Permission Request

Well, let's have a look!

Do I know you? Yup! I've seen you on the Board for a while, and I also remember you being active in the Discord chat. You're definitely an active member of the community.

The characters: I have a few questions, but they're mainly small. They are:

-This bit in Crim's profile: "He tends to act like he thinks he is better than everyone else, though he doesn’t actually believe as much and is only doing it for humor’s sake." It's a bit of a weird thing to do, though then again, people can be weird. You've got to wonder how he started doing it and *why*. Or does this only actually show up in lines like his "Don't call me boss, young lady" line in the second prompt? If so, this suddenly makes a lot more sense to me.

-Crim's relationship to video games. From Google, I understand that he's from a video game continuum, which I assume is why he got placed in the Video Games division. How long has he been an agent? Has he been taking on missions in any canon other than his own prior to being partnered with Cynthia?

-This bit: "[Cynthia's] black hair is usually tied back in a ponytail, which she claims is a purely functional choice. Nobody believes her." I'm not entirely sure I'm catching the meaning of this properly--is it that people believe she's doing it for beauty purposes? Something else that I'm missing? Wouldn't mind some clarification here.

-I'd kind of love to see Crim bore a Sue to death sometime, mainly because it sounds like it could be fun to read. That's just a comment, though, not a critique.

Overall: the characters look good! My quibbles with them are pretty minor; the biggest one is probably how on earth Crim got to the point of acting stuck-up for humor's sake. They generally look interesting and even relatable. I'd say they're good (though I would like those explanations!) But can you write well with them?

The prompts: It seems you can! I enjoyed both prompts. Your characters feel pretty fleshed out, and don't heavily contradict their profile descriptions. They also work well as a team--they bounce off each other very well, and I could imagine them working well together and creating interesting mission reports. I liked Crim's moment of awkward compassion after hearing how Cynthia lost her last partner, and I generally just like their dynamic. I also didn't spot any writing errors: if they're there, they're so small I couldn't spot them even after several read-throughs. I do have a small quibble with Crim's opinion on Loki--it's perfectly possible to know and like both Norse mythology and Marvel's weird take on Asgard--but that's a matter of my personal opinion clashing with the character's (and maybe yours?) and not an actual issue.

Overall: I liked both of your prompts. Your writing style is fun to read. Your characters have a good dynamic, and I want to read more about them despite the fact that I'm unlikely to recognize any canon they go into.

The badfic: ...okay. These are not canons I know in the slightest, despite recognizing the Pegasus Knight title (I know someone with a character who is one. That's pretty much the sum of my knowledge). I skimmed the first and last chapters anyway, trying to get a sense of it; the most I can tell is that the protagonist does have a bit of More Competent and Awesome Than You syndrome going on. Past that, I'll trust your summary, since you actually know the canons. If you think you can get a good mission out of it, go ahead. I do notice that it's characters from Crim's home canon being upstaged, so I could see this working well.

And I believe all that leaves us with is that...this all looks good! Permission granted!

Congratulations! Go forth and write :)

~Z

Regarding the "Crim acting comically full of himself" thing: he mostly does it because he finds it amusing. He doesn't really have any deep reason for doing it, nor does it somehow tie into his backstory (well, not in any clear way, though it presumably came from somewhere), it just strikes him as funny.

As to Crim and video games, yes, he mostly takes on Fire Emblem fics. This was especially true before being partnered with Cynthia, since she's familiar with enough video game continua to fill him in on why a fic is bad, aside from the obvious stuff.

The "Cynthia's ponytail" bit... actually, I can't say I entirely recall why I included that, aside from the fact that I clearly must've found it amusing at the time. Erm.

Anyhow, I'm pretty excited to be able to mission stuff. Without an angry mob forming and making me take down my unofficial missions by threat of maiming and/or death, anyhow. (That is how we enforce Permission, right?)