>>3 Personally, I would appreciate someone giving me feedback, good or bad, on how my writing came across to them; maybe I wouldn’t agree with their assessment of my work, but just their taking the time to do so would be a compliment of sorts. That being said, your post does seem a tad nitpicky; it reads more like betaing than critique. Also, there are a couple of your points that I disagree with, so I’ll start all meta with a critique-critique (I hope that’s not in violation of the ‘chan’s rules?). Their nightly poker? Ohh that would be... (in)appropriate! Scout is just a child! Make sure you remember that we're dirty minded AND I/we will take it the wrong way. Scout is not “just a childâ€. He’s an adult and his job is killing people. Also, some of us do ship him with other characters, so please don’t make statements like this; it’s making me feel all bad about the high-impact emotional trauma my fics would wreck on you. Theres some basic spelling - the / te, penchance / perchance, etc. Actually, the author got it right: Penchant: A special liking for something. Perchance: Perhaps. Penchance: Not an actual word, according to Oxford’s Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Aaanyway, on to the actual fic: >>1 For a first fic, this is a good start! You’ve caught my interest as a reader and I’m curious to see how this’ll develop. Your choice of pairings are unconventional, which is a definite plus, but I’m not quite seeing them yet; Engineer/Medic really needs to be fleshed out more, maybe with some hints of how they got together, since they’re not a fanon pairing that we all accept as natural, like Heavy/Medic. Their interactions could also use some work; I would have enjoyed some covert touches, looks, in-jokes and double-layered dialogue between them during the poker game, especially if the other team members don’t know they’re together. If I hadn’t read your introduction, the pairing would have completely blindsided me at the end, and I don’t think that was your intention. Another thing that rubs me the wrong way is your referring to Scout as ‘the boy’, ‘the kid’, etc. in the narrative. My point above stands for you too: Scout is not ‘a kid’. The characters may call him that, but the narrator/author shouldn’t. It makes him sound a lot younger than he is. Similarly, while I can see the rest of the team making a point of how Scout is too young to drink (making him under 21 – I usually imagine him being 19-21 old, depending on the fic, but I don’t think there’s a set canon age for him), to assert their seniority over him, not because they actually care about his health, I don’t think they’d stop him smoking. Remember, this is 1968, before the discovery of the cigarettes-lung cancer causality, when TV commercials featured giggling babies with physician-recommended cigars. I don’t see Scout smoking, at least not regularly, because it’d affect his performance on the battlefield, but I think it’d be his own choice and not a prohibition forced on him by his team-mates. And lastly, I also think this first part could’ve been longer. The break seemed too abrupt; you’ve just introduced the setup for the rest of the fic (playing cards for weird dares), then the poker game suddenly ends? I feel you should’ve kept it going longer, maybe included a couple of rounds with the new rules so we could see them in effect and so the characters would’ve gotten more comfortable with the idea; maybe Sniper losing to Spy and being made to wash and iron his suits, or Scout losing to someone and being made to keep quiet for an entire day – something innocent and fun, to get the characters (and the readers) used to the new stakes before making them the basis of a new pairing. But, as I said, your fic did catch my interest and I’d like to read more. Please don’t be too discouraged by the critique here to continue this; we all grow and develop as writers, and for a first fic you’re off to a decent start.