Permission Request

You: Fine. You play well with others, and you seem to Get It. Keep it up!

Agents: Fine. Classic pairing of a serious person and a maniac. Should do well as long as they're played for comedy and not drama. If the spin-off begins to tend more serious, though, Thalia will need to be toned down or switched out, because comedic violence only works in comedies. (On which note, maybe avoid heavy swearing? It felt really out of place.)

PPC knowledge: Also fine. I'm glad to see a one-room response center, and I dig the inclusion of a Jay and Acacia poster on the wall. I wonder what they'd think of that?

Badfic: Probably not as bad as you think it is, since it's yours, but you're always welcome to spork your own work. {= )

Now, the SPaG. It's clearly not bad enough that I'm denying Permission, but there are some consistent errors that need correction. Beta, please take heed as well. {= )

First and foremost, everyone is taught that when a new character speaks, that speech get a new line. What everyone should be taught is that when a new character acts, that gets a new line. The reason is this:

“It’s Doom.” Thalia nodded, before stepping aside.

Who said that line? Sure looks like it was Thalia, whose action is paired with the speech here. Let's check the next line for clues.

“Oh, where are my manners? Come in!”

Nope, doesn't help. What about the previous line?

“Hi!” She bounced in place, her grin remaining firmly fixed on her face. “I’m Thalia Quinn! Nice to meetcha!” The girl grabbed his gloved hand and shook it vigorously. “What’s your name?” Doom blinked, taken completely aback by her enthusiastic welcome, before regaining his usual scowl.

Well, it looks like Thalia speaks the first bits of dialogue, since she introduces herself in them, but then we get Doom's action at the end of the paragraph. So, if we leave a Doom line for a new speech, that speech should be Thalia's.

But it isn't. It's Doom's.

This problem is easily solved by keeping each character to their own line, like so:

Doom blinked, taken completely aback by her enthusiastic welcome, before regaining his usual scowl. “It’s Doom.”

Thalia nodded, before stepping aside. “Oh, where are my manners? Come in!”

See? Much more clear. {= ) (Also, you don't need the comma after "nodded," but that's minor.)

Now, before anyone yells at me, you CAN include multiple characters in the same paragraph for the purposes of action or description, and you CAN include a character's thoughts or impressions of another character's speech in a first-person or limited-omniscient POV, but until you're familiar with how to do it without being confusing, it's best to stick to the rule that new character = new line.

Second, when you have quotations within quotations, you must change the style of quotation marks. For example, this line:

“Something about, and I quote, “being mentally stable enough to keep a handle on you”.”

Should be written with single quotes inside the double quotes, like so:

“Something about, and I quote, ‘being mentally stable enough to keep a handle on you’.”

And, if you had a quotation nested within single quotes, you'd switch to double quotes:

“Something about, and I quote, ‘being “mentally stable” enough to keep a handle on you’.”

But, er, don't write anything with more than one set of nested quotes if you can possibly avoid it, please. This is just to show the concept to the fullest. ^_^

Third, three is the number of dots in the ellipsis, and the number of the dotting shall be three. Four shalt thou not dot; neither dot thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.

“So....” Doom paused

much fraying of his temper..

for.....my condition

You were very naughty. {; P

Fourth, watch how you space (or don't) around your dashes. I believe those are M dashes, so you should have no space on either side of the dash. Zero spaces.

Fifth, I think there were some comma and hyphenation errors, but that's getting nitpicky and my brain is almost out of steam for now. Oh, and there are a couple spots where you need two line-breaks, but there's only one; look the entry over, and I'm sure you'll spot them.

So, all that over with, congratulations! I hope my outer editor didn't dampen your spirits too much. {= D

~Neshomeh