In the opening scene, I was amused by the reversal of attitude by Jay and Acacia regarding the flames: Acacia is optimistic about their uses, while Jay is reticent and untrusting. Would have been fun if that reversal continued all throughout this mission, but instead, they both end up grumpy. The whole time. It's actually kind of unpleasant to read? (And makes me regret Doc and Vania arguing during "Pick Your Poison;" is that equally unpleasant?!) It's not really resolved by the end of the mission either . . . hopefully the next one either addresses it or returns the status quo.
A couple interesting points that clash with the modern day in this one. Jay rather casually offers to tag herself and her partner out for another agent team. This might have been quite common before the Reorganisation, when staffing and funds were better, but it's going to get less and less feasible from now on! Jay had better not get used to it! Jay also reads the Words of this fic within HQ itself, explicitly after shutting off her console's display, but before opening any portal. That doesn't make much sense, even by the weird standards of how HQ works. If nothing else, wouldn't every badfic loaded up for missions in that moment be visible at once, making the Words of any particular story nearly impossible to make out? Also, Jay fears getting in trouble for returning to HQ mid-mission this time, and especially doesn't want to risk doing it twice. But didn't they just make an HQ stop mid-mission a few missions ago? I guess they got reprimanded for that off-screen! But out of universe, I wonder why such a quick change on that being against the rules?
Ah, what a difference between this bird scene, and a certain other one that doesn't need to be linked to, eh? back on that thread, I gave some examples of rewriting that other scene to be funny, but here, authors!Jay and Acacia go the other route, and provide a sensitive, empathetic, and humorless set of scenes, arguing to save the bird, and eventually doing so. I forget if Kes ever gets mentioned again, and I wonder what it's been up to in HQ since then? Maybe it hung out with Kestra and Kestrel, and yes, I checked the glossary to see if Kes was there, can you tell
Minor bits:
-I never picked up on the fact that Jay's orc disguise (possibly all of them?) still wears glasses on the face! A hilarious mental image!
-Why was this story titled "All Souls Night?" It doesn't seem to have anything to do with Halloween, although it does bring up Boromir's soul at least a couple times. Huh.
-Sad that deviantART link in the author note is dead. Did anyone save that image? I don't suppose it's the one on our Wiki's Marquis de Sod page?
-Just want to point out an excellent pair of lines:
. . . and Jay had either to follow or be left behind.
Jay considered this for a moment. And then marched away in a different direction.
Beautiful. Flawless. 12/10. We should all be more like Jay.
—doctorlit had a whole bit planned where Miss Minutes was going to return from the last review and do this review for him while this rogue timeline got pruned. Then, when she got to the bird part, she was going to freak out at the existing timeslip and unpruned lines. Then doctorlit was going to back for the next review like he had escaped from the TVA because the events of the Trickster's show had taken place, and all timelines are valid now. But it was already getting late, and now it's VERY late, and there just isn't time for hijinks. doctorlit is sorry.