When Officer Shacklemore arrives, Skeet immediately expects an accusation, Shacklemore expects that Skeet has at least some standards and doesn't have any proof of Skeet being a smuggler anyway, and I'm sure he wouldn't ask a favour from a hard-boiled criminal. Yes, you brought this across quite well. Also, the scene feels very PPCish to me, depicting the impact fake Bleep products would have on the daily work at HQ.

SpaG: Apache Open Office spell check says that "wellbeing" is not a word, it should be "well-being".

Officer Shacklemore may have dropped a word in "... if were to receive such a letter ...".
Didn't he intend to say "... if we were to receive such a letter ...".

And Skeet sounds weird here: “Usually you're asking things like 'where was I between the hours of 8 and 12 yesterday?'.”
I don't believe that Shacklemore usually asks Skeet where Shacklemore was. Shouldn't it be either
"Usually you're asking things like 'where were you between the hours of 8 and 12 yesterday?'."
or
"Usually you're asking things like where I was between the hours of 8 and 12 yesterday."

I'm not very subtle myself, but I hope I got the stealth insult: Shacklemore needs an idiot to catch "an idiot that’s been bringing in black market Bleeprin."

HG

Firstly, I love the nuisance criminal vibe you've got going. I love the show Haven, and the main vibe in the first two seasons between two of the main characters (one a cop, the other a smuggler, but with a hugely complicated backstory) is pretty much what you said you wanted here. I compared Theo and Skeet's conversation here to Nathan and Duke talking as I read it. (Sorry it's one of those 'readers bring their own weirdness' things that a writer can never control for). Anyway, I thought it worked well. In this case it is definitely Officer Theo who is the smarter and more patient of the pair.

He gets a bit of the 'obnoxiously superior' thing going at the end, but that fits well with the cop dealing with a nuisance criminal (and being forced to ask a favour, which I imagine he doesn't find the most pleasant).

It speaks well of Skeet that he changed his tune when he heard that it was something dangerous that Theo needed help with. That also lends credence to your statement that Skeet is more of a nuisance than a serious bad guy.

Details:

Did they have their RC door open, or did Shacklemore open/unlock their door to get in?

[“No, this is a conversation. If you’d like, I could probably arrange for some harassment, and you could do a compare and contrast study.”] I love this line. It fits so well with the cop vs nuisance criminal thing.

I loved that Skeet's reaction was immediate denial followed by the realization that he really hadn't done anything (this time).

The Infernal Repairs jibe is great, too.

[If I ever end up in a carton] cartoon Also, I love the mention of shoulder angel/devil. I've always really liked that in cartoons.

[if were to receive such a letter,] missing word. I or we probably.

Good to see a DIA agent in action again! You gave a good description of Shacklemore's work (love that name on a DIA officer, by the way), which was important, since most spin-offs don't portray agents committing actual crimes like the DIA would get involved in. I like that you involved Bleeprin in the story not just as a background detail, but by showing the potential consequences that bootlegged, less efficient Bleep could have on HQ. (Any chance of this story being fully fleshed out from Shacklemore's view someday?)

You definitely succeeded on the "nuisance vs. criminal" thing. From their speech and mannerisms, the reader can see that Skeet is feeling panicked, and assumes it's about him getting in trouble, while Shacklemore is just taking a relatively hum-drum step in a much larger and more important event. The one thing that seemed a bit odd to me in this situation is that Shack (Can I call him that?) didn't argue for Skeet to get the letter to him faster than "two or three days' time." I know it's in HQ, and time is wibbly-wobbly, but considering agents' sanity is being actively threatened, I think the DIA might want potentially breakthrough info sooner than days away. Unless I'm not understanding something about the letter, that it would take that long to compose?

[. . . ‘use a thief to catch a thief’?”]
* I think the question mark should go inside both sets of quotation marks. That's usually how punctuation works around quotation marks, but I'm not specifically sure if the rules are different with double quotes. Can anyone else weigh in?

[. . . sources of supply outside of the official channels’-”]
*(I think) The hyphen goes inside both quotation marks, same as above.

[. . . a world of difference between ‘unjustified’ and ‘unproven’,]
*Here, the comma definitely goes inside the single quote.

“'If I ever end up in a carton with a good angel on one shoulder . . .'"
*We don't want Skeet on a milk carton! That would mean he had gone missing!

“'Alright, listen, I’m not saying that I can help, but, hypothetically speaking, if I could, then you’d probably be getting an anonymous, and completely-untraceable-to-me, letter giving some details in, say, two or three days time.”'"
*"All right" is two words.
*The hyphen between "completely" and "untraceable" isn't strictly necessary, since the adverbs ending in "-ly" are automatically connected to what they describe. However, since you have that whole phrase hyphenated, it might be okay to leave that first hyphen in just for aesthetic reasons.
*"Days" should have an apostrophe. I know it doesn't sound possessive, since it's one of those common phrases we take for granted, but this is basically saying, "in the time contained in two or three days."

“'Well, equally hypothetically, if were to receive such a letter . . .'"
*This sentence is missing the subject. (If I were, etc.)

[‘where was I between the hours of 8 and 12 yesterday?’.”]
*No period here; the question mark takes over as the ending punctuation, even though this sentence didn't start as a question.

“'yes, well, I’m sure that I will have the opportunity . . .'"
*Start of sentence not capitalized.

". . . the longest named mini out of their entire collection.
*There should be a hyphen between "longest-named," since it's a complex adjective.

"'. . . you have about as much social graces as a Viking raid!'”
*The phrase should be either, "as much social grace" or "as many social graces." ("Many" is used for things in countable amounts; "much" is used for abstract, uncountable concepts.)

What's the insult? "I want your help to catch an idiot"?

I didn't understand it the first time, but it made sense the second reading. (Basically I thought Amy was another DIA at first.) I want to read the rest of Shacklemore's stuff.

This is the first mention I've seen where someone overdosed on Bleep products.

“If I ever end up in a carton with a good angel on one shoulder and a bad angel on the other, that prissy little do-gooding guilt-tripper is gonna look just like you, you know that?

Missing quote-mark and a typo. Does it need more commas?

Apparently the problem vanished again shortly after I reported it. Something similar had already occurred on several occasions in the past, and it's always just the Board, other sites are not affected.

In the past, I just waited and continued lurking when it was gone. But it's really annyoing when I'm trying to work here.

HG

Nice banter. What I get from it is an insecure young man and a woman who may be more caring than she likes to admit. I don’t know their canons, so I will probably not understand much of their missions, but I may still be interested in learning to know them better.

Grammar check is a bit confused at some points, but in the end I trust my own judgment better: no errors detected.

HG

Overall impressions: I like these two. They will make a good agent pair. Mismatched, but enough balance so I don't expect that one of them will overshadow the other.

Nothing really stood out to me on the first reading that just had to be commented on, which is good. It read very smoothly.

Natalie: I do not know her continuum, so I don't know much about her at all except that she is quite a bit older than Aaron (or pretends to be). I am not sure she is human, but the tone of her speech makes me think she might be. She seemed concerned about him when he didn't answer her at first, which tells me that she may be rough around the edges, but cares.

Does an h-rated game mean Hentai? It doesn't really matter, I assume that at some point we'll get physical descriptions of these two and more background info. This is well-written enough that I'm willing to wait and read a lot more of the story to get those answers as they come up naturally in the story.

I love that she has actual registered Lust Objects, and that they have a type. Has she ever encountered Ronon Dex of Stargate Atlantis? He doesn't wear the long coat all the time, but he does sometimes.

Aaron: We get his age, and I like that he is embarrassed to talk about sex. I don't know what Department they will be in, but I imagine this could be rather funny in, say, a DBS mission. It doesn't say here, of course, but I get the impression that he may be physically smaller than Natalie as well as younger. This may just be me taking in that she is treating him as smaller with calling him kid and such. I would be amused if that assumption of mine was turned upside down. I'd be happy if it was right, too, though.


Details:

[I just got a little… distracted.] I may be wrong, but I think that if you leave a space after an ellipsis that you have to capitalize the next word.

I missed it the first time through that Natalie is described as darker complected than Aaron. So there is some physical description hints in here.

I like that they talk about the No-Drool videos. I think those get forgotten sometimes.

This scene is different from most "introduction to a new spin-off" scenes, and I kind of like how simple it is. Two new partners get to know each other by "studying" the back-stories of each other's worlds. I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often, really. I also love that Natalie's "game guide" is just to ask a resident of the game world for advice; it's a simple joke, but it's really funny when you think about it!

Also, kudos on making Natalie a character of color. We're definitely in need of more around here. (Says a person whose primary agents are both white.)

Out of curiosity, are these going to be Bad Slash agents? I only ask because of the forthright discussion of lust objects right at the outset of their partnership.

The only technical thing I see is that titles of major works (Fate/Stay Night and Fallout 3) should be italicized. On this Board the code is Fallout but with no spaces inside the s.

(Fun fact: I have failed to spell "italicized" correctly on the first try every single time I've typed it in this whole thread! Except in the previous sentence, but that doesn't count, because I was thinking about it.)

This is bad. Really, really bad. The situation, I mean, not the writing.

While beta reading the previous contributions, I learned that I, like Neshomeh, need to sort out the distracting technical errors before I can look on the whole picture. But when I read this for the first time, I had no spell check at hand, and no easy way to synchronize my notes. Thus, I just read along not taking any notes. Know what? I didn’t feel distracted by any errors. This may say something about your ability to write an action scene that doesn’t actually have much action in it, but takes the readers in and doesn’t let them go.

Still, the errors are there:

[Some kind of plastic, maybeThere was something oily about it.]
A period and space are missing between two sentences.

[... just made laying down and doing nothing a far preferable course of action.]
Was James really in the act of "laying down" or considering to "lay down"? From what I’ve read so far I would have guessed that he was already "lying there", wherever "there" may be.

[He couldn’t quite remember why he was laying down.]
So he was in the act of laying down (although he couldn’t remember why he did it) while he could already feel the concrete floor touching his face? I really think you want "lying" there.

[James let out a feeble curse moments before his lungs spasmed.]
MS Word spell check says that "spasmed" isn’t a word, and my preferred translation site doesn’t know "spasm" as a verb. I don’t know what to do here, but I have seen others avoiding the use of "to spasm" in past tense by saying "went into spasm".

[He pushed himself on to his hands and knees long enough to roll himself onto his back.]
This sentence looks odd, and grammar check recommends that the second "himself" should be "him", which looks outright wrong, suggesting that "him" is another person than James. Maybe you should just drop it. "He pushed himself on to his hands and knees long enough to roll onto his back" looks fine to me.

[... the one where most of the pain seemed to be raidating from.]
This should be "radiating".

[He thought he could just make out movement throguh the plumes of smoke rising into the air.]
This should be "through".

The use of sentence fragments, in the narrative as well as in speech, causes a sense of urgency that’s appropriate here.

You are right; XCOM: Enemy Unknown is totally unknown to me, but it is all clear enough. An airborne military unit is defeated by a war machine. James is wounded, was probably unconscious for a while and doesn’t quite remember how he got to where he is now. Very probably he will not make it to the evac zone; he will escape certain death by falling through a plot hole.

HG

This is bad. Really, really bad. The situation, I mean, not the writing.

While beta reading the previous contributions, I learned that I, like Neshomeh, need to sort out the distracting technical errors before I can look on the whole picture. But when I read this for the first time, I had no spell check at hand, and no easy way to synchronize my notes. Thus, I just read along not taking any notes. Know what? I didn’t feel distracted by any errors. This may say something about your ability to write an action scene that doesn’t actually have much action in it, but takes the readers in and doesn’t let them go.

Still, the errors are there:

[Some kind of plastic, maybeThere was something oily about it.]
A period and space are missing between two sentences.

[... just made laying down and doing nothing a far preferable course of action.]
Was James really in the act of "laying down" or considering to "lay down"? From what I’ve read so far I would have guessed that he was already "lying there", wherever "there" may be.

[He couldn’t quite remember why he was laying down.]
So he was in the act of laying down (although he couldn’t remember why he did it) while he could already feel the concrete floor touching his face? I really think you want "lying" there.

[James let out a feeble curse moments before his lungs spasmed.]
MS Word spell check says that "spasmed" isn’t a word, and my preferred translation site doesn’t know "spasm" as a verb. I don’t know what to do here, but I have seen others avoiding the use of "to spasm" in past tense by saying "went into spasm".

[He pushed himself on to his hands and knees long enough to roll himself onto his back.]
This sentence looks odd, and grammar check recommends that the second "himself" should be "him", which looks outright wrong, suggesting that "him" is another person than James. Maybe you should just drop it. "He pushed himself on to his hands and knees long enough to roll onto his back" looks fine to me.

[... the one where most of the pain seemed to be raidating from.]
This should be "radiating".

[He thought he could just make out movement throguh the plumes of smoke rising into the air.]
This should be "through".

The use of sentence fragments, in the narrative as well as in speech, causes a sense of urgency that’s appropriate here.

You are right; XCOM: Enemy Unknown is totally unknown to me, but it is all clear enough. An airborne military unit is defeated by a war machine. James is wounded, was probably unconscious for a while and doesn’t quite remember how he got to where he is now. Very probably he will not make it to the evac zone; he will escape certain death by falling through a plot hole.

HG

I really like this. The way that the intro builds up, with James knowing that something isn't right, and then it all suddenly snapping into place is very well done.

There are a couple of SPaG errors, but they're just little things.
- In the first line you've got 'Some kind of plastic, maybeThere was something oily about it' - there should be a full stop and a space before 'There'.
- Toward the end, you've got 'where most of the pain seemed to be radiating from' - this should be 'radiating'.
- And then in the second to last line you have 'He thought he could just make out movement throguh the plumes of smoke' - this should be 'through'.

There's also one that I'm not sure about, which is in the third paragraph. You've got 'He couldn’t quite remember why he was laying down.'. If I remember rightly, 'lying' and 'laying' can both be used to refer to being horizontal on some surface, but I think they have slightly different meanings, or are applicable in different contexts. I would have used 'lying down' here, because that sounds more natural to me when I read it out loud, but as I said I'm not 100% certain that that's correct. If you're sure about your usage, then keep it as it is. If you're not sure yourself, then I recommend double-checking with someone else.

There are also a couple of points where you've made what I consider to be slightly odd word choices - there's nothing technically wrong with what you've written, these are just my opinion, so don't feel obliged to change anything.
- The first is the 'crushing sensation' in Pittman's chest after he was hit by that horrific beam weapon (still remember the first time I encountered one of those mechs in the game - I didn't do quite as badly as Strike One here, but it wasn't much better). The weapon looks like laser, or some other kind of directed energy weapon, so I would have thought that it would give 'burning sensations' rather than crushing ones. Personally, I'd have probably gone for 'So did the searing pain in his chest.' for that sentence.
- The other is Big Sky's use of 'whatever that robot thing was'. I'm torn between two opinions on this one. My first thought was that it sounded quite unprofessional, but then it occurred to me that seeing one for the first time, and the disastrous nature of the mission, would probably be enough to shake his professionalism. Can you remember if they use a specific term to refer to those things in game?

I enjoyed reading this, and will certainly look out for more stories featuring Pittman. Out of interest, what character class is/was he?

First impressions:

The opening is very immediate. Visceral springs to mind to describe it. A lot of sensory info. I got explosion out of it right away. Battle of some sort that his side was losing as soon as he registered the voices of the others cutting off.

I'm worried about him, because at this point in the story it doesn't look likely that he's going to make it back to his evac point. I'm assuming that the movement he is seeing is not friendly. Is this where he ends up falling into HQ?

Details:
[Some kind of plastic, maybeThere was something] Missing period and space.

[ringing just made laying down] I would reverse the order of 'just' and 'made'. I think it reads smoother that way, though it isn't wrong the other way.

[movement throguh the plumes] through

I like the slow buildup, revealing to the reader over time that they're looking at a battle scene. It's obvious right away that something is wrong, but you feed little details here and there to show just how wrong, until we hit confirmation with the radio chatter. The impact there is especially strong, since it's the first italicized text we see in the story, and therefore has a feeling of physical change in the reader's head. The suspense of drawing out the situation then continues as you reveal how badly injured Pittman is a bit later.

I have to admit, I'm surprised Pittman came from such a futuristic continuum. (Even though, reading back now, he flat-out stated it in "FNGs," and it's also listed on his wiki page, so hurr durr I'm smart.) I really had him pegged as being from a Western, or something like it. I was going to say I thought his voice pattern was different here from before, but apparently I was the one giving him a cowboy drawl in my head, so . . . HURRRRRR.

Some kind of plastic, maybeThere was something oily about it.
*Period and space between the sentences.

James reached down and touched his side, the one where most of the pain seemed to be raidating from.

He thought he could just make out movement throguh the plumes of smoke rising into the air.

The vagueness works for this one. Someone disoriented is just putting together the pieces that he needs.

I want to know what happens next.

Typos: maybeThere,
feeling in his face (feeling on his face)


This sentence is right, I think, but it's pretty long.
"He considered it for a moment, but the way his head was spinning and his ears were ringing just made laying down and doing nothing a far preferable course of action."

No. I’m joking. Beta reading this is fun. Two sentences in and I know already that we are in a historical setting. I like how you do this without stating the year. Would I have guessed the correct time period if you had not mentioned puritans in the introduction? I hope so.

We are immersed into a busy mercantile district of a sixteenth century city, while Doc and Vania’s comments, interjected at the right points, remind us that they don’t belong there. Yes, I really like this.

But then, Doc interferes with a canon event, and I am confused. Not that I cannot see him doing what he does, but there is this specific sentence:
“Oh. This is a world.”
What else would it be, a holodeck? Apparently Doc and Vania are on a shopping trip, not on a mission, but how can Doc not be aware that there is a canon around them? Maybe you intended to write “Oh. This is a word world,” and Doc believed they were time traveling in real life? I hope for clarification later in the story.

Doc is native there? He originates from a history novel? I guess I’m over-thinking this. Since Vania apparently is not from World One, she may say that he is native there even if the time period doesn’t fit.

Technical errors:

I feel like a I have more petals than the Marquis.
Drop the bolded word.

I assume that Corsets, corsets, of coursets is a pun, not a mistake.

The exited the alley and followed the corner of the brick building on their left, taking in the activity filling the avenue.
“The” should be “They”. And there is again the problem with not being a native speaker. Even when the error is corrected, the sentence looks somewhat off, but I cannot tell why.

coste, watere and goode
I assume that these are no errors; Doc knows (or parodies) how sixteenth century people talk, I don’t.

MS Word spell check says that recorked isn’t a word, it should be “re-corked”. But “uncorked” is okay? The mysteries of the English language.

MS Word spell check also says that midstep isn’t a word, it should be “mid-step”.


A fic invaded the town, or the history novel, or whatever they are in? Stopping at this cliffhanger is evil, and keeping it under the two page limit is no excuse. I want to read more! Well, at least I can now go and read the other comments.

HG

This is a really nice piece - it really reads like a nice relaxing trip out somewhere.

I like how Doc's anger at seeing people get scammed makes him just jump in and get involved. Vania being so cheerful about pointing out to him that he'd just broken the rules was also very entertaining.

Out of interest, when Doc grabbed the bottle out of the man's hand, how surprised should the man and crowd have been? Usually PPC agents are hidden from the sight of canon characters, either by the canon itself or SEP fields depending on the author, until they interact with them, or get pointed out by someone that can spot them. Having someone snatch the quack remedy you're selling out of your hand would be a little surprising, having someone appear out of thin air to snatch it away would be really surprising.

You've got some really nice lines in here, my favourites are Doc's about having 'more petals than the Marquis', and Vania's 'Corsets, corsets, of coursets'.

The idea of a fic just cropping up in the middle of the normal world and twisting things up is very cool. And the fact that the figure noticed the agents and is now watching them is a nice end to the piece.

I spotted one mistake (and in Doc's best line too!): “I feel like a I have more petals than the Marquis.” - that 'a' shouldn't be there.

There were a couple of bits that I noticed, that just seemed like odd phrasing to me. The first is 'Carriages drawn by horses' - I'd use 'Horse-drawn carriages' here, as I think it sounds more natural. The second one is even more subjective, and that's the use of 'sidewalks' in London. It just sounds odd to me, because it's an American term - the British equivalent is 'pavements'. If this were a longer piece, I'd have asked if you wanted it Britpicked while I betaed. I'm assuming that you probably don't in this case, as that might lead to inconsistencies with the rest of their missions/interludes, and of course there's nothing wrong with American tourists using American terms while in Britain. The 'sidewalks of London' is always going to look a little odd to me though.

This feels very much like an episode of Doctor Who. Just touristing along, see a problem that can be solved with a few words, get involved, then back on the way as if nothing happened.

Of course it would be hard to say of course after saying corsets.

I'm a little confused about what's going on. Did the agents drop into a canon word world just to have dinner and randomly encounter a badfic that's feeding off it?

Long sentence: "Doc tossed the recorked bottle back to the salesman, then turned away and took Vania's hand, leading her away from the angry calls of the man and the laughter of the crowd behind them."

First impressions:
The physical details of the world are excellent. I get a really clear picture of what their surroundings look like. It kind of makes me feel guilty about all those times I've written about Victorian England and had nothing compared to this on details.

It's a good plot starter that they are going searching for food in a less expensive era.

I was seriously feeling for Doc when he realizes that he's messed with a canon scene. I imagine for him that is a particularly bad thought. Until that realization hit I was thinking 'Way to go, Doc!' It was good to see him take charge like that.

[as they kept shuffling their shoes uncomfortably against the generic surface they stood on.] This is a great contrast to the earlier detailed descriptions.

And they've been spotted by the Sue. You've got to finish this one, the beginning is just too good.

Details:
[“I feel like a I have more petals than the Marquis.”] I really, really like this line.

[“Corsets, corsets, of coursets. Always.”] -- Oh, I get it now when I see it out of context of the story. Man I'm slow today.

[The exited the alley] -- They

[“Ah, Sir, that does coste six pounds!” He added a soft “uh” sound at the end of “coste.”] I like that this is explained.

This is just the first part. There's more to come, but I figure this is plenty long enough for an exercise, and if I wait much longer I'll miss the boat.

This is set after "The Adventure Begins With One Step" and "Recruitment: Team Blast Hardcheese," but you should be able to read it without reading those. Also, it's sort of a trial run with the new names, so they won't match (yet).

For feedback, I'm always interested to know what kind of emotional response (if any) I'm getting from my readers. Comments on stuff like flow, logic, whether or not my descriptions are working, etc., are also appreciated, and of course any mechanical errors that might've eluded me.

~Neshomeh

---

Interlude 2: Morning After

[BEEEEEEEEP!]

. . .

[BEEEEEEEEP!]

. . .

[BEEEEEEEEP!]

Derik woke with a jolt. A red light was blinking in the darkness. A mission! "Ear'ig, ge' the—" He tried to sit up, but couldn't. There was a weight on his stomach. Across most of his body, actually. He forced his left eye to focus and managed to make out a head of wild reddish hair. Gall.

The console went off again, and she stirred with a groan. "Nrg. Make it stop."

Derik's heart pounded, and so did his head. Shards. What was going on? "Gall?"

"Yeah, what?" She pushed herself up with one hand and blinked down at him.

"You . . . ." He squeezed his eyes shut a moment, just in case it was all a dream. It wasn't. "You're . . . why are you . . . ?" He gestured vaguely at the two of them on the rather cramped, narrow cot.

"What?" A moment later, the penny dropped. "Oh. 'Cuz Fellrazer took the other one." She pointed a thumb backward over her shoulder.

Derik craned his neck to see around her. He could just make out two yellow eyes glaring at him from a spiky mound on what used to be Earwig's cot.

[BEEEEEEEEP!]

They both jumped.

"Would you—?" Derik started.

Gall snarled and wrested herself to her feet, kneeing Derik in the hip in the process and dragging his rough brown blanket away with her. She punched the button beneath the flashing light. "Stupid piece a' crap."

Derik sat up, frowning. He was definitely hungover. Again. Not nearly as badly as the last occasion, but enough that, although he'd managed to work out the most critical information, such as who Gall was and who he was, he was still lost on certain details. "Gall? Why are you in my response center?"

She stared at him, and he wasn't sure whether it was because she thought the question was stupid or because she was struggling to come up with the answer herself. Then she said, "Because it's mine, too, lunkhead." The former, then. "Remember? The giant thinky daisy said so."

"It did?" He put a hand to his forehead in concentration. Come to think of it, he did seem to recall standing in front of the Marquis de Sod recently. What had it said?

Based on your field evaluation, and because you currently lack a partner, I have decided to officially assign Agent Knutson with you henceforward. Good luck! Something like that. Possibly with the hint of a maniacal cackle at the end, but he couldn't be sure.

"It did," he had to agree. "So . . . we're partners now."

"Yep! You are totally stuck with me. How's it feel?"

"Like I had too much to drink and agreed to some things I'm going to regret," he muttered. Stipples of the previous evening were starting to come back—a grin here, a gleam of metal there. A whiff of beer, leather, and sweat.

Rudi's. He remembered Rudi's. Gall had promised to buy him a drink, and she decided to turn it into a celebration of her assignment. Derik wasn't about to turn down a cup or two after the day he'd had, so he went along with it. Then Gall had nearly gotten into a fight with that tattooed, dark-haired girl, Gremlin, and there was something about a team? Achoo, hairball . . . some sport with an odd name. That was about when the serious drinking had started. Everything afterward was a blur of strangers' faces amid a din of boisterous shouts and laughter. It really had turned into a party of sorts.

A thought struck him, and he wondered why it hadn't done sooner. He looked up urgently at his new partner. "Gall, did we—? I mean, last night; I don't remember. Did we . . . get carried away at all when we came back here?"

Again, that stare. "What are you talking about?"

He felt his fist clench of its own accord. "I mean, when we were drunk and stupid and falling into bed together, did we have sex?"

"Uh, no?" She opened the blanket, showing that she had a loose tunic and leggings on underneath. "Still dressed here. And you've got pants on, if you hadn't noticed."

In fact, he hadn't. And there they were. He let out the breath he'd been holding. "Ah, good."

Gall nodded and turned toward the console, but then spun around again. "Hey! Whaddaya mean, 'good'?"

It was Derik's turn to be baffled. She wasn't relieved, too?

"You saying I'm ugly or something?" She raised a fist as high as her waist, warning but not quite threatening—yet.

"No! I'm saying I like to know who I'm sleeping with, that's all." And the fact was, he hadn't considered anyone that way since he had come here. He wasn't sure he remembered how.

"Well, good." Gall planted her hand on her hip. She seemed about to say something more, but instead she went back to the console. "Yeesh, get a load of this."

"What is it?" He swung his legs over the side of the cot, but thought better of standing up immediately.

"Something stupid. Too stupid to deal with on an empty stomach." She shut off the monitor before Derik could protest. "What's for breakfast?"

Fellrazer lifted his head and gave an inquisitive hum at the word.

"Normally I would just scrounge something up on the mission," Derik said, regarding the dragon, "but I suppose it will have to wait this time. I'll be dashed if I know how we're going to find steady food for him, though."

Gall tossed her head dismissively. "Please, like that wasn't the first thing I figured out when I got here? I know a guy. Come on, get up. You gonna wash again?"

"We should both wash," he informed her in a tone that brooked no argument. "Would you like to go first, or shall I?"

"Or we could go together, to save time." She cocked her hip in a way that suggested this wasn't just a practical suggestion. "Since we've established we can both stand the sight of each other and all."

Derik stared a moment. He had thought he was fully awake now, but perhaps his dehydrated brain was still a bit sluggish, because he couldn't quite get it to accept that this was really happening to him. "No," he finally said, slowly, "I don't think the shower is big enough."

And just like that, everything was casual again. Gall didn't miss a beat. "You mean you hog the soap. In that case, I'm going first." She balled up the blanket and threw it at his cot, only just missing his head, and went to get started.

Regarding the "Finding a Beta" thing, that actually stems from when "Be Considerate" was part of that section. I separated them late into the writing process but forgot to edit the first part of the workshop.

As for the regional variations... yeah, I kinda messed that up. Looking up the word would be better than just flagging it in most cases. I changed that around.

I've made the edits, so hopefully the workshop is a bit tighter now. Thanks for point those out.

PC

P.S. Yo dawg, I heard you like workshops on betas, so I betaed your workshop so you can workshop your workshop on betas. Or something.

First impression – part one:

Yes, this feels like the PPC, and it makes me interested in learning to know these agents better. I have already a vivid mental image of agent Kim. Hue’s image is still quite vague, because I don’t know anything about his home continuum, but that’s a general problem with this trans-dimensional setting. I don’t know most non-human agents' home continua, and I cannot expect that everything I should know is cramped into the first paragraphs I read. If you had Permission and wiki pages for your agents, I could look him up there.

I can only guess what a clopfic is. Can you tell that I’m still new to this fan fiction business?

I don’t understand why Kim blames her partner for getting this mission, and apparently also for similar missions in the past. Is this explained later? Or do I read this out of context and it should be clear from previous missions/interludes? Also, I wonder whether Hue blames his partner, who had been specifically trained to deal with adults-only subjects.

Details:

its volume would have increased if it were ignored for one full minute
Grammar check says that “were (plural)” should be “was” to match the singular subject.

There was something human within Hue that knew that making her happy would make dealing with her easier, ...
This sounds awkward. The repetitions (that – that, making – make) are probably what puts me off, but the general problem may be that you try to tell too much about Hue in one sentence. Try to break it up using other words.

Kim's unicorn disguise flickered and faded as the setting rejected it
This may contradict PPC canon. I’ve never seen the disguise generator not working because the agents chose a disguise that didn’t fit their target environment (but then agents usually don’t do this). Why don’t you want to make fun of Kim being disguised as a unicorn in the badfics version of the real world? You didn’t post the full mission, but I assume that Kim’s unicorn disguise will just flicker back into existence when the badfic goes to Equestria. Use of a D.O.R.K.S to achieve this may be more appropriate. The wiki page gives only two references, but I know that D.O.R.K.S . were used in many missions. (Personally, I would prefer to go with the inconvenience of being a cartoon pony in the real world; the D.O.R.K.S . makes things too easy if it isn’t used in a clever way.)

First impression – part two:

You have a formatting problem there. One blank line between paragraphs is good, two are a bit much.

For proper beta reading, I need a link to the badfic. Otherwise I cannot determine whether it is represented accurately.

On the other hand, readers should not need to read the badfic, and I’m not sure whether the mission can stand alone. It may need more quotes or more description of what’s going on in the badfic, but that’s hard to tell when I don’t see the full mission.

I assume that Wolf is supposed to be a trans-dimensional hopper. (But, judging from what you said on another thread, he actually isn’t?)

Details:

It translated as in-canon 19 percent OOC
This is confusing. Why doesn’t the CAD just show that the ponies are 19 percent OOC? My apologies in case I’m not fully aware of the PPC’s canon for Despatch and the CAD would show something else if the ponies had been snatched out of their canon. Or if you try to expand canon to different CAD readings for Hopper and Snatcher scenarios and this doesn’t contradict what’s already established for Despatch. In this case, it should be explained better. What you actually may have done in a part of the mission I didn’t read. But still wondering why it “translated”.

Hue squeaked out a refusal.
Why? Would I know the reason if I hadn’t skipped the part of the mission that is not posted here?

Hue squeaked irritatedly.
Spell check says that Hue should be and squeak “irritated” (adjective), apparently there is no adverb form of this.

“She put me on the spot, and my dad won a tidy sum by betting on that horse,” Kim complained ...
I don’t understand what Kim is talking about. Again, may be caused by reading out of context.

A note on “Despatch”:

Looking it up on the wiki, I don’t like what I see there. It is not in tune with the general gist of the PPC, or at least it is badly worded. So this should be handled with extreme care.

As far as science knows, real persons lack the ability to hop into word worlds, and Not-yet-an-agent Hieronymus is not Boarder Hieronymus, even if his story is written in first person, present tense. Thus, trans-dimensional hoppers (and snatchers) are neither real persons from the real world, nor are they the authors of their stories. They originate from and need to be returned to "World One", which is not exactly "Real Life". If their presence in the continuum they invaded is explained by "wrote themselves in" or if it isn’t explained at all, so that "wrote themselves in" might be assumed, then they may be authors in World One in the same sense as some agents have been fan fiction readers in World One before they were recruited into the PPC. It may be difficult to make this distinction, but, to avoid any appearance of author bashing, I would never call a self-insert character "the author".

Also, involving the Legal Department contradicts everything else we know about Legal (which isn’t much). The "Legal Department" here sounds more like the Department of Author Correction that fortunately will never exist. But apparently this is not just speculation. It comes from actual missions written before Huinesoron wrote about the other Legal Department, so I don’t know what to do about it.

HG

First impressions: Agent Kim is not entirely likable, but I think that is probably at least partially intentional. The thing that I think got me the most was that she threatened the console and it worked, but that might be a personal preference for agents that flail but aren't quite effective. I will probably be reading her always waiting for something to blow up in her face (which is not a bad thing, so long as it is intentional). I did like her physical description, though.

I don't know what a sprite is, but I find it very interesting that he can't speak. That could be a very cool thing to play with during missions. He seems overly fawning, but you mentioned in the story that it was part of his nature. That should be interesting, too, to see if he ever learns to be assertive. He's not described at all in his natural state other than to say he is furry. If I knew what a sprite was, I might not need any additional description.

I liked the effect of her unicorn disguise flickering out, but I wonder what it changed to?

I am guessing that the refusal to charge for instant party has to do with Pinkie Pie in canon. I don't actually watch My Little Pony, but it seems like a thing that would make sense in a cartoon.

Is it a general PPC thing that she can see the agents? I haven't really followed the PPC missions into this canon either.

I like the name Desert Wine.

I assume Wolf is the Sue of the story, even I can see that name doesn't fit with the general Pony theme. I'm fairly certain that they all have two names.

I was wondering whether the minty green unicorn was agent Kim or an element of the fic, because what she looks like as a unicorn wasn't described. I thought it was her, but wasn't entirely sure.



Overall impression: I like this as an intro for the agents. I feel like it's a little rough around the edges, but the agents are coming together nicely. I am especially intrigued by Hue.



Details:

[“For some reason,” Kim lazily pointed her nail file at him without turning around, “we got something worse than a clopfic. I left the Department of Bad Slash for a reason and I might just ask for a different partner if this keeps happening.”]

In this line, I am wondering why she is threatening him over the mission assignment? I think this one line is the main reason Kim rubs me the wrong way.



[Hue turned on the CAD again and pointed it at the ponies. It translated as in-canon 19 percent OOC, which was pretty decent considering the foreign element. He commented on it.

“Intel said that this was bad. Either someone made a mistake, or this story is luring us into a false sense of security.”]

I wasn't sure if this means Hue is saying this, or if his comment is something not in words and this is Kim speaking.


[“Pinky Pie,” Hue remarked, though he couldn't pronounce the P's properly.]

Here he is actually speaking, but I get the impression that it might be something like those cat videos where it sounds like speech, but is still an animal noise?


I didn't notice any SPaG errors, but I'm definitely not the best person to rely on for that.

First impressions: Agent Kim is not entirely likable, but I think that is probably at least partially intentional. The thing that I think got me the most was that she threatened the console and it worked, but that might be a personal preference for agents that flail but aren't quite effective. I will probably be reading her always waiting for something to blow up in her face (which is not a bad thing, so long as it is intentional). I did like her physical description, though.

I don't know what a sprite is, but I find it very interesting that he can't speak. That could be a very cool thing to play with during missions. He seems overly fawning, but you mentioned in the story that it was part of his nature. That should be interesting, too, to see if he ever learns to be assertive. He's not described at all in his natural state other than to say he is furry. If I knew what a sprite was, I might not need any additional description.

I liked the effect of her unicorn disguise flickering out, but I wonder what it changed to?

I am guessing that the refusal to charge for instant party has to do with Pinkie Pie in canon. I don't actually watch My Little Pony, but it seems like a thing that would make sense in a cartoon.

Is it a general PPC thing that she can see the agents? I haven't really followed the PPC missions into this canon either.

I like the name Desert Wine.

I assume Wolf is the Sue of the story, even I can see that name doesn't fit with the general Pony theme. I'm fairly certain that they all have two names.

I was wondering whether the minty green unicorn was agent Kim or an element of the fic, because what she looks like as a unicorn wasn't described. I thought it was her, but wasn't entirely sure.



Overall impression: I like this as an intro for the agents. I feel like it's a little rough around the edges, but the agents are coming together nicely. I am especially intrigued by Hue.



Details:

[“For some reason,” Kim lazily pointed her nail file at him without turning around, “we got something worse than a clopfic. I left the Department of Bad Slash for a reason and I might just ask for a different partner if this keeps happening.”]

In this line, I am wondering why she is threatening him over the mission assignment? I think this one line is the main reason Kim rubs me the wrong way.



[Hue turned on the CAD again and pointed it at the ponies. It translated as in-canon 19 percent OOC, which was pretty decent considering the foreign element. He commented on it.

“Intel said that this was bad. Either someone made a mistake, or this story is luring us into a false sense of security.”]

I wasn't sure if this means Hue is saying this, or if his comment is something not in words and this is Kim speaking.


[“Pinky Pie,” Hue remarked, though he couldn't pronounce the P's properly.]

Here he is actually speaking, but I get the impression that it might be something like those cat videos where it sounds like speech, but is still an animal noise?


I didn't notice any SPaG errors, but I'm definitely not the best person to rely on for that.

Agent Feinstein feels like a rather unique character for the PPC. I don't think we've had a brusque secretarial personality in an agent before, and that alone makes her entertaining to watch/read. At first, I was worried that she was too aloof from things happening around her, since a large source of a mission's entertainment value comes from what the agents experience. But you showed that she is stuck facing missions of a type particularly distasteful to her, and that she isn't necessarily the best at thinking on her feet when she is met with an unexpected encounter.

That said, she has a personality that feels like it dominates a lot of the action, especially while she and her partner are still in their RC. Hue isn't described here beyond "sprite" (although that could just be because this is an excerpt from a larger piece) and communicates more through gestures and actions than through dialogue. This makes Hue feel like a lesser presence compared to Feinstein, and that, combined with his "helpful and serving nature," creates a risk of actually turning him into his partner's servant, which I for one don't feel is an appropriate relationship for partnered agents to have. It's a personal feeling, I admit, but I think agent pairs work best when both parties are on roughly equal terms overall; it would be less entertaining to read a mission that was essentially one character solo, with a "servant" tagging along to carry things for them. Just something to watch out for.

This is quite fun. I love the idea of a computer game (itself a connection both between points in our world and the game world's canon) serving as the source of a plothole and sucking someone in, and then the published text of the Original Series serving the same purpose to lead to Headquarters. I don't think it's too short; I generally like a lot of detail, but this particular piece has a good flow from beginning to end, that keeps it easy-to-understand and very direct. I'm not sure you really want to clutter this up by describing what the internet is like. On the other hand, though, that could potentially be fun. Maybe you want to come back to the concept later in your spin-off, and have both agents get trapped there together for a while?

I don't think Hieronymous is too rational at all. He shows clear worry and fear at the recognition of his problem, then focuses his attention to fix it afterwards the only way that could obviously work. In addition, you began by telling us that Hieronymous had been playing a video game, with someone he potentially cares about a lot, so even in such a short piece, he already comes across as having emotions and interests. Overall, he feels fairly ordinary, despite approaching his problem from a very logical direction.

As to quoting TOS, I don't know if it's strictly necessary here. It might be fun to do if you expand on this or include the scene of Hieronymous physically entering Headquarters later. (It would make for a fun reference, for sure.)

A few grammar notes:
"To be precise, I don't feel my body as well."
*Since "don't" is a negative verb, "as well" should be "either" since "as well" suggests adding something.

"This must be a dreem."
*"dream"

"Hieronymus Graubart, software engineer extraordinaire was sucked into his computer."
*Put a comma after "extraordinaire" since that whole phrase, "software expert extraordinaire" is an extra phrase added to describe Hieronymous.

"So what did I do wrong."
*Since this sentence is asking a question, it should get a question mark at the end instead of a period. (Even if it's just Hieronymous talking to themself and not really expecting an answer.

"What were all these flashes and sparkles?"
*Since this story is in the present tense, "were" should be changed to "are."

„Exit-Point“ does not equal „Reality“?
*I'm not sure if the placement of the quotation marks here is computer code, or just the German way to do quotes. In English, quotes go at the "tops of words." Also, punctuation should go inside the quotes, so „Reality“? would look like "Reality?"

"Of course there is air, stupid, how would you breath!"
*"Breath" is the noun name for the air we take in. You want the verb here, which is "breathe."

„PPC Archive. Mission Report 2001/01: Rambling Band.“
*Move the quotation mark up to the top. (Again, I apologize if this is just computer code I'm unfamiliar with.)

First impressions: Oh wow! If this is officially how agent Hieronymus got to HQ, then this is the coolest one I've seen. I love it!

I don't really know a lot about computers. Purely a computer user, nothing under the hood, but I liked the inclusion of the commands. It is short, but you get a lot of characterization of Hieronymus into it. Initial panic, followed by immediate rational thought and testing of possible solutions, then a sense of wonder at what he found. I don't believe he was too rational. I saw it as a statement about his personality. That I should expect him to be pretty level-headed and jump pretty quickly to problem solving. If that isn't the impression you want to give, then he was too rational.

It wasn't really long enough to get more than a sense of disorientation and panic. I think real horror would take a longer piece, but I really like what you've got here.

You could quote TOS, but I don't think it is necessary. Everyone in this audience should be familiar enough with TOS to be able to fill in that blank. Not quoting actually lets people think of their own favorite parts and fill that in for themselves.

Details:

[This must be a dreem.] dream

[ Do the research!.] two punctuation marks

This is really a unique and interesting story. I'd like to know how he managed to get out of the computer. Maybe more of a second part that's at least as long.

Are spelling errors intentional? I'm assuming that some of the grammar is using programming language instead of literary english.

For "Don't think these thoughts" It's a little confusing. Is he saying that he needs to control his thinking because whatever is going on my be thought-controlled without being phrased as a console command?

Hieronymus reminds me a little bit of "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality." Characters in Rationalist tracts tend to fight down their panic and get thinking as their first defense.

Considering what is on the internet... maybe he could be confronted with something that he would normally click away from, but he has to expend a lot of effort to get away. Or maybe it takes him a long time to think of the manual and he gets bored.

Until TOS gets lost, anyone who reads your origin story should read TOS as well.

I noticed that lot of this is cribbed straight from the Doctor Who episode "Rose," albeit in written rather than recorded form. This is bad form in two ways. First, it's vaguely plagiaristic. That's always a bad thing. It casts your work in a bad light. Fans of the source material are going to notice what you've done and call you out on it.

Secondly, it's a poor execution of a crossover-alternate universe. Your point of deviation is that the Doctor never met Rose and probably doesn't exist. If that's the case, then things should not be proceeding as they are. The Doctor's existence was a tipping point for a lot of different things. If the Doctor didn't exist, would the Time War occurred in the same fashion (or even occurred in the first place)? Would the Autons have been forced to come for Earth looking for a new planet? Calvin and Hobbes can't just be pushed in to substitute for the Doctor. These are characters with radically different outlooks (for the most part). Not to mention that the Doctor is over 900 whereas Calvin is 10ish.

Some SPaG notes:
-- Not technically SPaG, but a tip on formatting stories for the Board. Since paragraphs on the Board aren't indented, try separating them with extra spaces (a blank paragraph, as it were) to improve readability. When you want to transition scenes, as you do when Rose's day passes, use some symbols as a break (I like the ~ or * myself).
-- "A middle-aged woman, still in her pajamas, bustled about the kitchen, making breakfast." The second comma following 'kitchen' is unnecessary.
-- “A...tiger...” There should be a space between the first ellipsis and 'tiger'.
-- "'Seventy-th time,' he completed." It is spelled 'seventieth.'

Did you try to compress this to fit it on two pages? On one occasion you forgot to remove the extra blank line that should be below every paragraph :-).

Is there a reason to capitalise Snooze Button?

Quickly and efficiently making her bed, she grabbed a pair of shoes off the rack from the corner of the room, and walked out of the room, flicking off the light as she went.
I have to wonder whether she was still making her bed when she grabbed the shoes. Also, off the rack from the corner of the room sounds weird, especially when the word room is repeated within the same sentence. Better: "Quickly and efficiently she made her bed, then grabbed a pair of shoes off the rack in the corner, and walked out of the room, flicking of the light as she went." This is still a run-on sentence, so you may want to break it up into two sentences.

Apache Open Office spell check doesn't know the word pajamas, not even when I set it to Australian English. Should this be pyjamas?

I have never read somebody telling somebody a salute. Is this something specifically Australian?

Rose grabbed it and hungrily chowed down.
chowed is apparently Australian. MS Word spell check doesn’t know it, but Apache Open Office does. But I still wonder whether the word "it" is missing between chowed and down.

The end of the first paragraph seems a bit rushed (if this is supposed to be the end of the first paragraph). Apparently, Rose’s mother, who had been preparing breakfast, saw Rose, sat down, greeted Rose, and served Rose some toast. Rose didn’t return the greeting, never sat down, and finished breakfast within one sentence. Then (second paragraph), she said "Good morning" when she meant "Good bye". I admit that I’m only vaguely aware of the canons that are crossed over here. Maybe this is just what Rose does, and she is always in a hurry?

At lunchtime, she met up with her boyfriend, Mickey, in the square and they ate together, teasing each other as they did.
There may be a comma missing behind square, but take this with several grains of salt. I’m not really good at punctuation rules.

Is there a reason to capitalise Tannoy? (Weird: Apache Open Office does not know this word, but MS Word and my preferred translation site do. Whom shall I trust?)

Rose headed towards the exit, and a guard shook a plastic bag at her. She noticed, and took it, telling the guard that she’d deliver it to the Chief Electrician right then.
How does Rose know that this bag should be delivered to the Chief Electrician? Reading further, Rose, the Guard, and Wilson (the Chief Electrician?) may share a secret concerning this lottery money. But if Rose follows their conjoint plan, why does she need to say anything? In case some lurker wonders what happens there with the bag? I think it would be more plausible if the Guard had said something.

A shop dummy had been moved...
And that was when the dummies began to move.
This is confusing (and thus less horrifying than it is meant to be), because that was actually not when the dummies began to move. At least one of them had already moved earlier. This may just be my habit to be overly reasonable (do you call this "fridge logic?"). For me, it would work better if it was made clear that A shop dummy had been moved is what Rose assumed, but not what really happened. Replace this sentence with a sentence saying that Rose saw that a shop dummy was not where it should be, and let the reader assume that the dummy had been moved or guess what else might have happened. Fans will probably guess that the dummy moved on its own (so much I know), but regardless of precognition And that was when the dummies began to move now correctly depicts the moment when Rose realizes that the dummies move on their own.

“Run!” he told her, and the water pipe exploded.
Do Australians tell everything? This exclamation point looks more like the boy shouted, and shouting seems more appropriate to the situation (or something like hissing, in case he doesn’t want to attract the dummies’ attention by making too much noise).

They aren’t homicidal, it was just a student prank
This comma should be a semicolon, or it should be a full stop, making this two separate sentences.

“Seventy-th time,” he completed.
Why not Seventieth? Is this a quirk of Calvin? (I assume it’s the boy completing Hobbes sentence, although it’s not entirely clear.)

“Rose,” Rose told him. “Rose Tyler.”
This looks awkward. It may be better to replace the second Rose by “the girl”.

So, putting PoorCynic’s advice bottom-up, I looked at the details first, and here is my overall impression and a radical suggestion:

While reading the first three(?) paragraphs, I feared I would not be able to get into this, like it happened with Storme Hawk’s story. But then I actually started to care who this girl is, what her life may be like, and how it may change when somebody from this other canon shows up. So you did a good job in an awkward way?

Since I never watched Dr. Who (I’m much more a reader than a watcher) I cannot be sure about this, but it looks like you try to retell a Dr. Who episode where Calvin and Hobbes take the role of the Doctor – and possibly somebody else? You rush through the opening scenes, eager to get to where the good stuff happens, and not taking the time to explain what may not have been well explained in the original episode in the first place. But in visual media it’s much easier to make the viewers forget that they never really understood why the protagonist is in the place where the good stuff happens.

I don’t know how significant Rose’s morning routine, lunch with Mickey, and the unexplained lottery money are for the rest of the story. If there aren’t really good reasons to have all this, the story may work better starting in the afternoon, much closer to when the good stuff begins. And it may even fit on two pages :-).

To introduce Rose, show us what she does on her job in more than two sentences. If the scenes at the bus stop and on the bus are necessary to show that Rose is obsessed with her smart-phone and social media, this may be shoved in when she gets a pause. Then explain why she goes to the basement. If it isn’t out of character, these may be combined: Rose gets into trouble because she is playing with her mobile phone when she should attend to a new customer she didn’t notice, and that’s the reason why she is sent on an extra errant to the basement after working hours. And from there on, the story rocks.

My apologies if you thought I’m poking fun on Australians. I’m actually poking fun on my unawareness of the English language’s variations. Not counting translations, where I often don’t know the authors nationality, I read exactly one book by an Australian author and don’t remember any specifics of Australian English. (For the record, it was The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, one of the best books I’ve ever read.)

HG

I really, really like this one! I'm a big fan of both series and I love well-done crossovers, so it hits all my buttons. I think you've got Rose really in character here, and I love Hobbes sort of flirting with her, it's surprisingly in-character for him.

Personally, I don't think Calvin comes off as being quite manic or overdramatic enough, but there may be reasons for that we haven't gotten to. I would say that referring to someone by their full name, exactly how they introduced themselves, is more of a Doctor thing (i.e., "Tallulah with three l's and an h"); it would feel more like Calvin to just call her Rose. "There’s an immense danger and he’s being all noble and sacrificial" sounds very British to me for some reason and feels a little awkward coming from Hobbes, but since this is Doctor Who, they might be British as opposed to American.

Also, I have a feeling that if Calvin was fighting aliens he'd be narrating everything he does, a la Spaceman Spiff, but again, I don't know if that's what you're going for.

(Oh, wow, one of the few episodes of DW I've actually watched!)

I like the opening sections, where you just go through Rose's ordinary routine, lulling the reader into a false assumption that you're just retelling the episode.

I've only read C&H very sporadically throughout my life (mostly off of university professors' doors). His speech here doesn't strike me as being very kid-like, but then, I'm not too familiar with his canon speech; plus, the fact that he regularly fights alien monsters in this story might make him more serious, too. Hobbes seemed more spot-on, though.

I guess I'm mostly just saying I wouldn't have been much use as an actual beta, here. :(

Oh, one question about hitting Rose with the rubber mallet. I don't know if that's a reference to something in either of the two canons, and I'm not really questioning it letting her see Hobbes, as it's just silly enough to work anyway. But, isn't rubber a type of plastic? I'm having trouble researching this, myself, and I just thought you might want to double-check Calvin wasn't walking around with a material in his pocket that could potentially come to life and attack him.

-doctorlit definitely doesn't ship Mickey/Rose's mom. because that would be weird! Right?

Have to admit that my first reaction was Doctor Who/Calvin & Hobbes fic? What the...? And I sort of kept that throughout, but this is funny and works in context of what I remember of both canons. (I suppose I am remembering the correct canon of Calvin and Hobbes. I was an avid reader of the Calvin and Hobbes funny in the papers. I may even still have a few of those half page full color Sunday comics clippings somewhere in a folder. We definitely still have a few of the books of Calvin and Hobbes, but I recall that there is a another thread on the Board that I didn't read, so maybe there is a new Calvin and Hobbes thing and I am evaluating this through the wrong lens.)

Anyway, I thought the intro was a great written version of the first episode of new Who. I loved that Calvin is able to blow up the entire building just like that, and Hobbes winking at her is a great ending place.

I don't have a lot of commentary, because this really is a rehash of the first episode up to this point. It does a good job of that, but not a lot of you to go on plot-wise so far. I assume that the further into the story it goes, the further away from the Doctor Who canon it will be.

I really did start out thinking that's just crazy, but now I would continue reading this.

Details:

Is Snooze Button a capped thing? I don't really know, but it caught my eye.

I would prefer that there be a blank line between each paragraph. It's easier to read that way on a screen.

[clothes- a simple pair of jeans] Believe this should be a double dash and no space. clothes--a simple

I think that you have the general writing style of the Desdenverse pretty close. That being said, Williams' internal narration -- a bit snarky and rather genre-aware -- skews a bit too close in tone to Harry Dresden's own narration (or least how Dresden's was up to Blood Rites, which is as far as I've gotten in the series so far). Admittedly the Dresedenverse is a continuum filled with snarky and vaguely clever people, but it's something you should keep in mind to avoid creating a "Like Harry Dresden but _" kind of character.

Rebecca has a sudden mood swing from nervousness to satisfaction in the first section (between the fourth and eighth paragraphs). It's also not really explained why she has cause to be nervous, especially considering her confident "Let's get 'em" attitude throughout the rest of the piece.

If they are both Dresdenverse wizards, how are they driving a car without any problems? Dresdenverse magic and technology don't mix, or at least not without a lot of wheezing and sputtering. The stories suggest that most wizards aren't involved with the modern world for exactly that reason, and that Harry's something a strange cause because he does exactly that.

Is there a reason they're both so tall? Canonically, I mean. I know Harry's extremely tall but I wasn't sure if that applied to all Dresdenverse wizards. 6'6" means that Williams is as tall as Dolph Lundgren and Michael Jordan. There's nothing wrong with them being so tall; I was just wondering why.

"Like I said, we may have been on the White Council but it didn’t mean we were powerhouses." Except you didn't mention that they weren't powerhouses before this point, only members of the White Council. "Like I said" does not work in this case.

SPaG notes:
-- The first non-dialogue sentence in the piece ("I said, hoping that the tracking spell...") has a lot of unnecessary words that make it awkward to read. An alternative might be "I asked, hoping silently that my tracking spell would get us to the target in time."
-- You do not need to capitalize "hazel" when you are talking about Williams' eye color.
-- Whenever you transition from dialogue to narration with "__ said," there should be comma separating the two lines rather than a period. ("'It's your lucky day,' Rebecca said" or "'Shame,' I agreed.")
-- Don't use 'of,' use 'have' in the second paragraph of the final section. "You’d have thought he’d have made more of a mess of the place.”
-- There are a lot of run-on sentences in the piece. More than could really be addressed effectively in this thread post. If you would like for me to lay them all out, I would be more than happy to do so in a medium that would support it (like in a Google Docs or something similar).

I'm sorry, I don't think that I can beta read this.

I became confused right from the beginning. Are they time travellers? Because they use a spell rather than anything I would recognize as a means of surface, air or space transportation, and their target is in time.

Okay, I got this wrong. I understand now what you mean by get us to where our target was in time. The spell only helps them to know where on earth the target is, and to get there in time they depend on the speed of their car and the density of the traffic.

Doctorlit will probably tell you that there are lots of run-on sentences which should actually be two or more sentences each. Or he did this already, I didn't check.

Having the narrator talk in this informal and somewhat breathless way, dropping commas here and there, is apparently a conscious decision, making the narrator sound close to Peter's speech, so I abstain from recommending changes. But this is probably what prevents me from getting into the story and caring for what will happen to these people.

I still did take some notes that may be helpful:

Touche and cliched
You probably know better then I do whether English words leaned from French should keep the accent, but MS Words spell check and Apache Open Office's spell check both insist that it should be
"Touché" and "clichéd".
(Copy-pasting this from a .doc to the Website, the Preview looks correct on my screen. But it may be necessary to insert some HTML for internationalization? Apparently there is a discussion about this further up-thread. I will check this later, but right now I'm running into some Internet problems.)

“Mmm”
There is punctuation missing, probably a full stop.

Weird fact: Apache Open Office's spell check recognizes the word “tad” only when the language is set to American English, not for British English, but my preferred translation website doesn't say that “tad” is specifically American (it does for other words or spellings like color/colour). Since my installation of MS Word assumes American English by default and says it's okay, I don't know how to check for British English there.

looking around entrance to the main building
There is a word missing, probably “the”.

Sorry again, that I couldn't do more here.

HG

I'm sorry, I don't think that I can beta read this.

I became confused right from the beginning. Are they time travellers? Because they use a spell rather than anything I would recognize as a means of surface, air or space transportation, and their target is in time.

Okay, I got this wrong. I understand now what you mean by get us to where our target was in time. The spell only helps them to know where on earth the target is, and to get there in time they depend on the speed of their car and the density of the traffic.

Doctorlit will probably tell you that there are lots of run-on sentences which should actually be two or more sentences each. Or he did this already, I didn't check.

Having the narrator talk in this informal and somewhat breathless way, dropping commas here and there, is apparently a conscious decision, making the narrator sound close to Peter's speech, so I abstain from recommending changes. But this is probably what prevents me from getting into the story and caring for what will happen to these people.

I still did take some notes that may be helpful:

Touche and cliched
You probably know better then I do whether English words leaned from French should keep the accent, but MS Words spell check and Apache Open Office's spell check both insist that it should be
"Touché" and "clichéd".
(Copy-pasting this from a .doc to the Website, the Preview looks correct on my screen. But it may be necessary to insert some HTML for internationalization? Apparently there is a discussion about this further up-thread. I will check this later, but right now I'm running into some Internet problems.)

“Mmm”
There is punctuation missing, probably a full stop.

Weird fact: Apache Open Office's spell check recognizes the word “tad” only when the language is set to American English, not for British English, but my preferred translation website doesn't say that “tad” is specifically American (it does for other words or spellings like color/colour). Since my installation of MS Word assumes American English by default and says it's okay, I don't know how to check for British English there.

looking around entrance to the main building
There is a word missing, probably “the”.

Sorry again, that I couldn't do more here.

HG

I like the set-up of this selection: the way it begins in action, cuts to some very informative but entertaining description, and ends on the promise of further action. Peter's narrative voice is almost conversational, helping to provide both him and Rebecca with personality in the midst of an action sequence.

I like that we're told Rebecca and Peter are in a relationship, but that they continue to focus on the task at hand without getting romantic with each other, showing the dedication to their work. You did a good job of including details of the magic the characters use and the nature of the monster they're chasing without cluttering up the narrative action with immediate explanations, but still giving enough details for the reader to understand what's going on.

Some errors:
" . . . slowly crawling along the main road into, and out of town."
*I think you want to get rid of the comma after "into," since that whole phrase is just describing the road. As it is, it sounds to me like the car is driving out of town on the rod into town. (Against traffic!)

“'Touche.' I replied. Looking back down . . . "
*Both of these periods should be commas; otherwise, this is a series of run-on sentences.

“'Mmm' I could sense where this was going . . ."
*A period after "Mmm," since the following sentence can stand by itself.

“'It’s your lucky day.' Rebecca said . . ."
*Change the period to a comma.

"I should have started somewhere near the beginning, at least then I wouldn’t need this over cliched thing . . ."
*Both these sentences have a subject and verb, and could stand alone. They need to be linked with a semicolon instead of a comma (or use a period and split them up).
*Also, adverbs that don't end in -ly need a hyphen to link them to an adjective. So, "over cliched" should be either "over-cliched" or "overly cliched."

I notice there are a couple more sentences like this in this background info section. If this is a part of Peter's speech/thought/narration pattern, then they're fine and I apologize; if not, then you'll want to take a look at each sentence there and see if they need to be connected differently, as I described for that previous sentence.

". . . it’s a bit more complicated than that but such things always are."
*Since these are full sentences linked with "but," you need a comma after "that."

“I stand at a tad of six six, messy brown hair that always seems to want to defy gravity, two normally neatly trimmed sideburns run down the sides of my face.”
*”Tad” is an adverb, and needs to describe an adjective or verb. I think you meant either “a tad less than” or “a tad more than.”
*Since “stand” is the verb at the beginning of the sentence, it applies to each phrase for the rest of the sentence if those phrases have verb of their own. In other words, this sentence is saying, “I stand messy brown hair,” and “I stand two normally neatly trimmed sideburns.” (Which is especially weird for the last phrase, which is actually a full sentence.) You need to throw in the verb “have” (or whatever) before the second claus. It might be easiest to split the height sentence off on its own, then have second sentences talking about the head hair, using the verb “have,” with that second clause linked with a semicolon or changed so that it can keep the comma and mooch of the “have” at the beginning.


“. . . but I say they’re Hazel so it might as well stick here.”
*”Hazel” doesn't need a capital “h” (unless this is a Dresdenverse thing).
*A comma after “hazel.”

“Talking of Rebecca it might be a good idea to properly introduce her as well, after all you’ll be seeing, or rather reading, a lot of her.”
*I usually hear the phrase “speaking of” rather than “talking of.”
*Since “Speaking of Rebecca” is an incomplete clause, it needs a comma after “Rebecca” to attach to the rest of this sentence.
*A comma after “all,” for the same reason.

“. . . yeah it’s tall for a girl but still.”
*A comma after “girl.”

“Her hair normally changes colour every so often although she seems to have stuck with blue for now . . .”
*A comma after “often.”

“As normal when we’re doing wizarding stuff we’re wearing our standard wear, leather jackets with half a dozen or so spells woven into it, blue jeans, trainers and a white T-shirt, it does make us look like something out of the cast of Grease, but that’s half the reason we chose it.”
*This is a really big and complex sentence; even if this is the way Peter think-narrates, I would suggest splitting this one up with a period after “T-shirt.”
*I would also put a comma after “stuff” to help break up the flow more.
*As the title of a major published work, Grease should be italicized. On our Board, that's Grease but with no spaces inside the s. (Same works for bold and underlines ) Incidentally, Grave Peril and Changes in the author's note should also be italicized (assuming those are novel titles).


“'You’d of thought he’d of made more of a mess of the place' I observed, looking around entrance to the main building which, besides from the lack of people, looked just like it did on any normal weekday, or any other day I suppose but the amount of times I’ve gone to or by Uni in the weekends is none.”
*This is another big, honking sentence that should be split up. I suggest a period after “main building.” Then, “(either “Aside from” or “Besides”) the lack of people, it looked . . .”
*The “of”s at the beginning should be “have”s. (“You would have,” “he would have.”) “Have is part of a verb, but “of” isn't.
*You forgot “the” in front of “entrance.”
*The phrase, “I suppose” needs commas around it, since it's being inserted in the middle of another sentence.

“'. . . and it’s likely he’s in his human form now.' Rebecca guessed, before saying out loud what I was thinking 'Which means we can’t just follow the trail . . .'”
*Change the period after “now” to a comma, and add a period after “thinking.”

“Shame.” I agreed. “But where would a Hexenwolf go to in the University of Brighton, and for that matter why the Uni?”
*The period after “Shame” should be a comma.
*”for that matter” should be surrounded by commas.

“'. . . especially seeing as some people work on a Sunday.'”
*At this point, you have switched from Saturday to Sunday.

“'Right' I said, turning more serious.”
*A period after “Right.”

“Like I said, we may have been on the White Council but it didn’t mean we were powerhouses.”
*A comma after “Council.”

“'Cockroft’s got more people in it I’d guess.' Rebecca said, 'Also only building that’s actually open at this time on a Sunday.'”
*Commas after “it” and “guess.”
*”the” between “Also” and “only.”
*Heh heh. Cockroft.

“I glanced at her, 'You’ve been here on a Sunday?'”
*A period after “her,” since it doesn't lead into the dialogue directly. (ie, isn't a form of “said.”)

“'Once.' She replied, . . .”
*Period instead of comma after “once.”

“'Ah.' I said, nodding.”
*Comma instead of period.

I'm confused about the timing. They went there on a Saturday afternoon and then talk about it being Sunday? Did they have to find him and then risk loosing him by waiting until the next day?

I got a little bit tripped up in the description part. Are there tense shifts? It might just be the informal voice. Take the s off of leather jackets to make each outfit singular, or replace it with them and add s to t-shirt to make both outfits plural. Ignore if this is a quirk of British English.

I don't know much about the Dresden universe, but this is friendly to that. Another sentence describing the spell on the card might allow non-fans to see what it looks like.

First impressions: I like the tone. It fits well with the tone of the series. Sort of wry and the narrator frequently speaking directly toward the audience. It's part of why I like the series, so this is a good thing in a Dresden files fic.

It hadn't dawned on me until they mentioned it about the gremlins with electronics issue and at least semi-modern University. (It's been a while since I read any Dresden verse stuff)

I like their outfits. Wizards do seem to have sort of unique styles in the series. I don't know enough to know if a Hexenwolf is canon or not? If not what I've heard so far makes it sound like a good monster for the verse.

Second pass:

[slowly crawling along the main road into, and out of town.] The end of this sentence feels off to me. Maybe the last comma isn't needed?

“Touche.” cliched --Missing special characters

[over cliched thing] I think this needs a dash between over and cliched]

[I stand at a tad of six six,] missing word

[two normally neatly trimmed sideburns] This feels like too many -ly words in a row.

[ yeah it’s tall for a girl but still.] missing comma before but. I think. Get a second opinion on anything I say about commas.

I just realized that at the beginning of the last section, they are saying it is Saturday and later they say it is Sunday.

[looking around entrance to the main building] looking around /the/ entrance

[Cockroft’s ] I am assuming this is a real building name there, but I am immature and it makes me laugh.

Definitely get anything I mention that involves SPaG double checked, but those things caught my attention as not sounding/looking right. Some of it could also be Brit/American differences that I don't yet know to ignore.

Overall, very good beginning, and it has hooked my interest. I would like to read more of it.

I can't comment on the canonical accuracy of the characters involved (maybe soon, though -- Haven is currently in my Netflix queue) but I can say that you did a good job of laying out the story in a compelling way.

The very brief fight scene between Nathan and Duke felt a bit strange to me in terms of its pacing. First off, I feel like it should have its own paragraph starting right after Nathan knocks Duke's hand away. A good rule of thumb I've observed is that scenes with a lot of action should have less compound sentences due to how commas induce pauses. Something like "Duke suddenly lashed out with a fist to my gut. I could hear the breath whistling out of my lungs." or similar. Returning to longer sentences starting with "Suddenly Parker was there" indicates both that the fight is over and that Nathan has returned to his normal state of mind.

Finally, some SPaG notes.
-- There does not need to be a comma following "Obviously" ("Obviously I can't take it back") in the fifth sentence of the third paragraph.
-- There does not need to be a comma following "the list" ("...that long to read the list or if he was drinking that fast.") in the third sentence of the eighth paragraph.
-- There does not need to be a comma following "Parker touched my bare arm" in the first sentence of the 11th paragraph.
-- The 17th paragraph seems to be missing some words (specially, the transition between narration and dialogue).
-- There does not need to be a comma following "I deserved it" (“You stepped on it. I deserved it though.”) in the 18th paragraph.

I don't know anything about Haven, but your introduction at the beginning seems to have covered everything that needed covering for me to follow your fic. (It's also gotten me interested in checking out the show if I can find it on Netflix or something.) I only regret that I couldn't read the fic intro without the plot being spoiled first.

In short, I think this is pretty good. I can't comment much on characterization, but the interactions between Nathan and Duke work well, and I think people who know them will be interested to see why they're behaving oddly.

Audrey's presence seems a little vague, though, like she doesn't quite exist except when she's touching Nathan. I'm not sure what prompts her to do it when and how she does, either (aside from the plot needing it). Does she normally touch him frequently in the show? Are they an item? In particular, it strikes me as odd that she grabs his face to break up the fight. Getting between one guy and another guy's fists is generally a bad plan, so why would she do that as opposed to grabbing him by the arm or the shoulders or something, especially if she doesn't yet know the effect she's having on Nathan's anger?

On a related note, the position of Nathan and Audrey in the setting isn't established until they go over to Duke (who is on the end bar stool). I know they're at a table, since Audrey comes around a table to look over Nathan's shoulder, but establishing where she and Nathan are early on would help give Audrey a bit more presence and help the readers visualize the scene more clearly. If they have a usual arrangement at a usual table, just putting in a reference to that would probably be enough for fans.

Out of curiosity, how deep does Nathan's Trouble go? It's basically this, right? I started wondering when he reacted to being punched by doubling over, which I think is at least partly a reflex. Is it just the sensory nerves in his skin that don't work? What about proprioceptors in his muscles and joints, responsible for the brain's ability to know where one's body parts are in relation to each other? Or specific receptors related to sight, hearing, smell, and taste (it seems like he has those)? What about the ones responsible for regulating his internal body temperature, heartbeat, blood pressure, smooth muscle contractions, etc.? Those pretty much have to work, or he'd die.

Maybe I'm overthinking it. ^_^;

Anyway, SPaG stuff. Overall, the SPaG looks pretty good to me, but I did catch a few things:

* A comma splice: "Parker came around the table and leaned over my back to read>>>,
This could be fixed either by using a semicolon instead of the comma or by splitting this into two sentences.

* Evil As: "and it took a long time as Duke had detailed his transgressions in a tiny script over several pages"

This is a pet peeve of mine. {= P "As" means either you're comparing one thing to another ("good as gold") or you're describing things happening simultaneously ("the rooster crowed as the sun rose"). Here, you mean because, so it's best to simply say because.

(Also, there should be a comma after "time.")

* Confusing: "A glance, and maybe it had taken me that long, because the three of us were alone."

Whose glance? At what?

* Clunky: "Dimly, it even entered my thoughts that I know now that Duke's father was a bastard"

Could do with fewer words. Maybe something like, "Dimly, I even recalled learning that Duke's father was a bastard" etc.

* Misplaced apostrophe: "when the parent's are that kind of asshole"

Should be "parents," plural.

* I don't even know: "and, by Godknow you broke it.'"

I checked to see if this was an HTML error, and it doesn't look like it. This line got mangled somehow, though.

* Possible missing comma: "Because face it"

Normally you'd put a comma after "Because" here. If it's left out on purpose to show he's really not pausing there, though, disregard.

* Confusing word choice: "I cuffed him and hauled him up."

I realized you meant "handcuffed" when I read further, but I wasn't immediately sure whether Nathan wasn't cuffing him upside the head or something else. Easily fixed by saying "handcuffed" instead of just "cuffed."

* Some kinda punctuation thing: "Now see. This is a problem"

Is "Now see" a question: "Now, see? This is a problem ..." ? Or, is it more like "Now see, this is a problem ..." ? I don't know the character's voice, so I don't quite know the best way to write this. It might be what you've already got. {= )

Aaand that's it.

~Neshomeh

German and English punctuation rules are obviously different. I’m afraid even British and American punctuation rules may be different. So I may not be much help there, but I will try anyway.

It might have been a nice experiment to read this without reading your explanations first. Alas, it’s too late. But I think that I didn’t really need the introduction. I wouldn’t understand why Duke goes from apologizing through provoking to starting a fight, or why Nathan’s mood changes so swiftly, obviously depending on Parker’s actions. But I would get that these are the mysteries the story is about, and that answers to my questions will be provided later. I might even be able to deduce that Duke is the barkeeper or the bar’s owner, because nobody else is there, and that Nathan is a cop, who legally can cuff and arrest people. I would assume that Parker and Nathan are good friends and also may be colleagues, although that’s still not confirmed, and that Nathan and Duke have a long and complicated history, but Parker wasn’t present in their past. So, this opening scene is a good introduction to the story.

The SPaG is actually better than I had expected, but several sentences stuck out to me for different reasons:

Is a Hallmark card something specific that needs to be capitalized? It’s probably okay and I just shouldn’t try to beta read for a continuum I don’t know.

Duke retreated to the end bar stool with a shot glass.
The problem may just be that I’m not a native speaker. I understand that Duke retreated to the last stool at the far end of the bar, but I’m not sure whether end bar stool is a good choice of words. (Also, I don’t know what a shot glass is, but I’m assuming that it looks like I imagine it.)

I had even forgotten some of these.
I’m not sure what irritates me. It may be the repetition of the word even from the previous sentence, or a problem with word order. “Even I had forgotten some of these” might be better? And/or it may help to drop the word even in the previous sentence.

After reading over the entire list--and it took a long time as Duke had detailed his transgressions in a tiny script over several pages--I realized that he left off the thing that started it all.
There should be spaces on either side of the dashes. Also, I wonder whether there is a way to insert a dash instead of two minus-signs, but I don’t know which editor you are using.

A glance, and maybe it had taken me that long, because the three of us were alone.
This sounds like the narrator is speaking in sentence fragments, which would be okay in actual speech, but appears to be a bad choice of words here. Weird fact: MS Word grammar check doesn’t say that A glance, is a fragment, it advises to drop the comma, but I don’t think that this is right.

... pulling me back from anger that I suddenly saw was out of proportion to the time.
Again I’m not sure why this choice of words irritates me, but I would probably have said something like “after all this time” or “after so much time”.

Guilty bastard.
This time, MS Word grammar check says that this is a fragment, and I say that a fragment is justified here, but it needs an exclamation point instead of the full stop to show Nathan’s rising anger.

It hit my nerves like it was every excuse he had ever used to weasel his way out of trouble, and, by Godknow you broke it."
Somewhere in this sentence Nathan goes from narrating his experience to speaking directly to Duke, but I don’t see where he starts to speak.

Because face it, I enjoyed talking people into doing what I wanted them to do.
I feel like Because should be followed by a comma, but MS Word grammar check doesn’t confirm this and since Duke is speaking here, it may be justified that he dropped the comma.

(My inner rules also made me want to see a comma behind Suddenly in Suddenly Parker was there, hands on my face, and I felt that. But on second thought, it’s really better that there is no comma to make Parkers action appear to be more sudden.)

Duke hadn't even struggled since we went down, and that had to be a first in one of our fights.
This is another case where I’m not exactly sure why it feels wrong. It may be the use of one contradicting the fact that the narrator is talking about all their fights.

And just like that, I'm thirty-five again.
This is an unjustified tense shift.

But I really liked these tense shifts:
I'm not that kid anymore. Dimly, it even entered my thoughts that I know now that Duke's father was a bastard and Duke, as a kid, fit certain unpleasant profiles that cops look for when the parent's are that kind of asshole.
It’s so often done wrong, insisting on all past tense when the narrator clearly speaks about something s/he still feels – or which is generally true – while s/he narrates.

HG

I don't know this continuum, but thanks to your very thorough author note, I understand what's going on just fine. All three characters are showing quite clearly either the effects of the bullying Trouble or the nullification of that Trouble. I like that you've seeded the scene with those clues to hint to the reader of the full fic what's actually happening, as well as giving the characters some clues at the same time. One thing I'm not clear on is the end confrontation; is Parker continuing to touch Nathan throughout the arrest, stifling the bully revenge effect long enough for Nathan to remain in control? Or has the revenge effect worn off for another reason? (Apologies if this is answered later in the fic, and I just can't see because of the size limit, which isn't your fault.)

A couple errors:

"Parker came around the table and leaned over my back to read, her chin pressing against my shoulder made a sharp focal point against the normal blankness of my body."

This is two sentences, so either change the comma into a semicolon or change "made" into "making." (Or just split it into two different sentences. Lots of different options!)

Being a former reader of Homestuck, I didn't really have a problem with Monath's dialogue quirks. I do think they might become a bit obnoxious to the reader given the course of a full mission, but I could understand what she was saying.

It is always good to see missions outside of the most usual departments. I'm assuming that Jiffy and Monath work for the Department of Temporal Offenses ("Someone is mucking about with time and they need us to fix it!" is what I'm going on for that).

Your physical descriptions of the agents felt a little out of place in my eyes pacing-wise. I know that descriptions can be a tricky thing to tackle using only the written word and that sometimes a little break is needed to paint a picture in the audience's mind, but the way it's been set up here just felt awkward to me. Monath's description in particular feels somewhat disruptive to the story.

Mentioning that Monath is always pausing seems redundant given that the reader can see the comma in every sentence. Given, I'm sure some people might miss or overlook that, but it still felt a touch unnecessary.

The time frame that the agents exist in seems a bit odd to me. They say they've been working in their unnamed department for years. And yet Maintenance has still not installed a recuperacoon for Monath in all that time?

Finally, SPaG notes:
-- For the sentence in the third paragraph that begins "She was a Homestuck-verse Troll," the word "Troll" should not be capitalized.
-- I feel like "main7enance" in paragraph five should be capitalized due to it being a proper subdivision of a department (as in the Department of Operations, Building Maintenance).
-- It should be "various Departmental badges" in the last sentence of the ninth paragraph.
-- There should be a space between the end of an ellipsis and the word following it in Jiffy's dialogue in the tenth paragraph ("It... it is not a consult, Monath.")
-- Final paragraph, first sentence. There does not need to be a comma between "matter" and "now."

You've got the time theme down solid. Without you stating it explicitly, I (think I) already know that a) Monath is a time-affiliated troll (I don't know the proper way to say it in HS-speak) and b) Monath and Jiffy are in the DTO. (And if I'm wrong about either, I will feel really awkward.) I like that even Jiffy's name, the type of robot she is and the console's sound effect all fit in with the clocky/time theme. This is majorly tight and well constructed for so few paragraphs.

I didn't find Monath's speech characteristics difficult to understand; after a few paragraphs, her dialogue sounded just a clear as plain English in my head. (doctorLi7, was ac7uaLLy fLuen7 in cha7 speak, many years ago. 7he, more you know!) Ironically, though, I found one aspect of Jiffy's speech unclear. You say her voice had a "ticking quality," but a tick, by definition, is a short, quick noise, and wouldn't really be able to convey the kinds of sounds necessary for speech. I think maybe you meant that she has ticking "background noises" while she speaks?

I also want to point out one sentence that I love, for its consonance: "There were watches in the washroom, sundials in the sink, cuckoo clocks on the console, and a water clock on the wardrobe." Fantastic! (Although, what's a water clock? o.O)

One typo: "She opened a small case, containing the various Deparmental badges they'd collected."

But I like it. Monath is obsessed with clocks and has a Clockwork Maid for a partner, and they are in the Department of Temporal Offenses? Yes, this absolutely makes sense.

Some lines are not clear to me, possibly because I’m neither a native speaker nor do I know Homestuck. I assume that “a recuperacoon“ is a recuperation cocoon and “the ablution trap” is the bathtub, but what does this have to do with Jiffy’s posterior? There is probably a joke somewhere in there, but I don’t get it.

SPaG error(s):

I’m not sure whether it is justified to capitalize “Departmental” in “various Deparmental badges”, but anyway it should be “departmental” with a t.

Shouldn’t there be spaces on either side of the ellipsis in “It...it is not a consult”?

Does Monath’s quirk really go so far to insert a pause (resp. comma) after the first word of a sentence, even if the whole sentence is only one word?
“Alright,?”
“DMS,?”
“’Oh,,’ said Monath.”

These two are fun to read, although it isn’t easy to translate Monath’s speech in my mind.

HG

Initial impression: I have never read Homestuck, and I'm afraid that reading a lot of Monath speaking at once would drive me up a wall. Not the fault of the story at all, just how I relate to the rules of her origin. I do find her fascination with time pieces to be interesting. I wonder where she finds them all.I like the clocks.

Jiffy immediately draws my interest. She is a Clockwork Maid, who is taking care of a whole RC full of clocks, and she has the capacity for snarky attitude. I like her right away. I don't recognize what canon the Clockwork Maid comes from, but she is still interesting and I want to learn more about her abilities.

I still don't know for sure what Department they are with, but I am not sure if that is because they are in a Department that has been defunct and I am just not thinking of it off the bat, or because this is a new Department whose existence is being retconned. I like the touch that they have flashpatches (or are the Departmental badges indicating something else?) for the various Departments that they have worked with in the past. It is a handy way to say they were around for a long time without other agents really noticing it.

Second pass: Whatever is on Monath's shirt has been rendered by the Board as a rectangle. I am not sure if that is on purpose, but it looks like one of the smart-quote type errors.

["Oh,," said Monath.] two commas there.

I am now wanting to see what mission a Time Department could have that requires a crash dummy.

I just had a thought that there was an episode of Dr. Who that involved clockwork people, but I don't remember them talking. I am really wondering where she originates.

And yes, you should post your challenges and responses to the Board. I should have clarified that in the first post.