Subject: Terri Ryan (DOGA Archivist) reviews.
Author:
Posted on: 2013-04-23 09:55:00 UTC
The Mini-Mogget Adoption Agency
As a spoiler for the review: she's also received a note from Agent Colt of Building Maintenance...
hS
The first one is set immediately after Skeet and Amelia's first mission, as they try to work out what to do with all the minis they brought back with them.
The second involves them receiving a very different kind of mini, and guest stars Durotar and Kur'nak (thanks again Phobos, for letting me borrow them).
The Mini-Mogget Adoption Agency
As a spoiler for the review: she's also received a note from Agent Colt of Building Maintenance...
hS
I think what's happened here is just a misunderstanding.
I would never do such a thing (and in fact didn't). I can only assume that that piece of writing is just a highly meta piece of fanfic, most likely written and distributed by someone that's out to get me. Possibly Amy. Seriously, if you could check it with a CAD I'm sure it would show that I was OOC. Clearly it should have carried the usual disclaimer of 'all characters and events portrayed are fictional, and any resemblance to persons living or dead, or actual events, is entirely coincidental'.
Anyway I've inspected all of the walls here, and they're fine, they're all fine. So there's no reason whatsoever for you to come down and look for yourself, it'd just be a waste of your time. Honest.
-Agent Skeet (DMS)
What really got to me in this was the creation of concrit because it's astoundingly true. Poor Skeet.
These were both fun to read! In "Adoption," I like that you keep the mini-Moggets an active presence throughout the entire story. It's also good that you gave both agents a reaction to the situation, and kept that characterization going throughout the entire story.
In "Delivery," I like how the foods being eaten for breakfast at the beginning reappear at the end to show the agents that the Irish Samuri is a mini. It makes for some efficient bookend details around the start and finish. Skeet's complete turnaround with Kur'nak upon seeing the AC/DC shirt was funny, too.
SPaG parade!
The Mini-Mogget Adoption Agency
"'. . . it’s your job to keep these guys out of my way while I move this sofa, alright?'" ("all right")
Delivery of a Mini-Boarder
"'Hey, don’t worry about, big guy, maybe next time yeah?'" ("it" after "about"/comma after "time")
"'Go on, Kun’nak, you know which one it is.'" (It's funny becuase a story in which a mini-Wrathguard is a character has produced a mini-Wrathguard itself.)
"Kun’ark passed Skeet a box . . ." (Two mini-Wrathguards. Kun'ark actually shows up in at least a few places, so be sure to double-check them all.)
"'sign here please.'" (capital "s" in "sign"/comma after "here")
"'Alright, whatever.'" ("All right")
The mini-Moggets were good fun to write, I definitely plan on doing more with them. I get the feeling that Skeet is going to find himself lacking in bacon fairly soon.
I hadn't really thought about how the breakfast stuff in 'Delivery' bookended the story, that was just a lucky accident.
And thanks for pointing those errors out (creating a mini-Wrathguard in a story which already featured a mini-Wrathguard was probably the most embarrassing one). I think I've got them all fixed now, with the exception of the 'alrights' - I know it's not technically correct English, but I consider it acceptable in dialogue.
Just got through reading these, and I think the first is my favorite. I thought the part about sawing through the concrit, and having it spit out little broken-down chunks of actual constructive criticism, was very clever, and then you went and added a reference to breaking the fourth wall, which made me laugh out loud. I also liked the "Warning, this is not a drill" gag. Well done!
I hope Kur'nak does get to come back and hang out with Skeet sometime. Probably do him good, and I'm sure the conversation would be interesting to read. *g*
And now some nitpicks. I spotted a typo in the first interlude:
"Skeet had never managed to get the hand of navigating HQ" - should be "hang."
And some awkward wording in the second:
"it was more just that she could practically feel her arteries hardening just from" - you probably only need the second one of those.
Also, I think "mini" should be capitalized in both titles.
Also also, a thought: there was a thing a while back about how it would be a good idea for FicPsych to have therapy animals. I don't know if it ever went anywhere (it wasn't my idea), but I'm wondering, how intelligent are the mini-Moggets, and are there one or two who might be amenable to being attached to the department? I figure you can't go too wrong with effectively immortal fluffy white kitties. {= )
~Neshomeh
Glad you enjoyed it. I'm not quite sure where the idea of the little chunks of concrit came from, but once I'd had it, it just seemed to make perfect sense. And I think that those 'Not a Drill' labels could be really useful - when you think about it, most things in life aren't drills. :)
I hope Kur'nak gets to hang out with Skeet again too - he was really fun to write. And good practise for me too, I think. That was actually the first time I've written someone else's character in a while.
Thanks for pointing out those errors, I believe that I've fixed them now.
I vaguely recall that idea about FicPsych using animals for therapy, although I can't find any trace of it at the minute. In the Abhorsen books, Mogget is a very intelligent and powerful magical creature, so mini-Moggets should be intelligent enough to understand anything someone says to them. Of course, they are still cats, so whether they actually listen or not will probably depend on how much bacon/salmon they're being offered at the time.
I'm sure that there would be a few of them that would be happy working over in FicPsych... in fact, that might fit in quite well with another Interlude that I've got planned. If I remember rightly, you have ownership of most of the FicPsych personnel - is there any Nurse in particular that you think would be part of this project, and would I be able to borrow them for a brief appearance?
Here's the department's original response to the idea. Looks like Nurse Immac was put in charge. She's free to use anyway, so have at it.
I don't know anything about Abhorsen, so I'll leave the selection of minis to you. It would be nice if the names aren't too unpronounceable, though. {= )
~Neshomeh
Thanks for the link, I'm not sure that I'd have found it myself - obviously wasn't using the right search terms.
Actually, the more I think about it, the more mini-Moggets seem like a good choice for helping out FicPsyche. Each one has a miniature copy of one of the necromantic Bells (one of the main magic systems in Abhorsenverse) on its collar, and while they're far less powerful than the full size ones, they still should have a range of abilities that could be useful in FicPsych: sending people to sleep, silencing screams, or erasing memories.
Feels as if that fourth-wall breaking chainsaw managed to cause some dimensional bleeding between the Board and HQ.
Yeah...that mini boarder is totally not my creation...nope...
Nice interludes, though with the amount of interference coming from the board into HQ recently, things might be getting interesting soon. On second thought, when is HQ ever uninteresting?
The Board is leaking through into PPC HQ! The last time this happened, we lost two Department Heads and the DIO! MAAASSSS PAAAANNIIIIC! (blasts airhorn)
Actually... it might not be that bad this time. One mini isn't going to do that much. Keep an eye on him, though. If he starts exhibiting knowledge of the Boarders, contain him before he leaks others of his kind into Headquarters.
Oh, and I read your mission to the Old Kingdom continuum after I looked through the first interlude, and have a mini of my own to give you. (passes the mini "Muphry's Law" to the Irish Samurai) You might want to fix that.
In the interim, I imagine the mini looks a bit like this:
Edward Murphy. By the way, do you have any idea how to make images smaller? Any bigger than that and it'd be too big.
Muphry's Law is an actual thing. Better re-check your post in case it struck. ^~
As for image sizing, you'd want to do something like img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/EdwardMurphyJr.jpg" width="200"/, which yields:
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/EdwardMurphy_Jr.jpg" width="200">
In this case, 200 pixels wide. You can also specify the height if you want to, but it's not strictly necessary, and it will automatically scale correctly if you only use one or the other.
~Neshomeh
I wasn't aware of that. Now there never was an Edward Murphy mini. What mini? Where? It had a mustache, you claim? How ludicrous? If it doesn't exist, it can't have facial hair!
This post is going in my ever-growing list of "this is how to use the Board" saved messages. Thanks for the tip!
Think about it, if the Cheshire Cat's grin can exist independently of the cat itself, then it's perfectly possible for a disembodied mini-moustache to exist.