Subject: Re: mission
Author:
Posted on: 2021-08-17 00:04:15 UTC

Oh, dear. I have a terrible feeling I've been pronouncing Christianne's surname in the whitest way possible all these years. The spelling reminded me of a lot of names from the U.S. Civil War era (Tecumseh, etc.) so I've been saying "SHY-uh." But know I realize it's probably "SHEE-ay," huh? >_> Oops.

This mission works so well as a send-off for Christianne and Eledhwen! You showed off their new maturity in such a subtle way throughout: they engage with the fic so little compared to Liu Siyuan, always reverting back to flirting with each other! And their discomfort with Siyuan's reactions to the fic get the point across, too; they just don't feel that anger any more. And I think it's appropriate, between that and the fact that they've adopted a child of their own, that they decided not to assassinate John. It respects that the character is a minor, and reflects the out-of-universe push we had some years ago to avoid assassinations when possible.

Siyuan is an interesting character. I was literally just thinking to myself that he seemed too boring to be one of your characters, right before I read Christianne thought he was "too competent and sane." I love the idea of an agent who's actually quite good at the job, but relies on energy from the canon to do said job, which then makes go haywire once the badfic starts corrupting that energy. Poor guy! Hopefully interacting with others will start helping him steel his mind and energy against the problem. I'm all for introversion, but missions are nothing to be tackling alone! I also like that both his flashpatch and exorcism strategy match his culture and style. The exorcism was quite cool, too.

And as a final note, I loved seeing some of the minor characters you've created over the years coming back for mentions and appearances, as well as following up on the deglitterfication project! I hope we'll see some of them get further appearances in future interludes?

—doctorlit, glad to have spent most of the weekend on this wonderful story!

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