Subject: How about Mister Snugglesworth?
Author:
Posted on: 2017-07-11 14:46:00 UTC
(I am definitely not offering a very slightly modified version of my person favorite of my brother's pseudonyms, no, not at all. And Mister Cuddlesworth was the name of a Deathclaw, too, so is a good stem name anyways.)
(Guys, this is awesome, let's keep up the trend of giving people stuff to read!)
Ix and Charlotte face what must be their worst Sue yet: a Marauders-era werewolf who wants to be an Auror.
And just as a heads-up, since I know some of you guys are sick of my angsty stuff, this one is heavy on the angst. Enjoy?
I am very sorry for how long this took me. This has not been a productive week . . .
The opening banter is excellent, showing that Ix clearly thinks about her looks, but is also embarrassed to come off as Sue-like. It also shows the bit of strain this puts on their relationship, where it's difficult for Charlotte to complement Ix without making her feel self conscious. And you get it all across in so few lines . . . wish we could all dialogue like Iximaz!
I think the entrance into the fic is the best part of this story. The simultaneous drop into italics while Ix starts reacting to the moon out of nowhere are extremely disorienting, letting the reader share in the agents' feelings at that moment. Your descriptions of the fic using Charlotte's super senses right after correcting the italics is incredibly well-detailed as well.
I love that you mock the cartoonish hand-flailing presented as the Sue getting bullied by comparing the realistic racist teasing Ix had to live through—and really, the whole mission is some great side-by-side of a werewolf Sue and your realistic werewolf character, which hardly needs to be pointed out, since that was clearly your intent. And you summarize that whole theme just utterly perfectly in Ix's speech just before the assassination.
To give the author some credit, I am the type to wake up, shave, get dressed, eat, wash dishes, and then go back to bed until I absolutely need to get up and drive to work. So. That's something I have in common with a Sue.
I love the ending here. I love that you write Charlotte being so dedicated and supportive of Ix, in spite of the difficulties Ix's self esteem must give her. And I have to admit, when I hit that final line, my mind began singing ♪Tale as old as time . . .♪of its own volition. >.>
Oh, and before I forget: may I adopt Fortesque, if no one else has gotten him yet?
—doctorlit transforms into a competent adult every full moon, settles back into a nearly functioning man-child the rest of the month
Urk, all this praise is going to go to my head, doc. Not really sure what else to say—I don't really know how to take a compliment, either. ^^;
(I did play around with beast and beauty titles for a bit, so you're not alone there.)
Help yourself to the mini! He needs a good home. :)
"Oh, an' how's our newes' friend settlin' in, eh?" Hagrid peeked into the corner where Fortesque had settled in to the great, room-spanning web.
The mini-acromantula, recently delivered by a PPC agent team who had saved him from a mission, had strung an ice cream cone into the web. Its fangs were inserted deep into the dark red ice cream—probably strawberry?
Hagrid blinked. "I still dunno where you misspellin's o' Florean always seem to come up with ice cream. Ah, well. Just don' go spoilin' yer appetite! New shipment o' rats jus' came in."
As Hagrid stomped back out of the room and into the canonical parts of Hogwarts Fanfiction Academy, Fortesque settled back into his treat. Lulled by the gentle hissing of all his web-mates, he let his mind wander. Inevitably, it kept coming back to the scarred agent who had shrieked at him not long after he had "hatched." Why would an agent be scared? The PPC were friends of canon. Only Sues should be afraid of—
"So, what is this place?" The deep human voice spoke out suddenly from somewhere in the room, making all the mini-acromantulas rustle in the huge web. Fortesque looked back and forth around the room. (Without moving his head, of course—he had eight eyes.) No one was visible; the floor of the room was empty, save for some dusty barrels in the corners, draped in old web strands.
"Who'sssss there?" called out Godirc.
"Not to worry, folks. I'm no enemy of yours. I must ask again, though: what is this place?"
Multiple minis chimed in.
"Hogwarts Fanfiction Academy!"
"The canons teaches the fanthingssss . . ."
". . . And we protects the canons from the fanthingssss!"
The unseen stranger didn't respond right away. "So you protect canon . . . by hiding out in this sub-reality, and acting as bodyguards to cheap knock-offs of the real thing? Interesting strategy."
The room filled with angry hissing.
"It is tradition!"
"Tradition, Precioussss!"
"We serves the canon!"
"Well, protecting the staff allows them more time to focus on teaching the students properly. This, in turn, leads to a higher turnout of goodfic writers at the end of each year, fighting against the imbalance of fics that are canon-damaging versus canon-supportive. It's a slow process, but we're making steady progress."
The other minis all stared at the spider who had spoken.
". . . Precious?" he added, hesitantly.
The human voice spoke again. "Be that as it may, surely at least one among you would consider taking on a more . . . active role in the Canon Protection Initiative? You there—new boy." Climbing up onto the barrels directly underneath Fortesque, behind which he had apparently been hiding, was a tiny dark-skinned human with a black suit and an eye-patch. Staring directly up at Fortesque, the human-shaped mini asked, "Are you content to defend this canon from your corner, or do you want to defend all of canon—head on?"
Fortesque stared. He thought of the screaming agent. Perhaps, if minis were more visible in their efforts to combat the uncanon, agents would see that minis were allies, and not be scared? He lowered himself on a strand of silk until he was face-to-face with the strange mini, who didn't flinch. "Yessss, Precioussss . . ."
The Avengers Minitiative
coming May 4, 2012
Acromantulas and Hagrid belong to J.K. Rowling. Nick Fury belongs to Marvel and Stan Lee. I'll also be adopting Midguard. The name "Avengers Minitiative" was coined by Good Mod Addict in the Discord chat.
—doctorlit
Isn’t Charlotte the agent who is afraid of spiders? She nearly broke a desk and may have shrieked at Fortesque. But she is not scarred; that would be Ix.
(Besides that, I liked it a lot.)
HG, Uncanonical Department of Inaccuracies
That's what I get for posting while sleepy.
Yeah, I'll need to fix thatwhen I make a proper post. Thanks!
—doctorlit, not reading for details, apparently
And it also made me guffaw very loudly. Much thanks. *tips hat*
Glad you enjoyed my tasteless tacking on an unasked for after-credits sequence to your mission without asking for permission beforehand ficlet!
—doctorlit
Having mini Agents (or mini something-like-Agents) sounds like it'll be fun reading. I also like the movie trailer feel, and I could practically hear the dramatic music at the end when I read this the first time. You've also, I think, done a good job of sketching out Fortesque's motivations (and therefore a good chunk of his character).
- Tomash
I have literally no particular end game planned here. Like, are they going to hack into consoles and steal missions from actual agents? Become an Osbert's raiders sort of group that defends HG and its New Caledonia-type areas? Mini rescue unit to prevent "mini explosions" from happening ever again? Putting right what once went wrong and hoping every leap will be the leap home? It may ultimately depend on what other minis I end up Assembling. But I think it's totally going to be an awesome ride on the way there!
Incidentally, I totally wanted to hide a link in the punctuation to that last sentence of the story that would link to some dramatic-sounding song out of Marvel. It was getting close to leave-for-work-time, and I was starting to panic as I typed, so it slipped my mind. Oh well. Maybe next time?
—doctorlit is apparently also an entire season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. behind again
Or follow less things at the same time? Nah, heresy.
Not really seeing that much angst here, neither unjustified one. The glitterbag is pretty much aping Ix's life, with no drawbacks and maximal speshulness, she's got more than a right to be angry andd go personal here (and I agree, throat injuries? Should be dead).
Seeing an agent facing a glitterbag mirroring their backstory is an interesting thing too. Might have to search something like that for Marina... That was a good mission in my book.
Yes, there were angsty bits, but they made me feel suitably bad for Ix (and helped convey why she was so angry at the Sue), which means they worked and were well-done. The heartwarming bits also balanced out the angst.
I particularly liked the charging scene (which was a nice charge of pace from straight "grab 'em, read the list, kill") and the "lets actually talk about our problems" bit.
- Tomash
'cause on the one hand, it's hilarious to reference the singer and use the ship name Ixielott. But on the geekier hand, I can't help but feel there's a lot of mileage in riffing off axolotls. Ixilotl? Only that works better spoken than written. It's a terrible dilemma.
Oh, yeah, there was a story there, too, right? ;) Two things I particularly liked were a) that I could jump in and figure out what was going on in the agents' lives without having to track down every previous mission, and b) the idea of an agent running into a Suvian who claims exactly the same problems as them, so allowing for a direct contrast of the two. Nicely done.
hS
Starting off the post with that subject line made me think I'd done something awful with the mission! Ugh. :P
And yeah, this is honestly a big enough problem it ended up getting it's own CAHQ card... somehow. Personally, I've been using Charlix, but Ixilotl has been growing on me for some time...
Yeah, as soon as I came across this one on the Circle, I pretty much had to drop everything to mission it. It was just too perfect to pass up. And I'm glad to know it was easy enough to follow, too.
For whatever happens on the Gathering that I would otherwise be swearing eternal vengeance over (it's me, you know there'll be something). Look, now I don't have to! SCIENCE!
hS
...I'm going to have to think of something suitably deserving of the payback!
That bit about the newspaper provided a nice bit of comedy, though I didn't mind the angst.
Ix and Charlotte continue to be wonderful.
Also loved the explanation for empty compartments! And the worldbuilding re: Madam Pince jinxing the books.
As always, thank you for writing! \o
...for what the newspaper should be called, I'm all ears. (And that's open for everyone, not just you.)
Thanks for the comments. ^-^
(I am definitely not offering a very slightly modified version of my person favorite of my brother's pseudonyms, no, not at all. And Mister Cuddlesworth was the name of a Deathclaw, too, so is a good stem name anyways.)