I see Jiwon has become talented enough at shapeshifting that she’s made a big change! Too bad the tails aren’t as malleable; having that much extra volume must get frustrating in an all-indoor setting, and she doesn’t even get to leave on missions any more! Still, switching to an infrastructure department feels like a perfect end step for Jiwon; her anxiety on missions wasn’t always pleasant to read about, and she’s probably doing much better psychologically! And as cumbersome as her tails are, at least they function as storage devices! Somehow! Too bad, that would have been valuable in the action departments. (That soldier dude can eat a sofa, though. Who steps on another person because they’re in a hurry?)

I went into this assuming Charlie would have doubled down on the bard stuff, so reading them leading an army of undead was both a shock and a laugh for me. I especially love the idea that he’s been completing missions by ordering minions to do the easy ones for him, like he’s just lending NPCs out in a video game. I’m sure they go in disguise, like any standard mission, but it’s still funny to picture the undead blankly watching the events in a fanfic and having to snark at it, simply because they’ve been ordered to snark! And it’s great that Charlie’s reaction to their system being criticized is “it’s okay, I gave them knives.” Jimmy seems so long-suffering, and I have to feel a little bad for him having a high Intelligence stat while stuck working for a ditz.

Even after all this time reading your work, Charlie’s cool demeanor never stops catching me off guard. When they brought up becoming a lich, I assumed they meant as a long-term plan, something they would do someday in the future as they aged and neared the end of their lifespan. And then they just started doing it, there on the very same page, right before my eyes. They’re just so chill about everything, including giving up their living status to become a master zombie wizard. We must all learn to let go of anxiety and worry as well as Charlie! They also briefly tricked me into thinking “determination” had four syllables, because no, I didn’t catch it until Jiwon pointed it out!

One area where the description confused me is when Jiwon and Charlie walked to the gold table to eat. I get that they left the spooky room with the cauldron, but I’m unclear whether the table is in a separate RC from the one Charlie operates in, or if it’s a room within that RC. I think it’s the former, since Jimmy waves to them as they pass, and he was originally stationed at the RC door. Sorry if I’m missing something, but I just can’t quite picture what’s happening there.

New word you taught me: “hanbok.” They look fairly comfortable—which for me means unrestricting—but it’s not always easy to tell just from looking at pictures.

One typo here:
Then then patted Jimmy on the shoulder

And these paragraphs are missing the spacing between them:
“A lich? As in…”
“Yup! I’ll be undead!”

—doctorlit appreciates the literal jaw drop

(My reading time is rather inconsistent right now, but I’ll get to the second story when I’m able!)

I don’t know how long you’ve been setting this up, but I remember thinking during some of your more recent stories that Jiwon’s tail was bigger than I pictured in my head. I assumed I had just gotten a wrong impression of what the tail looked like, but now I see it actually has changed over time. Very sneaky! You wrote the change so subtly, I didn’t see it happening! And even when Jiwon brought up the size change at the beginning, I somehow didn’t expect the explanation that was coming by the end, even though it feels plainly obvious now. I’ve heard of nine-tailed fox legends before, but it didn’t occur to me that Jiwon could turn into one, especially not all at once like this! It makes for an interesting metaphor for Jiwon’s personal growth, because even though he may not appear to have changed much since the beginning of the spin-off, he absolutely has become more confident and less anxious over time. Perhaps getting all nine tails at once is a sign that he’s developed as far as he can without radically changing who he is? Whatever it means, I think it’s a very clever idea!

I understood, from the Doylist viewpoint, that this mission was based on one of your old stories, but in Watsonian mode, I was puzzled by what Intelligence meant by labeling the story an “old shame” in-universe. Jiwon and Charlie are pretty clearly not author insert-style characters, as they themselves discuss. Aaaand . . . I admit, I didn’t understand the relevance of their console saying, “don’t take me as well.” I thought it was worried about getting stolen or something. But the idea that the console has been this spin-off’s self insert all along, and was scared to confront its old shame (and has been writing the mission reports the whole time!) . . . OrangeFox, that is genius, and extremely funny. I very much enjoyed reading that twist at the end!

I figured out pretty early that the “chessboard” the agents were seeing in place of the Words had to be comic panels, based on the description you were giving inside the fic. Honestly, I had great fun reading the descriptions here; you did an excellent job of describing a child’s drawings the way they would look and feel as a solid environment. Honestly, it was kind of endearing, and early on, I found myself rooting for you not to be too harsh on your younger self. The comic is cute! It’s a little kid having fun and being creative! So I really like the ending. Oh, and I love that the agents’ disguises matched the aesthetic of the comic. Making Jiwon into another fox with magical fire is perfect, but I especially loved that Charlie just became a stick figure with cat features on the head. It’s just so cute and funny, and really feels like it matches Charlie’s vibe. All that said, I think this is the single most justified usage of a CAD screaming and melting after trying to give a reading of a character. I’ve read so many such scenes by now, I often feel the trope is overplayed, but in this story, it made me laugh out loud!

Nitpicker doctorlit wants to battle! Nitpicker doctorlit sent out Continuity Errors!
. . . being defended against the Haunter, his Gengar goons . . .
I believe these were Gastlys a couple scenes before?

The agents watched the Ferroseed hop . . .
This is a Ferrothorn everywhere else in the story. Then again, in the actual comic, it looks more like a Ferroseed to me, so . . . I don’t know, it’s your story, lol!

The opposing Continuity Errors fainted! Nitpicker doctorlit sent out Missing Words!
Another fight was ongoing, just in time to watch the lead stickman
Either the sentence trailed off, or the end punctuation is missing.

With that, they leaned back against ramp and watched . . .
the ramp

Nitpicker doctorlit withdrew Missing Words! Nitpicker doctorlit sent out Excess Letters!
The Pokémon slid across the floor of the gym less like static jpegs.

"Why'd you ask if you're not gonna do it anyway?"
I think I’m reading this right, going to be embarrassed if I misunderstood the conversation!

He wasn’t there in the last one, was he?” T

The Destiny Bond took Excess Letters down with it! Nitpicker doctorlit sent out Thefollowingpairsofparagraphsaremissingthedoublespacebetweenthemeon!

“Still no Words.”
“That’s what that ‘right’ implied, yes.”

“. . . Well, what’s next, then?”
competitors, said the fic . . .

“Somewhat, yes.”
“Nice.”

And I don’t really know what Pokémon joke to make for the last two, so:
An A, T, E, and R follow suit,
“followed”

Charlie clapped their stIck-hands rapidly.
Snuck a little of yourself into that “stick,” didn’t you?

—doctorlit awards OrangeFox the CHARACTERARCBADGE! DOSAT technology up to level 30 might obey you, sometimes!

Well, as for the mission itself. It was pretty good! I liked the idea of the old shame, and a CAD being an author insert. I... think there was a typo involving a stray capital "T", somewhere. I forgot to write this review after reading the fic, lol. I liked your descriptions of the stickman world. I will be honest, I did find some of ten-year-old Fox's bad jokes to be funny. Maybe that was just because of how you described it in the mission. Overall, I greatly liked it.

And I beta'd the interlude already, so not anything new to add there.

--Ls

After about a year, here's a 1.5k flash fiction piece featuring the Curator from Name Pending. It's rushed, unbeta'd, and really was just written in a state where I wanted to get any kind of productive writing done that day, but it's done so I suppose I can't be too upset, haha. First piece of 2025 for me, too.

That said, here's Vignette 1.