(Don't really care about winning, I'm just happy to be participating.)
A review of our solitary
Indiana Jones mission by Chatvert:
http://wizkit.livejournal.com/904.htmlwhich I tried to post there, but LJ wants . . . stuff. Or something. Which might be for the best, because this review feels disgustingly long to me.
"Greetings! Fellow PPCer doctorlit here. When I noticed we had an
Indiana Jones mission, I just had to come read it!
Indiana Jones had a lot of fun minor characters (Sallah and Brody, in particular), and they got shafted pretty heavily by this badfic. I'm glad you had Kitty react to that, and gave them a bit of fan-love through her dialogue.
Kitty and Alec work very well as a PPC partnership. I especially like their dialogue. It's been a while since the agent banter in a mission kept me smiling most of the way through my reading. Alec's serious pragmatism conflicts well with Kitty's fannish excitement towards everything. At the same time, I like that both agents can slip out of their usual characterization, like when Alec references the
Last Crusade dialogue during the assassination. Another example where this shines through is Kitty's reaction to being shot, immediately calming down so she could take care of herself.
One thing that made this mission a somewhat difficult read was that your writing and the badfic's writing shared the same formatting (except the bolded author's notes). With no obvious visual difference, there were paragraphs that seemed to be part of your narration, but turned out to be from the badfic as I read more. I don't know what formatting livejournal allows, but it would make for a much smoother, clearer read if you bolded or italicized the badfic quotes. This is especially important with a badfic like this one that has mostly decent SPaG.
I thought it was kind of weird for Alec Trevelyan (who our wiki tells me is from
James Bond) to be casting magic spells. I went back and read his first mission to find out why he was capable of doing so, but there was no mention of magic at all. In fact, Kitty didn't display any magic there, either. It's pretty random for this magical talent to have just been dropped on the reader in the second installment of your spinoff with no explanation, even apart from the weirdness of a
James Bond canon being able to do it at all.
Between this mission and that first one, I also noticed another contradiction. Kitty can barely assassinate the Bourneverse Sue without having an emotional breakdown, and admits she only managed it because she knew Alec was in danger. Then, in the beginning of this mission, Kitty is very nonchalant about picking out a weapon and says she is "getting used to" killing. It's very jarring to go from one mission to the next and have this complete turnaround in attitude. I realize I'm probably meant to assume other missions took place between these two, but it would have been a lot more satisfying to see that change in Kitty happen over time, because as it is, it feels like I've missed out on a huge chunk of Kitty's character development. That change, as well as the magic thing, should to be shown to the reader, rather than briefly mentioned as having occurred during the "commercial break."
I'm sorry this comment went on so long, especially on a two-year-old entry. Just wanted to give my thoughts on a mission in an awesome, but sadly neglected, canon.
—doctorlit