Subject: Short Interlude!
Author:
Posted on: 2023-11-01 00:40:32 UTC
Decided to finish up a little Interlude for the spooky season! Felt like exploring New Caledonia and Cemetery Hill a bit, along with the topic of resurrection. Just a bit, it doesn't really get too in-depth or anything.
Loving the contrast between George and Molly’s descriptions, with George so tall and well-dressed, while Molly is hesitant and some tiny little Pokémon thing, or something. And yet Molly is the one stuck carrying the bag! I love that this foreshadows George’s lack of regard for others, and that his kicking rocks off the street foreshadows his controlling nature. He literally can’t “let things lie,” can he? And I’m fascinated by the idea that you introduced us to this character at the very end of his story, only to see this plan of his, which he's presumably been planning and working towards for weeks, if not longer, end in literal fatal failure! (Because I assume that entity couldn’t have ended George prematurely, any more than George could have unended anyone else’s?) He was a jerk, that much is clear from even this small story, and he took it for granted that he was only limited by what he could do, not what he should do. And here’s the downfall! It’s quite an impactful story! (I’m also headcanoning that in that certain other timeline, George is one of the PPC staff who pushed for the Department of Efficiency to rise to power! He fits right in!) Man . . . imagine escaping from being an Auror in the Potterverse, which features villains obsessed with overpowering death itself, only to wind up deleted from reality because you became obsessed with outsmarting death! I guess he interrogated one too many Death Eaters or something . . .
Poor Molly, I’m glad she got away, but it’s not right for her to be blamed for something she didn’t do. Hopefully her next partner will be a little more down-to-earth, although the Fig’s line about a partner “who lasts longer than a month with you” makes me wonder if she regularly winds up stuck with partners who make choices and get themselves deleted from existence?
—doctorlit eats the death everyday for breakfiss
Glad you found it fascinating! Though, you've noticed a lot of depth in George that I... did not think about too much when planning this, to be honest. Just felt like writing someone based around some Internet comments that rubbed me the wrong way, and using said character to explore the question of 'why doesn't HQ just revive killed Agents?' I could probably work on my intentionality in these things, haha. The implied partner patterns with Molly, on the other hand, were definitely intentional, so that's nice. Though if my current writing plans are anything to go by, Molly's next partner might not be much better than George was...
I'm unfamiliar with the Department of Efficiency, but I might check that out when I have the chance - if there's one thing consistent about my writing, it's my tendency to take one-off characters and explore their pasts and motivations more than I probably should. Thanks for the comments!
. . . doesn't mean you didn't plan it unconsciously!
re: the Department of Efficiency, and its cohort, the Department of Author Correction, appear in a future, alternate timeline Huinesoron had written in his End of the Beginning series. (Specifically read "Slippery Slope" and the titles from "Thirty Years On" through "Sacrifice" for the Efficient, and "Trousers of Time" for the point where our timeline prevented the Efficient from rising to power.) The Efficient enforce time limits and other capitalist strictures on agents, punishing those who fail, while Author Correction dissuades bad fanfiction from being created by torturing the authors! It is a bad future, and as you can see from "Slippery Slope" taking place a year before "Trousers of Time," (in 2024!) we're on the cusp of that kind of attitude starting to leak into HQ for a couple years, even though the full blown department won't come to be for us. Hence, my headcanon that George may have contributed to its rise, and heck, might even still be alive during The End of the Beginning?
—doctorlit, thinking way too much about alternate timelines—but it's just so fun!
And it does explain something I never really thought about before, so ... good stuff!
Read it folks! It's good!
-Ls