I will talk to you about Victory Conditions! Because it made me go 'damn I wish I could write like that' a lot, it is so clever and subtle. I think Ivan is my favourite in it, which I guess makes sense since in a very oblique way it is a fic about Ivan, at least Simon has been commissioned to find out if Ivan's okay and that's what he's doing in the fic. But he's so obvious and unsubtle except where he's really subtle, it's a really good portrayal of him as both incredibly sharp and competent in his own areas and also really both clueless and not caring outside of them. Plus he knows exactly how to get the results he wants - if he was in command they would have had a normal successful mission and finished in the middle of the pack, which is exactly where Ivan wanted to be. And Cor Jesek is so so cute, completely out of his depth except for the bit where he's all 'doesn't everyone know this popular music? huh, that's weird', because he is not a Vor and he is not, like Kostolitz, trying to be a Vor. I want to know where he is twenty years down the line, because he's going to be in charge of something interesting and out-of-the-way.