Subject: Happy Boardiversary!
Author:
Posted on: 2022-05-10 04:21:42 UTC

Oooooh, I really like the opening scenes here! All those books open and bookmarked really shows all the studying that's been going on, and is a much more dynamic image than just saying the RC has books on the shelves. And the details about what food is easier to prepare between missions, and Autumn both caring for and admonishing Blank after her mission, are such a down-to-earth and domestic look at PPC life that I'm just not used to seeing . . . I really like it! It's so much deeper than the usual "agents are hanging out/sleeping and then a mission happens" that I'm used to! (Food is especially tricky for me to think of in any interactive way like that, because I don't really enjoy eating in RL, and I tend to stick with stuff that heats quickly with little prep time so i can spend more time on fiction and getting ready for work . . . actually, that feels pretty RC life, now that I type it out!)

I love that Moira shows her background as a fic character by sort of trying to fantasy football her way through the mission, trying to edit it into something better as she goes, Nando v. Movies-style. It makes for a great contrast with Blank's more straightforward work ethic, which makes sense for her, since Sparklee never let her enter a story. And best of all, neither approach will be 100% right all the time, even though Blank had the correct diagnosis on this particular story. Speaking of which, your dialogue for Amalthea early on, where she seems to just be making vapid observations, was hilarious, and really had me going along with Moira's desire to avoid assassinating Althea. Once you actually let Althea go full Suvian, she became absolutely terrifying, made even worse by establishing her empty, thoughtless voice tone from earlier. It's interesting that Moira sensed how deeply wrong the world was on multiple occasions, but because of her imagined solidarity with Althea, she ignored her own instincts, only to immediately be turned against the second Althea learned her name and was able to weave it into the narration. As Autumn said, "a perfect teaching moment" indeed!

So, uh, Buddy?!!? What a shock! I love the description of his human body, with all the attributes of crow skin and feathers still recognizable in the new form . . . but like, what? Did he fly into a reality room and win the lottery to go more human than crow? Or was he something like Beorn all along, with a crow form rather than bear? (Feel free to ignore if you're answering these in a later story; I just like to speculate!)

And a couple minor things I liked: I love the C-Cad scanning the canon itself and giving a phone app-style forecast. And you found the perfect mini, and you wrote her perfectly. That is all.

—doctorlit thinks the "unicorn fiasco" is that Quirrell-Voldemort goes into the Forbidden Forest to drink that unicorn blood, but the unicorns are like, "Yo, most of the magic is sucked out of the universe for some reason, we don't have to take this crap from these dark wizards." So they all go marching through the forest singing a beautiful, acapella rendition of Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It" until they find Quirrell-Voldemort, and they just shank them. Shank them with all their horns. And then later the Hogwarts staff get the body to the hospital wing, and Madame Pomfrey is just like, "This is a weird tumor, on the back of Quirrell's head. Guys? Guys, come look at this exceedingly weird tumor. Is that not just the weirdest tumor you've ever seen?" And the scar doesn't pain Harry for blah blah years, all is well, etc.

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