Ten Seconds (WQ (WK, JN))

Depressing.

This feels slightly too flowery, with the description sometimes getting in the way of what’s going on.

Flare (SS, PS)

It doesn’t make much sense for Slick to be killing her on the basis everyone’s dead when apparently he never actually checked to see what happened to PS, or why PS turns out to have just been attacked and is conveniently bleeding out right then.

This is why I hate the pairing so much, because absolutely everything has to revolve around it. Slick killing Snowman means shipfic about Sleuth is the center of his world. Not only does it subsume everything else into itself, but it does so when that produces nonsense. Trying to make Slick ending the universe PS lives in into a story about how he cares so much for PS is tinhatter nonsense where absolutely everything is read as supporting the ship.

And it’s not like I can just go read all the masses of fic actually about Slick and Snowman during the canon bit about Slick and Snowman. It’s all Problem Sleuth crossover shit.

Rise Up (WQ, WQ, AR, WV, PM (JN))

Once a pawn but now a queen
Still a cog in fate’s machine.

:(

Even when they’re succeeding, everything about the exiles is depressing.

Lovely writing, though.

Never Knew Love (Handmaid (Condesce, Feferi))

This is rather unsubtle. It’s pretty much the Handmaid explaining she’s not evil and how sad she is, and Feferi saying all the right things in response, and reads more like someone else talking about her character with all the shock and emphasis and it’s-not-fair than how I’d expect the Handmaid herself to speak.

I really want a better name to refer to her by.

‘Round Dawn (SS (PS))

So, remember the stuff about how Sleuth is more musical than Slick with his perfect angel voice? Now Sleuth is more musical than Slick at the piano itself because all that is Slick must be devoured on the alter of PS/SS.

Things That Tick Are Clocks Or Bombs (DD (PI))

You know what I think a lot of the problem is?

I commented on a story that had the regular and flipped cast interacting that there didn’t appear to be any consistent rule about what changed in the flipped ones. And I think that’s true for the mobsterswitch universe in general, it’s just it’s most obvious when you see flipped PS acting like a carbon copy of Slick while flipped Droog is identical.

The switched universe ends up just being used to justify whatever level of OOC the author prefers. So flipped DD is “still” a crazed psychopath barely holding himself together because that was the preferred fanon in the first place. Even if it doesn’t make much sense that he’d be basically the same if the point is for the characters to change. Even if no one can really explain why he’s so invested in trying to be good in that case. Even if this just means it makes even less sense he’d put up with PI’s behavior. Flipped Droog has whatever tangle of characteristics the author feels like because they don’t even have to try to extrapolate from canon any longer.

The chunk of the fandom has gone Draco in Leather Pants on everyone.

WV: Face the End (WV)

Intriguing but hard to follow at points.

Ooh Missus Snowman (Slick (Snowman))

Each individual line of this is hilarious, but it doesn’t really add up to a cohesive whole.

I wonder if we’ll be getting a Snowman/Slick team again for this year’s Shiplympics?

Kilter (Droog (Slick))

You did a great job making Slick still Slick even when she’s vulnerable. It’s a nice look into Droog’s head as well. And all surprisingly hopeful, given the setup.

How close did Droog actually come to getting stabbed to death here?

WQ (WK, JN)
SS, PS
WQ, WQ, AR, WV, PM (JN)
Handmaid (Condesce, Feferi)
SS (PS)
DD (PI)
WV
Slick (Snowman)
Droog (Slick)

Three of nine.

And I’ve now reached November!