Subject: And done!
Author:
Posted on: 2019-10-09 01:02:00 UTC
Sooner than expected.
Yeah, not much more to add. Strong ending, lots of great comedy. The phrase "Stabbio Killia" makes me giggle whenever I hear it, but I'm not sure if that's because I Am A Child or not.
You did good, is the point.
No, not Agent Huinesoron.
No, not Narto and Lou either.
Picture the scene: it's spring 2004. Order of the Phoenix came out last year; Half-Blood Prince is still a year in the future. The Prisoner of Azkaban movie is coming a month from now.
And Agent Dafydd and Vemi are heading off on a mission.
For the timeline buffs among us, I've also updated Dafydd's timeline; this mission actually falls between the two halves of the 'Al and Death' mission (which have now been properly separated).
And yeah - at this point in time, so far as anyone knows, they're just a couple of normal human agents. ^_^
hS
Thanks for directing me to this; I know I read this earlier, I checked the entire front page in mid-September, but I must have forgotten or mentally filed this under 'old missions'.
Actual comments now!
The section with the rapid scene changes seems done pretty well, although it seems to make more sense if the original is read; maybe make it more explicit what happens here?
Something you might want to say; I noticed that the four Sues are all described as 'nieces' (including when it makes no sense). It seems like the author heard 'no children/grandchildren of canon characters' and applied it literally.
Might you try to get some form of charges out of chapters 5-7? The attempt to write 'dark' events is so badly overdone it's almost comical, and I feel like this section was skimmed over, although I suppose the formatting might justify the pacing. Also, I don't know if you did anything with this, but the author misspells 'wreak' as 'reak' in chapter 7, which is an archaic word meaning "prank" - might be usable.
I would say you were being a bit harsh with the Sues, but Rebecca has no distinguishing characteristics of any sort and Alexia's nearly as bad.
Overall, a pretty good mission, although its connection to DOGA as such is a bit tenuous.
Okay, I'll admit, I haven't actually finished reading the mission yet. But this is about to slide off the face of the board and the board is about to slide off the internet so I figured I'd best speak now or forever hold my piece.
What I will say is that this feels like a 2004 mission so far. That's not a bad thing! It means that it's lighthearted, for one. Sometimes it feels like the PPC has lost a bit of its whimsy of late...
Necessarily, that does have some cost, but on the whole it's a balance I haven't seen in a while. Because... well, I haven't seen a mission like this in aaaages.
It filled a desire I didn't know I had, is what I'm saying. Well, I guess I kinda knew. But I'd forgotten.
-Thoth, hopefully going to finish the mission now but possibly not because he has a poor track record on finishing things
I'm not going to say I've always tried to keep things lighthearted, because that would be a blatant lie. But I did deliberately try it with this mission. Whimsy is fun! ^_^
hS
Sooner than expected.
Yeah, not much more to add. Strong ending, lots of great comedy. The phrase "Stabbio Killia" makes me giggle whenever I hear it, but I'm not sure if that's because I Am A Child or not.
You did good, is the point.
Oh, I very much like getting new episodes from the past! I especially like the opening, with the Courtyard being nearly unknown to most of HQ (and being much smaller than it is today, at least as I see your description?), as well as the Elm foreshadowing its later role by already starting to spy on agents. I also liked the acknowledgement of the PPC's rapid staff explosion, and the distrust of the color pink making Vemi's dress unique enough for Dafydd to comment on; I suspect there's a bit more color variety in HQ nowadays, such that heads wouldn't turn at seeing pink quite so much.
I was amused at Dafydd's complete lack of understanding in the Potterverse. Even knowing how Tolkien-focused were the earliest days of the PPC—both in-universe and out-—it's still funny to think there was a point in time when Harry Potter was such a tiny, fledgling fandom that one of the PPC's poster-boy agents was entirely unaware of it. It's interesting how attitudes and common cultural knowledge change over time in a society!
The moment that most amused me was the REBECCA gag. It's interesting to see Suvians so devoid of personality that derailing the fic makes one blue-screen and the other just have the same reaction to danger over and over and over . . . I'm insterested to see what shenanigans Jenae is going to get up to in the future. (Unless that's already been published, and I don't remember?)
The only typo I saw is a mini-Aragog:
"'Crucio! Confringio! Colovaria? No? Nothing?'"
It's actually "Confringo" with one "i," though I admit I had to look it up to double-check . . .
—"REBECCA! doctorlit is leaving a review on the Board!"
That staff explosion has been something of an inevitable truth for a while, but never really confirmed until now. This also has the side-effect of rendering the SO's 'Implausible Crossovers has a dozen agents' line actually plausible again; if we estimate 900 agents before the recruitment explosion, and push half of them into Infrastructure (mostly Intelligence), that's 450 in Action. If half of those are Assassins, half of what's left are Slashers... okay, IC should be larger than the SO claims, but not ridiculously larger.
Was the Potterverse small at this point, or is Dafydd just unobservant? It could seriously go either way. He was a very specialised agent at this point - his only missions had been LotR and Discworld. And his department consists of him, a vampire, an archivist, and a small tree. I don't think he talks to many people. (Actually he probably doesn't, since he's busy trying to hide being a famous elf.)
Jenae Dumbledore is a deliberate loose end. I have no idea if I'll ever do anything with her, and if anyone else wants to pick up the story of a rogue Suvian who's been bopping around Hogwarts for 15 years, they're welcome to do so. :)
Confringo is fixed. (Incidentally, the use of Confringo! here is something of a cheat; it looks like the word only came into existence with Deathly Hallows. But I needed it for the gag to work, and nobody will notice as long as I don't say anything. >_>)
hS
The opening was really well done.
I liked the bad cowrite and the "she's not bad" bit about Selene.
The whole bit with Daffyd not knowing much about Harry Potter was a quite nice gag.
I also wonder why Vemi thinks truth potions are crude.
I also now recognize this fic - it was one of the ones Nesh linked a few months back I think? It was quite terrible.
The "SLAM" bit is a good way of showing what's presumably a rapidly switching pair of scenes.
"Hi, we're here to kill you, so if you give us a moment we'll be right over." is just a funny line and it's nice to see what's become the formula these days (which is usually much sneakier) get not used.
The "REBECCA" thing and her being a paper cut-out are fun.
The butchered Unforgivable and the magic ring was interesting.
"Do we have to de-wolfy him?" Daffyd, leave Wolfy McWolfface alone!!1!!
"Yer a wizard, Vemi." - well, I wasn't expecting that.
Or maybe Vemi isn't a wizard? Since she's needing to make with the stabbing.
Well, the bit about the partnership not going through makes sense.
... that's a concerning author's note.
Overall, you've done quite a good job, especially on the having funny bits part of a PPC mission and the having good character interactions bit. The goings-on were funny, and there was some nice plot development in there for Daffyd and Vemi (though I do want to know if she's a wizard or not).
It's nice to see a slightly different flavor of assassination scene that usually happens these days, and more people should try that ... I should try that, really. Though I need to actually find a fic for Mission 2.
And from what I can tell, the badfic was bad more in plot than in SPaG, so having it mostly told, not shown, is likely fine.
- Tomash
On truth potions: they're pretty lazy storytelling when used to excess. "Why, Mr. Poirot, how could you think I was invol--?" [Truth potion to the face] "--yes, I killed him with a spanner in the ballroom."
Plus, Vemi is a trained Assassin. She likes elegant solutions, not simple brute force to the mind.
Yeah, Nesh asked for someone to write a mission into this so she could use Remus. It worked out pretty well.
SLAM was an act of desperation - I needed to shortcut through the boring bits of the mission, but didn't want to literally portal past them. This way, I got to further my anti-timejump agenda along the way. :)
One key thing about assassinations is that they have to be tuned to the story. Shawna and REBECCA! were highly inept, so just walking up to them would work out. If they'd been competent characters, or even just Death Eaters, the agents would have needed to be a bit sneakier. (Though how you do that when you've just hurtled across the room is... an opportunity for fun storytelling!)
Is Vemi a wizard? Nope! She is, however, prone to accidentally 'Sueing herself, turning herself invisible, and transforming into a Drow, so briefly being a wizard isn't exactly unusual.
(ROT13 explanation: Penfuvat Qbja erirnyf gung Irzv vf npghnyyl na nzarfvnp Znvn, onfvpnyyl n zvabe tbqqrff. Nyy gurfr curabzran ner ure fhopbafpvbhfyl vasyhrapvat ernyvgl gb or ubj fur srryf vg 'fubhyq' or.)
hS
(And I do mean that in the strictest-complimentary sense; I know I don't want her yelling at me! XD)
*That elm was definitely laughing, I can tell.
*That is a clever use of "I Resemble That Remark" - Vemi's use, not "Wormtail"'s.
*Saved by the chapter drop! Clever.
*Those sentence clippings when Wormtail kidnaps Harry were almost physically painful to read; well done.
*"Vemi yelped as a whole collection of characters appeared in the room, several of them screaming. Harry Potter landed right where she had been standing, where she would have been impossible for Voldemort to miss. "Nope, I take it back," she hissed. "You totally saved my life." She grabbed the Pyro's arm and dragged him in for a hug."
I'm not sure 'hissed' is the right word, here? Though I'm not sure how you'd best convey 'quietly yelped.' XD
*... Were there two Dumbledore Sues? Ye gods.
*Hell of a charge list, to be sure. ... Someone should adopt that surviving Sue, give her some real meaning in life.
Like many author insert agents, she's very good at manic violence, and not so good at expressing her feelings in a healthy way. She's working on it. (Or... was, fifteen years ago.)
The hiss... I see your point, but I don't know what to do with it. I'm trying to avoid slapping adverbs all over the place; what I'm going for is a fairly manic whisper.
I actually completely spaced that Jenae and Alexia were supposed to be different characters until my final checks. But yep, Jenae has this whole rambling story about how her sister was kidnapped. Aaaand we just left her in Hogwarts.
I'm sure it'll be fine.
I'm glad you enjoyed the mission!
hS
"It makes us sound like a bad cowrite" made me chuckle.
(Obligatory "and Sirius wouldn't have come back as a ghost, anyway, since he wanted to move on".)
Dafydd calling Harry Potter an anime... goodness.
*rubs eyes* Hufflepuff Sues? That's got to be a first, wow.
Jenae—Jenae— *splutters* Dumbledore?
"How come someone as bloodthirsty as you isn't an Assassin, anyway?" Dafydd, your Maglor is showing.
Vemi ran her nails over the floorboards, feeling the splinters snag under them[. . .] I know you meant the wood sort of just caught briefly but I was struck with the very unpleasant mental image of splinters being shoved under my fingernails.
Carrying on... everyone is dead now? What? What? 
"Gasp!" shouted Shawna[. . .] *snickers*
And the entire assassination scene was just pure gold, especially with the agents just going nuts with their made-up spells.
That was a fun mission and I enjoyed reading it!
... I didn't even flag that they were in Hufflepuff. Yikes. o.o
Yeah, everyone is dead now. Six characters are bumped off in the space of a single paragraph, one goes crazy, and five more are sent to France. And then they kill Harry (and possibly Alexia? She vanishes so completely she might well be supposed to be dead) the next chapter. It's really bad storytelling.
I've thrown a 'briefly' into the splinter snagging; you're right that was a bit horrid.
I'm glad you enjoyed it!
hS