I went off to try catching up a little (I've been...not hugely active on the Board for the past few weeks or so, given that I've been really busy), and there's a post down-Board with EPL volunteering as a beta? If she did beta your permission request, she ought to be credited as well :) Probably just an oversight, but something to bear in mind for the future--if someone's been your beta, it's only polite to credit them (unless they specifically request you don't. Doesn't happen often, to my knowledge, but once in a while there's a reason. The most frequent reason I've heard was 'I don't feel I really did enough to be credited as a beta reader').

~Z

Ah. So.

I've read through this, and I thought I'd give a few comments. Namely...well.

I do like Summer. I liked him a little better from his bio, funnily enough, but he's still fine in an actual scene. Your writing is also pretty good, from my reading; I didn't go trying to pick it apart, but nothing really jumped out at me when it came to SPaG, etc. Your descriptive writing is also nice. So that's great already.

Thing is, Nic...I really do not get Nic. He's, ah--well, look, I could see someone like him being interesting to read about, but as it is? He's too much for me in the bio, and he's too much in the story. He's confusing to read; he careens around the room, he changes every other second and it's unclear whether he does or doesn't have control over it (he seems not to right up until the bit where he looks like Nico and then it suddenly gets more ambiguous)...for me, he's just really, really too much. I think he'd need to be toned down quite a bit for me to even just not feel exhausted trying to keep up with him. The main thing I did like about him, beyond that he seems to mean well and like Summer, is the bit with the mac and cheese--the little detail about somehow changing cheese powder to actual cheese was amusing and *did* feel like something I'd want to read about both in general and I think in PPC writing, too. I think Nic at the heart of him is a nice sort of character; I just think his current window dressing, so to speak, is far too busy to really get along with as a reader.

A few more technical things:

-Had Nic and Summer already met? In the first piece it sounds very much like they know each other, and not at all just superficially (they seem to have a grasp of each other's names, personalities, powers...they read like they're already good friends)--yet Nic's only been there a week, there's no clarification regarding previous meetings, and it kind of seems like they're moving into a new RC (rather than Nic moving in with Summer? Moving into a new RC would be perfectly fine, it just...really isn't clear what's going on and why). It's never explained if and where they've met before, or even if it's a new RC (unless I just missed a mention)...I think we need more information, preferably in the text. We're very much lacking context.

-The destroying the RC piece: I...really wouldn't mind a little more context there, as well. Why did Nic already go in? Or did he not go on the mission? Did Summer even *finish* the mission? Where he was on a mission *to* is less important, since it's not the focus (though I *am* curious), but the other questions...again, we're missing just enough context to have a few too many niggling questions while reading.

-The writing just feels...it's very *busy*. I think a lot of that is due to writing Nic--who might work a little better as a cartoon character, honestly, except that even there he'd be very hard to keep track of. It doesn't really help me picture the scenes as more than exhausting shenanigans, at times.

The badfic: I don't know much about the canon, so I'll take your word for it. Personally, I don't often go for fics that *warn* they'll be OOC, but that's my personal preference. You're probably good on this front.

(Do I recognize you? Of course I recognize you. I'd say you're pretty well integrated into the community, by this point.)

And one last thing: I know this has gone through at least one other iteration. Good for you for putting so much work into it! I'm guessing Thoth is the only one who betaed this particular version, as no one else is listed?

Personally, at this point I'd say Permission Denied (but able to be obtained by remembering to give a touch more context and also toning down Nic--where is he *from*, by the way?), but I really wouldn't mind a second opinion.

~Z

PS: ;lakjsdf never, ever fail to repeatedly copy what you're typing in here and keep an eye on your keyboard. I'm using a different one than usual, and hit the back button when I went for where the tilde key normally is. Thank *everything* that when I went forward to the page everything I'd written was still there. Wow.