Subject: A DIA piece
Author:
Posted on: 2025-06-06 22:43:57 UTC
After almost two years, I finally pushed through and finished a third entry in this silly little DIA series. Didn't mean for there to be so long between writing entries, but finals really put a damper on writing motivation, haha. Here's hoping I can finish a few more pieces before summer ends
So without further ado, here's Regular Shift.
Thoughts are being tricky, but I figured i should at least flag that you've got readers
Very “fever dream” vibes, which makes sense when following a sleep-deprived character. It also goes a long way towards making HQ feel like the not-fully-physical space it’s meant to be; Ocotillo could be wandering through a dream this whole time, considering how much of her travels are digging through artificial snow, and meeting such odd characters.
I’m glad to hear Ocotillo is getting some treatment from FicPsych, and I’m glad she got to meet Tess and the Curator in this story, as she deserved to get some support . . . But otherwise, the negative tone in this one really put me off. The shock collar, and the idea of being in debt to the PPC, just feel really excessive and fascist, quite frankly. And I can tell from the conversation with the Curator that that’s your point, that you’re pointing out the difference in humor in older spin-offs, but that doesn’t make this any more pleasant to read. I’m starting to read Ocotillo’s second voice as an actual separate individual, because a few of the lines “it” spoke in this story felt like it had knowledge that Ocotillo doesn’t. But whether that’s someone else in her head or just regular negative thoughts, it’s just a constant deluge of Ocotillo getting bullied by it, and I just hate reading it after a while. I’m sorry, OrangeFox, but I don’t think I’m going to enjoy Ocotillo stories much if there’s no better outlook for her around the horizon. I don’t like leaving such a negative review, but I’m just so bummed out reading this. I’m hoping her very public collapse at the end spurs the Tiger Lily to finally relent a bit and let Ocotillo rest.
Some typos:
. . . and the problems stuck in a world too small for dragons . . .
I feel like some words are missing here? Maybe I’m reading it wrong, but it feels like you were aiming for something like, “the problems of being stuck in”
She wings slowly folded back to her sides
“Her”
And lastly, the paragraph indent is missing between the lines “Oh, uh, I did, sir! Um… it was…” and That was not a question.
—doctorlit just wants the dragon to get better
As usual, thanks for the in-depth feedback!
The fascistic overtones of the shock collar were sort of unintentional, especially since I was just trying to base it off of Sue-Tracker depictions in other spinoffs. If it helps, I meant to imply that Ocotillo's situation wasn't standard DIA procedure, just a suggestion from someone else entirely (I do wonder if I could’ve made it clearer that this was just the Lily taking the chance to give it a one-off try). This was my attempt to write a low point, so on the other hand some concern is intentional, even if admittedly it might’ve been a bit much in hindsight with the mental bits.
The ‘in debt to the PPC’ thing was meant to be a joke about wages being so low that a cut would mean the workers were paying Upstairs, though with what surrounds it I can see it not helping tone that much.
I do think it’s important to mention here that the original story planned for this was basically split in two. It didn’t originally end here, but it was getting so lengthy and taking so long to write (real life and lowered motivation) that I ended up cutting the second half to move it to a different doc for continuation later. If it seems a bit unsatisfactory in the end it’s probably because it was basically a part one. I will say, this encouraged me to plan on getting back to the second half. Hopefully it should be done… well, before the end of 2026, if all goes well.
And as always, thanks for catching the typos! Sorry that this one wasn’t as enjoyable.
In the time between my last writing drop and now, I've had a few more (very) rough drafts added to the backlog and ready for another set of eyes.
The first is the second mission into Molly and Sam's little escapades, a 24k work featuring with basically zero canon knowledge necessary besides maybe a quick Google search or two. Just a fair warning that the missioned fic is NSFW.
The second is a light Interlude also involving Sam and an in-universe organization he helps run. This one's only 6k words, and ties somewhat into other stories Ive written (and perhaps another spinoff too)
The third and final piece is a silly Cafeteria piece involving mistaken deliveries. No canon knowledge is strictly needed, though it'd be nice to have help from someone familiar with the PAL sporkings on the Discord.
And as always, feel free to contact me through the Discord. Email also works, but admittedly I don't check it as often.