love to hear them.

Actually, any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated. Please tell me about broken links, things not displaying properly, typos, or anything else you notice. Even four people can't catch everything on a project this big.

~Neshomeh will get to Anamia's Corner this decade, she promises.

I think the first season of Daredevil was the last TV series I watched before I started reviewing everything on the Board, so I'll go over that here in addition to season two. Spoilers for both seasons follow. There's also some very vague, non-detailed allusion to some of the gore in the show.

season one
So, not having watched any Netflix originals before DD 1, I really didn't know what I was getting into before this, and I did not like what I saw initially. I actually stopped watching for a long while—nearly a year, I think?—after the infamous car door scene. The violence in this series was just so over-the-top and unnecessary, and it was making me a little sick. I eventually got over it and finished for the sake of MCU completion, but I have little interest in ever watching again.

I first encountered Wilson Fisk in his animated adaption from the Spider-Man cartoon of the 1990s. That version of Fisk, or Kingpin, was rather soft-spoken. He was a threatening character, both physically and politically, but his was a quiet, confident menace, and that version of the character has stuck in my head as the baseline Fisk. The Fisk in this show is such a departure from that, I really can't find myself liking him at all. This Fisk is completely out of control of his emotions, easily insulted, and has a desperation to his success drive that make him rather a weak villain to me.

One thing season one did really well, though, was keeping the courtroom cases ongoing throughout the season, and making sure they had relevance and interest to the vigilantism side of Matt Murdock's life. Season two didn't do that so well, I think. That season mostly had Matt's law firm completely tied up in the Frank Castle case, and of course Nelson and Murdock disbanded towards the end, so we didn't really get much of the lawyer side of Matt's life.

season two
I was very pleased that, with the focus switching from fist fights to guns and swords, the violence actually got toned down for this season. Somehow. Still a lot of fake blood, but bullet holes are cleaner than, uh. Eye self-impalement on nails. So.

In a vacuum, Castle is a character I should despise, by all rights. He fights with guns, and has every mark of a teen boy's edgy OC. But man, the performance that actor put out. Any scene where Castle is monologuing, I can just listen to forever. Even with that rasp in his voice, his words and his facial expressions can be so heart-wrenching when he's talking about his family. That's not to say I agree with his philosophy; I'm much more in Daredevil's camp. I do think some MCU villains did indeed need to be put down because of the threat they posed to the world, but not the street toughs and ninjas in Daredevil.

The whole ninja plotline, I'm kind of lukewarm on. They do make for an excellent physical challenge for Daredevil, since their silent movement makes them nearly undetectable to his senses until they're hitting him. But their whole weird plot, with the resurrection, and the brainwashed human chemical mixers, and whatever crazy demon thing I thought was going to be in the giant stone coffin thing . . . I just didn't find all that as compellingly real as the other plot of the season, discovering the truth behind Castle losing his family. I was much more curious about the identity of the Blacksmith than I was about the coffin, even though that plot got the finale climax. (Although I love the fact that after Castle resolves his side of things, that he shows up to help with Daredevil's. Like, "Okay, the more important plot is done now, I can go help with the B plot next.")

A very rare thing happened while I watched this: I actually guessed a twist long before it was revealed, namely that Elektra is a Black Sky. I'm usually terrible about guessing those sorts of details ahead of time, since I tend to just let a story unfold itself before me without trying to deconstruct it much. I very much enjoy those twist moments, too, so I'm not necessarily pleased with myself; ruined the reveal moment for myself. But there was just something about the way Stick would talk about Elektra that seemed to hint there was something actually wrong with her, and she seemed almost compelled to kill, rather than the matter-of-fact, business-like way Castle would gun criminals down. Mix in my curiosity about the moment in season one when Nobu revealed that other people could be Black Sky beyond the one that got killed, and it all seemed to line up.

Ultimately, season two felt a little too stretched between its two plots, and the writers clearly wanted the mystical ninja plot to be the focal one, even though the government cover-up aspect was far more intriguing. I'm sure the whole Hand plotline will continue on in the Defenders series, but I hope it gets more interesting from here.

—doctorlit kept spelling "Daredevil" as "Dardevil" and he's really frustrated with himself right now

"I'd say Frank Castle is a man who would gladly give his life to keep spoilers safe." "I'd say Frank Castle is a man who would gladly give his life to keep spoilers safe." "I'd say Frank Castle is a man who would gladly give his life to keep spoilers safe."

...That you hadn't even counted upon, and that was that Rita's article was an outright fabrication. A lie, as such.

And you might say "Rita, why would you do that sort of thing?" And she would say, "For readers, kid."

...At least, that's my personal theory.

~Thoth, making his second late-night reference to a semi-popular song from 1967 in two days.

Not much else to say to that. ^_^

I like the name Miralii.

~Neshomeh

So I figure either Jacques has turned into a Stu and his Aura of Smooth has overpowered Ms. Skeeter, or "Rita Skeeter" is an alias of Anastasia Steele. Possibly both. ... Anna actually is a journalist, isn't she? {X D

Should there be more, I will read it.

~Neshomeh

Yes, you read that right. Rita Skeeter (or a cunning replacement who contrived to keep her name?) has made it to the PPC, and is now writing for the Multiverse Monitor.

Her mission? To interview Jacques Bonnefoy, as a hard-hitting reporter should, and to bring to you, dear readers, the whole unvarnished truth about this seductive former character replacement who recently celebrated his fifth year at HQ!

Excerpts from the interview follow:

His beautiful blue eyes, sparkling only seconds ago with the thrill of attempted seduction (to which, dear readers, I can only hope not to succumb before finishing the interview!) turn misty with the remembered grief of cradling the corpse of Ianto Jones.

...

"You know," he says, leaning forward in a way that emphasizes the powerful muscles in his shoulders, "I love your hair." He pauses, and sorrow is clear in his deep voice as he continues. "Rose dyed her hair to get that exact shade, you know. She'd be so envious."

...

"Are the rumors true?" I have to ask, even if it pains him. I am committed to the truth. "That you remember a relationship with Rose Tyler and the Ninth Doctor beyond what is shown on the show?"

He shakes his head. "I'm afraid not. They...they never did quite see me the way I saw them." He forces a smile; even with little heart behind it, it is enough to steal one's breath. "Can I get you a drink? Reporting is very hard work."

...

"But enough about me, Ms Skeeter," he says. He pulls me close, fingers trailing tingles up and down my arm. "I want to know about you. Someone with such an impressive reporting history must have some good stories to tell!"

To my surprise, I find myself giggling, blushing, looking down in a coy way I abandoned soon after my teens. Something about this man brings out the excitement of youth, of that first, most breathtaking crush that never quite leaves you for years afterwards. "Oh, I do," I say. I yearn to impress him, but that's not why I'm here--and besides, I'd much rather hear him talk. "But they're nothing compared to yours." I look up at him through my long eyelashes, feeling shy--and, dear readers, I haven't felt shy in years! "Would you tell me more about your early days in ESAS? The first person you seduced in HQ?" How you're managing to make me melt in ways no man has managed since a reporter's cynicism changed my perspective forever?

He chuckles--the warmest sound I've heard--and pulls me even closer. There are people who would call this scandalous. "Why don't I tell you," he murmurs wickedly, "about how I plan to seduce you?"

...

Somehow--I'll never quite know how--I manage to scrape together enough of my composure to ask him another question. "You seduce so many people--is it always a split second decision, or do you take your time before approaching them?"

He pulls back the slightest bit, leaving me oddly bereft. His warmth had enveloped me without my noticing. "Oh, it depends on the person. There are people I've waited five years without seducing."

I sense a story here--perhaps one of longing--and so I question him further. "That sounds like a seduction--or several--to remember. What kept you from doing it earlier?"

"The time wasn't right," he says.

His eyes are on my mouth. They are surely intent enough to set me on fire--and I want to burn.

"Did you always plan on seducing me?" I ask. My breath is so fast--my heart is racing. He could do anything in this moment, and so long as he touched me, I'd never protest. Such is the power of his presence.

"I decided to try five minutes after you walked in," he says. His voice is low. Honesty, earnestness--they shine from his face, in his smile, in the way his eyes caress my skin--and then it's his hands I feel skimming up my arms, and he leans in close. "Tell me, lovely Rita--have I succeeded?"

I kiss him in answer--or I would, but that would go against my professionalism. He has no such compunctions, however, and in seconds, his lips are on mine.

Dear readers, you know I strive to describe to you everything worth knowing--and a kiss from this man is well worth knowing. But how could mere words convey this? Were I to tell you his lips are soft and his hands wander, I would be remiss--for that description ignores the confident step closer, the care not to disturb my hair, the sheer, all-consuming focus that overtakes the one being kissed--for how could it not? His complete attention is on the kiss, and on the person being kissed--and I could describe this to you a thousand times over, and still fail to encapsulate the true feeling of kissing Jacques Bonnefoy.

For once, dear readers--and you know well how infrequently this happens--words fail me.

--
...more to come?

(Did Rita get more than a kiss? Has Jacques been truthfully represented in this interview? Are there any parts of this article that would sound out of place in a Harlequin romance novel? Find out sometime!)

Have I mentioned that I willingly read children's literature sometimes? Not young adult fiction, but like, overt children's books. Because I do that. Because I am a glutton. Because I have no shame.

That said, it's been quite a while since I had one, and oh boy, did I step back into that genre with a doozy this time. I had almost forgotten how no-holds-barred crazy classic kid lit could be. Like, The Witches probably wouldn't get published today. Spoilers follow for The Witches and for a little bit of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Hard to know where to start, really. I guess I'll start with the general tone of the story: I like that children's authors from Roald Dahl's era weren't afraid to scare kids. Death and injury (loss of body parts even!), and the permanent and inescapable fates of some of the children described, and the absolutely horrifying description and illustration of the Grand High Witch's face are stuff for much older audiences, by most people's standards. It makes it exciting for us older readers dipping in, to be sure. But I like the implied respect for children behind this kind of writing. The modern outlook seems to be that material kids consume has to be censored until they get older, so that they don't see something they don't understand that harms them in some way. But the fact is, (I'm getting very subjective here) an adult who didn't grow up processing tough things isn't suddenly prepared to process them the moment they turn legal age. Our understanding of tough topics comes from meeting them head-on and digesting them as we grow. (Wildly tangential but related note: the parents who turn a blind eye to kids chasing and scaring ducks at the zoo because "they're just kids, it's what they do" don't understand that those kids will grow up into adults who chase and scare ducks for fun; they need to be taught as they grow that scaring small creatures for amusement is wrong, or they'll never learn it. And yes, I have seen grown people going after birds at work.) I also strongly believe that children who encounter stories of intrepid-child-hero-against-super-powered-monster in their youth will find it much easier to cope with more mundane forms of antagonism, like bullies, as they grow older.

The general aesthetic and culture and outlook of the witches is simultaneously simplistic and juvenile, as befits antagonists in a story aimed at children, but also legitimately disturbing and creepy, just because of how disconnected it is from cultural norms. Witches who hate children and target them with curses, that's a pretty standard concept. But the motivation behind it—the fact that kids smell like dog feces to witches, and the presence of children ruining the view out the window—these are such simplistic sources of ire that it circles all the way around and becomes grotesque. It's also rather amusing that the witches' complaints about children are themselves incredibly childish reasoning. It adds to the presentation of their demonic nature: they appear adult humans, but their motivations are so different from those of adult humans that they feel more like the child humans they loathe so much. It's also interesting that the Grand High Witch, the designated leader and most respected and feared, is also said to be about four feet tall—by far the shortest witch, and with a mask that also makes her the youngest-looking witch. Their leader is also the most childlike among them!

One thing that did bother me was how the story treated Bruno Jenkins. He’s a fat boy who is basically given no personality beyond “likes to eat things,” other than one scene where he burns ants with a magnifying glass for amusement. (Tangent: I apparently read this book once when I was very young, because I remember the ant scene, but had no context to place that memory in for years. Funny how, in a book about demonic witches killing children, the one thing that bothered me enough to stick in my memory all these decades was the ant murder. Especially ironic considering all the ants I have to kill every summer when the get inside exhibits. I’ve still got ant bite marks on my ankles from this past Tuesday.) Even after being turned into a mouse, Bruno’s only motivation is in stuffing his face, and makes his new mouse body also overweight in a matter of hours. He doesn’t even participate in defeating the English witches in the final act, something a modern story would certainly have involved such a sidekick character in. Between Bruno and Augustus Gloop from Chocolate Factory, I really am starting to feel like Dahl had some weird prejudice against fat people. In fairness, I suppose in his time, overeating was viewed as more of a vice than a behavioral problem, and he doesn’t make it at least subtly clear that both characters’ parents are more to blame, but it still feels kind of weird to reduce a fat character to only their eating habits.

Come to think of it, Grandmamma (she wasn’t given a name, I don’t think) is pretty fat herself. Maybe Dahl was only bothered by very young people who became overweight? Either way, the way the narrative treats Bruno feels like it contradicts one of the main messages of the story, which is not judging people by their appearance. The witches all dress like pretty women in public, but are barely human-looking demons underneath. Tttttthhhhheeee uh wait, does the boy not have a name, either? I think this is the first time I’ve gotten through an entire novel and not noticed that the two main protagonists didn’t have names. Well, the boy gets turned into a mouse, but instead of being rendered weak and helpless, he uses his new body’s attributes to sabotage the witches’ plans and save all the other children in England. And as a side note to that point, the witches assume the transformed mice children will be capturable with cheese in mouse traps, not realizing that they retain their human intelligence and memories after the transformation. Finally, the grandmother, old and fat and walking with a cane, is an expert on witch behavior, and while we never get a clear picture of her background, I want to imagine she was a full on Buffy-style monster hunter in her youth. Maybe it’s the fact that Bruno is rich that’s supposed to fit that theme: his family is clearly loaded, and all spoiled rotten and easily offended to boot. Actually, they very much feel like the Dursleys minus Harry Potter, to the point where I could confidently label them AU alternates of each other.

So yeah. The Witches is a legitimately creepy action story, even for my thirty-two-year-old brain. Roald Dahl new how to write, just wish he wasn’t so judgmental of people for eating food.

—doctorlit remembers seeing the movie adaptation on tv long ago, but can’t remember it well enough to bring it up now

“Why did we not smell it before? It stinks like a sewer! Some little spoiler must be hiding not so very far away from here!” “Why did we not smell it before? It stinks like a sewer! Some little spoiler must be hiding not so very far away from here!” “Why did we not smell it before? It stinks like a sewer! Some little spoiler must be hiding not so very far away from here!”