[hider=official reviews are out!]

Both reviewers for Act One pretty much hit the same notes, notes are fair. She never lacked agency at any point *within the actual story*, with the exception of harmless flashbacks, and that sounds like a killer. Two stretchy arguments if I may -- One, the Tony/Taina arrangement of mutual exploitation [i]might[/i] count -- but it's definitely a stretch, so I'm not worrying about it. Two and even stretchier -- the instigating events, and by extension everything that happens ever, only happens because of what Leon did to her brain. But again -- stretchiest stretch of all stretches. Meh. I'm disappointed -- really wanted to pass!!!! But ah well. 

I cut a subplot for time that would've [s]absolutely[/s] maybe cleared the challenge. In it, Taina would remember a past monologue from Leon explaining how everything is Reager Corps' fault. Later she'd have a different dream and discover that Pryce -- the kindly Reager dude who helped the company -- was involved in her past, though she'd be unclear about his exact role. Then either she or Tony would go murder Pryce, only to later discover that Leon was essentially lying, Pryce's involvement was innocent, and her certainty about his guilt was a product of the old Reager drive/conditioning stuff or whatever. Didn't have time to walk down that path, and story-wise I wanted to focus on the company characters anyway, so Pryce just sorta vanished from the story altogether. I wanna get him back in it...... meh. Sounds like by [i]choosing[/i] to act, even as a product of bad or incomplete information, that might've disqualified it anyway. 

Well in any case, congratulations to literally everybody else! Thoroughly enjoyed reading each piece.

[hider=special terminal question]So I think I thought of a better way to make the FTL/time-travel more hard-sci-fi-ish. Wouldn't change this story at all, because Bunsen -- the guy who 'figured it out' and explained it -- doesn't know any better, but going forwards, would it be theoretically more plausible/accurate if the evil guys were jumping near black holes and jumping back, a la Interstellar? And just skipping time deliberately that way? Also if there are any neuroscience or psych angles I SHOULD be thinking about -- other than 'the word you're looking for is PTSD' -- I'm all ears.[/hider][/hider]