Subject: Toes not stepped on :)
Author:
Posted on: 2010-02-04 22:51:00 UTC
I didn't have the time to look at it properly but I thought I'd just give those couple of notes :)
Subject: Toes not stepped on :)
Author:
Posted on: 2010-02-04 22:51:00 UTC
I didn't have the time to look at it properly but I thought I'd just give those couple of notes :)
I, anamia, do hereby officially request permission to join the PPC. I vow to uphold canon and to destroy badfic, to abhore Mary Sues and to apreciate good writing. I promise to do the Duty to the best of my ability and not be swayed by foolish prejudices. I understand that, in joining the PPC I have sworn away my sanity, social life, and future career, and do willingly give these things up. I swear to be as good an agent as I find it within my power to be, and I wish to join the ranks of those who fight tirelessly against badfic in order to make canon a safer place.
So I speak, so I intend,
--anamia
Agents
Agent Sarah Vym
Age: 22
Species: Human
Gender: female
Partner: Agent Elaina Thyme
Home Continuum: Real World
Department: Department of Bad Slash, Harry Potter division
Fandom(s): Harry Potter, Earth’s Children, Twilight (emergencies only)
Lust Object(s): Draco Malfoy
Appearance: Of medium height and more than average weight. She has brown hair reaching halfway down her back which gets unbearably bushy and puffy in times of humidity or when it’s in a bad temper and which she hates. She has brown eyes and wears glasses. Sarah’s clothes are loose-fitting, and she carries a black shoulderbag with her on missions that contains the mission essentials, as well as ibuprofen, bleeprin, her iPod, and reading material. She has also been known to carry at various times rolls of duct tape in various outlandish colors including plaid, hot pink, and, at least once wilver. Please don’t ask about that. She tends to get testy when questions about her duct tape preferences. She also always has at least one matchbox on her person, though she does not smoke and is forbidden from lighting candles inside HQ (and outside of HQ, for that matter).
Personality: Sarah is short tempered and has few qualms in showing this to those she knows. Around strangers she tends to be reserved and taciturn, leading to the common assumption that she is incapable of experiencing emotions. She was, at one point, dragged into FicPsych to examine this, but her feelings for her Lust Object, Draco Malfoy, made it clear that she did indeed have most of the same emotions as others. The only one she still has trouble with is regret, and the SO has kept her out of the DMS because he fears that she might kill a cannon character who pissed her off.
However, as though to counter this public lack of emotional exuberance, Sarah is also a self-proclaimed fangirl and has very few problems admitting this. While at first this caused problems between Sarah and her partner, they have since worked this out, and Elaina has learned to tolerate Sarah’s tendency to ramble on about how adorable Draco Malfoy looks with any number of other men and boys. Her saving grace is that her fics are generally judged to be of decent quality, and are thus left alone.
Sarah is a grammar nazi and will correct everyone else’s grammar obsessively, much to their annoyance. She herself speaks perfectly, and she is well aware of this. She started her career at PPC in the Department of Technical Errors, before being transferred to DBS when she threatened to kill an author due to exceedingly poor grasp of the English language. She swears often and loudly, usually by invoking the name of various deities, whether real, fictional, or of her own creation.
Agent Elaina Thyme
Age: 23
Species: Human
Gender: female
Partner: Agent Sarah Vym
Home Continuum: Real World
Department: Department of Bad Slash, Harry Potter division
Fandom(s): Harry Potter, Gundam Wing, Yugioh,
Lust Object(s): Sirius Black, Seto Kaiba
Appearance: Elaina is short and curvy, with black hair which she keeps in braids and dark brown skin. Her eyes too are black. She likes to wear eccentric jewelry, which she removes on missions, and has her ears pierced several times. She carries a backpack with her on missions containing her exorcism supplies, a stiletto just in case, reading material, bleeprin and bleepka, and any gadgets she needs. She also has possession of the Remote Activator, since Sarah tends to be absent minded and forget it places, which is bad.
Personality: Elaina is more balanced then her partner, and presents basically the same personality to everyone she meets: confident almost to the point of being cocky, friendly, and rather snarky when she’s annoyed. She has never been dragged down to FicPsych, much to her delight, and lacks the homicidal urges that characterize many of the other PPC agents, including her partner. She carries her stiletto just in case, but has never yet had to actually use it.
Elaina, as the more levelheaded of the pair, is most often loaned out to other departments, usually the Department of Implausible Crossovers. She would much rather work in DBS, as she prefers exorcisms to neuralyzing, but will, of course, do what she is asked to do. After all, Elaina does want to keep her job. She was rather traumatized when her previous Partner, Agent Daphne Flamewright defected from PPC to stay in a Harry Potter fic and become Lucius Malfoy’s sex toy. Daphne was later removed by force from the fic and sent to be an inpatient at FicPsych, but Elaina is still fairly scarred by the whole thing, and is mistrustful of any new partner. She and Sarah clashed originally, but have since learned to get along and even respect each others’ skills.
Elaina has an obsession with blood, especially her own, and the extend of this fascination can scare even her. Her method of coping with badfic is to bite into herself until she bleeds, a habit which disgusts and disturbs her partner. Elaina is starting to get concerned about this, but has decided that, really, it’s no worse than the obsession some of her fellow agents have with bleeprin-derived products and probably healthier as well. She’s also a masochist, actually preferring the more disgusting, appalling fics. Sarah is of the opinion that she is utterly, completely insane, and Elaina has to agree. Still, it does not seem to have hurt her too much thus far.
Writing sample
Justification
Justification is a heck of a meaningful work, and things like it are often of publishable quality. A few typos, and some stylistic things :
And I manage to cut off parts of my own post.
* "as though she were running, not from a person but from her own thoughts." probably could use a comma between "person" and "but". "But" isn't separating two independent clauses, but it is being used to show contrast, and "not from a person" seems like it's excluded enough from the sentence. You'll need to see which you prefer, but I think adding it helps the pacing.
* "I had the image of her forever engrained" scans... artificially. That may be the goal, since it's probably not something the viewpoint character is proud to say, but if not I'd recommend "her image" instead of "image of her". "Engrained" is an archaic form of colouring. You probably want "ingrained", to have deeply impress into a surface. Engrained is similar enough that people will recognize it, and will be in some dictionaries, but ingrained is vastly preferred in normal use, and both sound about equally archaic. It's up to you what looks better though; the e does look better.
Thanks so much for taking the time to go through it like you did. You wouldn't by chance be interested in being my beta, would you? You have an eye for details that I could desperately use.
Glad you liked Justification despite the technical issues.
--anamia
I can't promise the most prompt or complete responses, but I can offer a spare set of eyeballs and the best I can do. If you want, my email is gattsuru AT gmail DOT com.
I do try to reread my work, but things have a nasty habit of slipping by me, as you both noticed. I'm currently looking for a beta to help me fix that. Thanks for pointing out the issues so that I can go back and reread again with an eye towards the things you mentioned.
Again, thank you for granting permission.
--anamia
I really enjoyed your writing sample. I was hooked from the first paragraph, which doesn't happen very often. I wanted to find out what was going on... but then, the entire point was that some things have and need no explanation. Very clever. *g* There are several small errors throughout--misplaced commas, typos, a few awkward phrases--but nothing that can't be overcome.
The green-eyed woman reminds me of my character, Jenni, before she settled down in her own original continuum. The description matches, and she was always hopping in and out of worlds like that. *g*
So, go, join the ranks of the proud, the few, the Bad Slashers. Good luck!
~Neshomeh
Having skimmed your agent bios - you say Sarah used to be in DTE and 'speaks perfectly', well, um, your commas are all over the place and I picked up a couple of spelling mistakes.
I'll read it through properly later (I'm just about to go to a meeting) but it looks promising, other than the technical issues which of course can be fixed with a nice, thorough beta job :)
- Trojie, flexing her new PG muscles
Sorry, Trojie--didn't mean to step on your toes! You posted while I was writing mine.
But yeah, I did pick up on those technical issues too. A beta should clear them up, though. I also recommend reading your writing aloud to yourself. Yes, it's weird. Yes, you'll feel silly. But you will also notice any misplaced punctuation and any phrases that just generally sound weird.
~Neshomeh
I didn't have the time to look at it properly but I thought I'd just give those couple of notes :)