I think this mission was a success. The major point that dawned on me as I read was that it "fit" so well into the LMPverse. Aside from the one unavoidable badfic scene where Shining Armor got stabbed, all the scenes felt appropriate for a cartoon aimed at children. One example of this was the relationship between Marvin and Printworthy; their friendship read very naturally to me, very simply buddy-buddy. Even the more serious ones were handled properly so that they didn't fly in the face of the canon's values. You did this by either toning down violence and aggression (like in the final fight scene), or adding a bit of little silliness when the badfic inflicted overwrought emotion on us (as when Cadence started acting insane--love that "Neighcronomicon" joke, by the way). At the same time, you still allowed the characters to express emotions appropriate to what was happening around them, which helped the mission get across the damage the continuum was suffering from the badfic. The absolute epitome of this was the ending scene between Cadence and Shining Armor. I like that, after the removal of the sparkle specters, the characters still felt the consequences of what they (thought they) had done, and own up to it. I like it when we show a bit of the canon characters back to normal after a mission; it's something I need to get better at, myself. All in all, this mission did an excellent job of involving both the agents (and mini!) and the canon characters in the solution to the badfic problem, even including the Changelings.

Other things I enjoyed include your excellent use of cartoon physics (another example of making the mission feel in the MLPverse); some of the actions the agents make feel like they belong in the flash cartoon-style MLP. Your interpretation of the rather unique time distortion's effects was good as well. You went beyond stating the agents felt sick from it, and used their speech to demonstrate what was happening to them in a more concrete form for the reader. Rartiy's characterization was also excellent, and you made good use involving it in the finale, especially since you had it act through aspects of Discord's personality. It was a perfect way to show off the more negative aspects of a mini-Discord's personality while still keeping the mini allied to the agents and canon. I also liked that the agents used their foreknowledge of the title to realize what was coming and modify their plans as a result. It's something that a person reading the badfic would have done, and helps link the reader to the characters.

There were a couple of very unique things you tried, which I don't see in missions very frequently, but which you accomplished quite well. First, you used one of the badfic's own events (resurrecting Shining Armor) against it. This doesn't really make sense when you think about it, but canon is stronger than fic, after all, so I can interpret this as the canon words seeing an opportunity to regain some influence and seizing it. It wasn't just a standalone event for convenience's sake, either, but a clue to the agents as to the nature of the wraiths present in the other canons. The second, and especially interesting thing, was providing a "rewrite" of Shining Armor's death scene. This made stronger the assertion that the death had been neglected by the single paragraph in-fic, and also made it easier for the reader to understand why Marvin got so upset over that, simply by showing (not telling) a very obvious contrast between the two different portrayals of a single scene. It does contradict our typical reporting (whatever the fic says is what happens, and if the fic says it stupidly, it happens stupidly), but you made this scene do so much work that I personally find that a negligible problem.

One thing that confused me was the "manes and tails on sticks" thing. I'm sure it's the result of something in the words, but I can't quite see the connection between what was written in the badfic and what resulted from those words, based on what you show us in the mission right now. Also, at a couple of points you refer to the MLP characters speaking English. I doubt the Ponies speak the same languages as appear on Earth, but I know this gets confusing between universal translators and such.

And now, your first exposure to doctorlit's really quite obnoxious listing of minor errors he found (I read the mission yesterday and wrote this comment today, so I apologize if you already fixed any of these):

"Rather, happiness is a sign to those in the Legal Departments that the agents are getting too comfortable, and need to be reminded of the nature of their work." Pretty sure we only have one Legal Department. I think. Have I missed anything, guys?

"Shining Armor and Cadence magically appeared in the middle of the room and, by the sound of it, an argument."
I think a verb "had" is missing in front of "an argument." Unless you're saying that the argument appeared along with the characters, but if so, that sounds a little clunky.

" . . . said Printworthy. I know how important grooming is for pegasi . . ." A missing open quotation.

"Printworthy stared, baffled at his surly insane partner . . ." I think you meant "surely" instead of "surly" here.

"With a final whistle from the Agent, the Wraith flew out of Cadence’s body . . ." That should be a lowercase "a," so as to avoid kidnapping Lily Winterwood's Time Lord character.

"'I will open the portal to the Medical department.'" A capital "D."

Finally, the alrights. "Alright" is not a word; the phrase is "all right." I won't list them all; just use the search function for that.

Congratulations on your first mission!

This one was a real treat to read: your characterization, description, and PPC humour are spot-on. I especially loved the banter between your agents.

I'll be looking forward to seeing these two again...

I wish I could write battle scenes like this. And Cadence showing Marvin her grief, and – well, essentially everything others already said.

Unfortunately, I had to maintain my own charge list:

Marvin gave his full attention to the console, applying the most accurate and sophisticated manner he knew to get to console to behave as he wanted.
Should be get the console

Printworthy walked over to the case Marvin pointed towards, and began searching though the assorted titles.
Should be searching through

What you see here is an extra space in front of a backslash: a griffon \changeling hybrid
What is seen in the badfic, supposed you quoted it correctly, is an extra space at the back of a slash.

There is a word, probably at, missing in “Evidently,” he said, still looking the Words?

swinging and stabbing at the enemy, forcing most of them back. Shouldn’t this be enemies?

their victory having came at last (Tense shift?) Shouldn’t this be having come at last?

Shining Armor’s corpse laid on his back, My Dictionary says that lay would be the past tense of to lie, while laid is the past tense of to lay.

Each bend he turned, the louder the sounds became. This sounds weird. I would expect another phrase following the louder the sounds became. You probably meant Each bend he turned, the sounds became louder.

The swarm began back down their original path. Is there something missing?

He had to remember to go the inverse direction he went before. I’m not sure, but something may be missing here as well.

At some point though the reading Should be through the reading?

Please catch this mini-agent: Mavin looked into Cadence’s eyes.

And there is a minor continuity issue: Last time we saw Shining Armor in the battle, his mouth had been bound shut with multi-colored rope by Rartiy. When we see him again, he is outside, resting from his regeneration and subsequent fighting for his new life and he can smile and speak without difficulty. A lot has happened meanwhile, but I still wonder who removed the rope.

But I enjoyed it anyway, it’s a fantastic first mission.

HG

OK, so, it seems like everybody loves the scene where Cadence exorcises Twilight. If one of the artists in the PPC could draw that scene, I would be so happy and eternally grateful and everything. Please?

This was AWESOME.

I did notice a few misspellings- unfortunately, the only one that comes to mind is 'faithfull' and that's already been pointed out- but aside from a very small number of those, this was flawless.

I really loved your characterization of Marvin and Printworthy, and how you didn't give Marvin an easy time during his transformation into a pony. Hopefully, he'll get the hang of it soon!

But to be honest... I think what really made my day with this were Rartiy (How in the hoof do you pronounce that? Rare-tee-ye?) as your first mini, and Cadence finishing the exorcism. I really loved that. :3

Good luck with your next mission! Now that you have one mission under your belt, maybe the next one won't take as long to write. ;)

Couple of minor things, though: faithful is spelled thus and occasionally you call the wraiths Sparkle Spectres rather than Shimmer Spectres. Other than that, it's a great fic. Marvin and Printworthy have a lot of chemistry.

Also, I'd like to claim one of the wigs; Wobblevision will shortly start airing MLP:FIM and Wobbles will need to make plushies for the kids. =]

--parp

I know literally nothing about MLP, and I still loved this mission so very much. The bits from the perspectives of inanimate objects, especially the RC who just wants peace and quiet, were my favourite parts, I think, because they were both funny and, in the case of the second RC POV, oddly, unexpectedly, poignant. And original. Very original.

The action climax was unexpected but well-executed, and Cadence doing an exorcism was wonderful. All in all, great job, and I wish you luck in future projects.

-Aila

I really liked the way this one started. Most first missions either aren't really an Agent's first excursion into the Word Worlds, personal chrononology-wise, or have the supposedly fresh-from-recruitment Agents jump right in, taking to the experience in a strangely natural way. It was nice to see Printworthy being somewhat anxious about his first mission and see Marvin have no idea how to work the console. It felt very genuine.

There seems to have been a consistent name misspelling here. In every official work I've seen, the alicorn known here as "Princess Cadence" was spelled as "Princess Cadance". I noticed the "Cadence" spelling in both the badfic quotes and in the Agents' dialogue; while the instances of the former would simply cause the team's first mini-Discord to fly around and pester people far before Rartiy shows up, the instances of the latter should be fixed, unless the "Cadence" spelling is supported by another official source that I'm just unaware of. Actually, since every time Princess Cadance should appear in the original badfic, the misspelled name is shown instead, under normal circumstances the mini-Discord would either take her place in the story, which is beyond suggestion at this point since it would require too much rewriting and take out some of the mission's best scenes, or follow her around, copying her actions and speech, which isn't used very often in the PPC, but it would stave off the potential problem of rewriting a load of descriptions and would also be funny to watch.

"Printworthy’s quill stopped as he slowly raised his head, watching the once proud Captain of the Royal Guard get reduced into having the vocal capabilities of a foal who had just learned how to speak, only with far less enduringness, and much more mental pain." Is it Printworthy who is experiencing mental pain here, or Shining Armor? The way the sentence is phrased now, it seems to say that Shining Armor is speaking with more mental pain than usual, but that doesn't make a lot of sense for Printworthy to recount, unless he's telepathic. It would make sense if Printworthy's mind was hurting as he watches Shining Armor act in such an undignified manner, but the sentence doesn't imply that. Also, something about the word "enduringness" is rubbing me the wrong way. It's a real word, at least according to Google, but it seems out of place somehow. It might be connected to the same confusion involving the owner of the aforementioned mental pain.

"intently, waiting for the three to use it, waiting to see how the spell works." The tense switches to present from past at the end of the sentence there. It should probably say "would work" instead of "works".

"At some point though the reading, they said nothing slightly different, but whatever it was, it was clearly the right way" I'm just confused on what's being said here. Judging by the sentence directly before it, "The mares began to read once more, silence echoing though the room, building in strength", I think it might have denoted that all of a sudden, the two ponies began to be silent correctly, but that's just odd to me. Is there a wrong way to be silent? As long as no noise is emitted, silence is only affected by the context it exists in, right? I think that's how it works. Is that line paraphrased from a badfic quote? I liked most of your paraphrasings, since they translated the original badfic's ungrammatical mush into coherent actions and descriptions. However, if this was one of them, it might be best to leave it in its original form, because it wouldn't be beyond a badfic to make vaguely baffling claims on the correctness of a silence, so the section would make more sense, in a roundabout way at least.

That climax was awesome, by the way. My favorite parts were the scenes where Cadance was exorcizing Twilight and when the changelings turned against the Hybrids. I liked both scenes for entirely different reasons, and since you put a couple of great tonal shifts in there so that the story cuts between and captures the Agents' attitudes, the emotional responses of the ponies, and the simple, pragmatic malice of the changelings, it doesn't feel like anything was out of place, even though there was so much going on. I'm really looking forward to seeing more from these two!

Having worked on that mission, I think I deserve one of those, don't you think?

As for the story itself, you did quite a good job. I like the way that you've dealt with the suggestions that I made, especially the introduction of the term "Shimmer Specter." And congratulate your brother on a job well done; the formatting is just as it should be—with the exception of one word. He missed "definetly"; that should be italicized.

Overall, a very good mission, and I like the A/N that you put at the end. BTW, I believe you meant to say wasted potential, not waited potential.

Hopefully the next mission will not take another year to type. If so, I might have the entirety of Lost Luster up by then!

PS..: A few errors that you might want to fix:
"The Pegasus blinked for a few moments, processing the unicorn’s strange explanation."
"Pegasus" should have a lowercase P there. Microsoft Word AutoCorrects "pegasus" to "Pegasus," so please keep an eye on that in future missions.

"Oh! I see what you did there! Shimmer Specters, that’s an interesting name for them."
"Shimmer Specters" should be enclosed in single quotes.

“No, really, wrap it up! The Changelings are-!”
That should be an em dash at the end there, not a hyphen. If your keyboard has a number pad, the command to input an em dash is ALT + 0151. Otherwise (assuming that you are typing in Microsoft Word), you can use two hyphens. Word will AutoCorrect the two hyphens into an em dash after you finish typing the next word.

...so far this has been my favorite first mission from anyone in the PPC. Only this time, it's so much better with the new action climax. It was exactly as chaotic as I imagined such a situation to be, and it was incredible. Of note is the stuff with Marvin and Cadence, which was done beautifully. More of that, please!

But yeah, great first mission! Here's hoping your next one doesn't take a year to publish!

(Also, don't forget to add the mission to the Wiki!)

It seems like all the formatting disappeared. I distinctly remember some italics and boldface being in the mission.