Except now it's not new because of the other one whoopsie!
I did enjoy it, and took a buncha notes as I went through it. Hooopefully they'll be useful?
“Can you stop whining for five seconds?” Charlotte muttered.
- Harry really hadn’t whined that much, until that one time in the story! If he did, then it wasn’t entirely shown in the mission, y’know? Either way, looks a bit early for her to get annoyed!
- The mention of Romania was bloody good, though - pointing out issues in characterisation, what the proper problem is, showing the agents know enough to know how it ought to be
‘We’ve still got badfic from the 1800s’
- What a horrendous clerical nightmare the PPC bureaucracy must be. Good grief.
‘The girl had long shiny jet-black hair. Her skin was so pale, but she still had a bit of pink on her cheeks. Her outfit was pretty tight. She was wearing black pants and a gray sleeveless shirt with a small black jacket to go with it. She was slim and looked really fit. Really fit. Harry realized that he had been staring at her.’
- So this entire bit is sort of, grabbed from the fic. It’s quite a large section, too. There was an opportunity to make her appearance appear, rather, from the agent’s perspective, instead? - it’s not necessarily wrong that that didn’t happen, but it would have been interesting to see, as opposed to just the section from the fic!
‘shoving a finger in her mouth’ - You do these a lot - little small sort of gestures, that break up the dialogue and characterise and all. They’re very good and they’re great details, in general. I should, er, probably work on doing them better, myself.
- ‘steadying Ix against a sudden timeskip.’ - and that, too! That one’s even better, a little thing that sort of, sums up their relationship and all - it is very clear to see that they’re, y’know, in love, even without pointing that out
The blade of grass part was adorable - little sort of slice of life bit, there. Sort of, going into their relationship and all, while also setting up their individual characters, rounding them out. And it was not cheesy or any such!
‘feeble whine’ - aw, poor thing. Good wording, there!
Love the subplot of their relationship sort of, advancing, all the slice of life bits - elevates it over just a mission where they go in and pointlessly kill stuff, y’know? There’s stuff to it, beyond the mission
‘the agents fell to the ground as the scene shot forward to the staircases’
- I sort of had to reread the paragraph, having missed this particular line! Bit of an issue, there - the description’s a bit bland, a bit limited. It’s just… they just fell, y’know? Could have them go ‘clonk’ or go 'ow' or some more description of it, y’know? Especially being a very sort of, actiony bit - it blends in with the rest of the paragraph, and probably shouldn’t
‘A flick of his wand sent ropes tying themselves around the Sue, and she fell over with an indignant screech’
- Bloody love how underwhelming it is - really captures the problems with a Sue faced with, y’know, reality - that difference, as mentioned in the story, between power and skill
Very classic sort of mission, but it was kept from being generic, or from mindlessly following the mission procedure stuff with the little bits of Charlotte and Ix’s relationship. That’s what makes a good spinoff! The focus on the agents, because while everybody has to follow mission procedure, it’s the agents that are unique to you. And of course, it was very well done - it felt very sort of, slice-of-lifey, if that’s a word. The way their relationship builds, and shows the interplay between their two distinct characters, as opposed to them being a Twilight-esque singular mass is real bloody well done, indeed! It doesn’t feel fake or forced or cheesy or anything.
Enjoyable stuff!
Also, that Sue was incredible. Chinky. Bloody chinky. Good grief.