It seems like Jay and Acacia may have used their "long break" to write a whole string of missions, because we get three pretty much back-to-back here. Having just read #7, we launch straight into:

Protectors of the Plot Continuum: Why Am I Here?, by Jay and Acacia

More when I've reread it, but this mission features the best characters I have ever borrowed.

hS

I wonder if the longer-than-typical posting time since the last update inspired the intro where Acacia is pleased it's been a while since the last mission? That's a cleverly subtle fourth wall break that was probably a lot funnier for the folks actually following along as TOS updated!

You know, we've had a lot of agent team-ups over the years, and they nearly always get announced in HQ, with the agents meeting at one RC before beginning. But this original team-up, where the POV agents just enter the mission and the other agents are just there unannounced, with no warning? This is hilarious. I love it so much! It gets even funnier by the end, when you realize that there really wasn't any exorcisable romance in the fic, and the Slashers just kind of disappear from the narrative with no real resolution. I don't think they were assigned to that mission at all; they were just messing around screwing around playing around having fun they were present in Middle-earth for no particular reason. Also, Sean calling out Jay and Acacia as "the two who live together" is further evidence that live-in response centers weren't standard in this era. Also also . . . when I read the word "micturate," I very much assumed it meant spitting, because that's the absolute most inappropriate thing I would do in the presence of three women. Sadly, I made the tragic decision to look it up, and it. Doesn't mean. Spitting. Damn it, Sean! There are ladies present! And also my mind's eye!

I had misremembered Luxury's "thought reading" here. I had it in my mind that Lux had read the Words, not of the badfic, but of the mission itself, to see Acacia's thoughts in the narration. But she actually read the subtitles? So are there always subtitles? Can any agent do this, as long as they have the proper, unserious mindset? I also find the implication behind the Slashers not knowing OCs can see them interesting. The authors J+A clearly saw slash missions as being fairly non-threatening in terms of danger, to write the Slashers as so blasé about making noise and being seen. And yet, the DBS nowadays has a history of absolute horrors within it, with plenty of overtly dangerous wraiths and abusive situations, especially among Trojanhorse and Laburnum's works. I wonder if this is a result of slash stories getting more intense over the years, or just a consequence of authors!J+A not really reading much of it to begin with, and not realizing what it could be like?

That Council of Elrond scene goes way, way, way off the rails, and I rather feel like at least that section was a bit of play-by-post RP between the authors!J+A and, I guess, their friend who inspired Luxury? It feels like they were competing to do more ridiculous things than the other writers present, because some of the stuff that happens is just way too risky even by the more lax standards of TOS-era missions. Messing with Gandalf's hat, tying one of the Suvians' hair to the chair, sitting on Sam?! (Funny that would happen one mission after my last post brought up the difficulty of agents having space to hide without infringing on the hobbits' hiding spots!) And I have barely any mental image of where the agents are to be able to do all this stuff without one of the Suvians noticing. Kind of a weak scene for me, honestly. Plus, in all the chaos, I think whoever was piloting Sean forgot that J+A were in orc disguises, when they wrote Sean attempting to "cop a feel" . . . do orcs even have—never mind! And hS, don't you DARE answer that!

Had to look up Strom Thurmond. Assumed he was some actor, but he's actually a politician, and was less than two years out from death when this mission got posted. That felt a little gross, but then I read his Wikipedia article more, and realized he opposed civil rights reforms. So now it's funny again! : D

—doctorlit thought he would be asleep by now; this is much longer than J+A's past missions have been! But cowrites will do that, so I'm told.

Looking at the formatting, I'm pretty confident this is a three-way co-write between Jay, Acy, and Lux. Lux and Sean's actions are separated out a bit too nearly in the intro for it to just be J&A (but equally, they tend to share lines, so I don't think they were two authors).

This is definitely the story that establishes Lux's reputation as an airhead nympho. And, er, what is up with this sequence?

Luxury came strolling out of the woods, riding on Sean's shoulders.

I've always assumed it's a moderately dirty scene, but this readthrough I've noticed two things:

1/ Lux is wearing a skirt later, oh lawks, but,

2/ Lux is strolling? What? Are her feet somehow on the ground?

Still on the subject of Lux: she reads the Words of the mission, which Acacia doesn't know how to do (and describes it as 'reading minds'). If we accept the notion that Lux is from the Shipverse, can she do that because the PPC isn't her world, so she can perceive its Words while its 'natives' can't?

The Department of Bad Slash as a concept is fleshed out slightly in ways that... really didn't stick. The Slashers don't wear disguises, and Acy implies that they might operate by seducing canons away from their uncanonical relationships. Which might be quite funny to read, actually, provided Rule of Funny was solidly in place.

Is this the mission that introduces the torture ban? I don't remember it coming up before.

And we have the mention of the spinoffs! Archi, KazraGirl, and Black Katana get mentioned; it looks like Acacia missed mulberry. It must have been a real thrill to start your spinoff and have the Original Assassins mention you in an A/N. :)

hS

Wiki says he has another mission with Robyn and NytBloomer, and that he was in Crashing Down, but not much past the 00s, I'm guessing. Maybe he works in the Arboretum