The Hunt, part 1 of 4

[tamoline]

Title: The Hunt (part 1 of 4)
Author: Louisa and Tamoline
Rating: NC-17
Fandom: X-Men/Criminal Minds
Pairing: Emily Prentiss/OFC

Notes: This is a little prelude we've written for Emily. (And by little, we mean about 19K words.) Part character piece (and the authors certainly learned some things about their characters on the way) and part world building

Comments

[nonpresence]

Neat and fun and exciting! OK, so I kept a document open a wrote down my reactions as I had them, particularly about characterization since you mentioned that. I did try to enforce some order after the fact...

You will notice that the great majority of my comments are of the positive variety.

[lj-cut]
Reid’s ‘puzzle’ comment- While he does thrive on puzzles, they tend to stop being cavalier when there is a specific case to be dealt with. Also, usually there’s this moment of seriousness and just a bit of nervous suspence when they first get the briefing warning. It’s sort of the ‘business time’ trigger word just like getting on their plane to go home is the cue that they are no longer ‘representing the bureau’. They do, like you say later, sometimes play inside the briefing room but as I remember there’s generally solemnity as they head in.
I wouldn’t get rid of the thought entirely- but I would make it an internal comment. Instead of spoken dialogue, a look between them that she knows means that he’s already working out probabilities on what kind of puzzle might be in store for them and a smile of support/understanding.

Emily’s ‘one thing at a time, but clean first’ approach to being home strikes me as fitting. What she refers to as compartmentalizing and the stratagem ‘divide and conquer’ do seem to be related endeavors.
The later ‘transition’ comment is also appropriate.

Morgan does have a bit of flair for the dramatic, doesn’t he? XD

The idea that they are all keeping score on profiling each other sounds really, really likely.

And pointedly not thinking about telekinetic, acid-spitting lizard-men.
-I love this line.

I absolutely approve of using FBI maneuver training to hide from your ex.

[/lj-cut]

[tamoline]

Firstly, I'd like to sincerely thank you for your detailed commentary. This kind of thing is really invaluable to us writers. It's something that I find really hard to do personally, which makes me appreciate feedback that much more.

I can see what you mean about Reid. If we ever get around to fiddling with the story, we might well fix it. It just worked so well as a segue into the next topic, that we couldn't resist.

As regarding profiling each other, I can't see how they wouldn't be, at least on a subconscious level. (In some cases, on a not so subconscious level - it's pretty much part of Hotch's job as a manager.) I figure that Emily's competitive enough that she'd want to *win*. :)