Thoughts on Chilli, Northen Caves, and When I Win? Personally they're probably my favorite things on the whole list, but I feel like they never got as big a reception as a bunch of the other stuff. :(

The Northern Caves: I really really loved the first 80% of so of this. I grew up with forums and their particulars, the ways in which you'd come to know the personalities, and how the superfans would get into these long, drawn out debates that were steeped in the prior histories of conversations. There's something really magical about how TNC does this, and the "found media" elements work really well. It reminded me of the better parts of House of Leaves, I guess, and was also just hugely nostalgic (since I was in high school during the Forum Years). The philosophical stuff was also great, and the series they were reading felt rich, and nost is a great writer with wonderful prose. And then I just did not enjoy the ending at all. I think that in spite of that, I recommend it highly, and think it's one of the things on the webfic bingo card that's most worth reading.

Chili and the Chocolate Factory: I adored this one from start to finish, and also Dahl was one of the authors whose works I was steeped in growing up and also at the time it was coming out I was rereading a lot of Dahl's books with my son and also there are a few references to me and my discord server within the work. So I'm biased heavily in favor of this one, but I also also think that it's got this crazy energy to it, an insane density of ideas and weird things, and a wonderful sense of humor. Remy would probably hate to hear me say this, but I think he's one of the best writers I know. It's really really rare for me to read something and have so many individual pieces of it stick with me. I do wish that it were easier to get people on board with, because I have no clue how to pitch it to prospective readers.

When I Win: A few things here: I am just not a Pokemon guy. Red and Blue came out in 1998, when I was 12 years old, and everyone at my school was obsessed with it, and I just did not get into it, and had to suffer through a lot of Pokemon conversations I wasn't interested in. It's like the opposite of FOMO, then you wish that everyone would shut up about this thing you're "missing out" on. So whenever I read Pokemon fic, it's an uphill battle to care about the core thing, and I have enough Pokemon knowledge to get by, but sometimes it'll end up feeling like homework if I have to look up references or jokes or just understand things. Another thing is, I think Bavitz and I have very different tastes in character dialogue. I noticed this with Cockatiel x Chameleon too, and I suspect that when I get around to Bavitz's other stuff I'll see it there too. The differences in speech seem really exaggerated to me, blown out of proportion, idiolects heightened, and I think I've gotten in disagreements with people over whether this is actually true or not, but it's definitely how it feels to me. I found Cely in particular to be fairly grating whenever she spoke. This is a personal preference thing, and I don't know how much it generalizes to other people; I'm not sure that I've seen anyone else mention it, but I also haven't read a bunch of reviews.

So with that said, Bavitz is a skilled author who goes into a story with Something to Say, who milks the premise and theme for what it's worth, and brings a literary sense to his works. The fight scenes are really well done, even for someone like me who is not a Pokemon guy. There's a lot that I found interesting about competition and stagnation, the capture of competitive drive. Bavitz likes to think about the end of history a lot, and it shows here. It's thankfully a concept that I find interesting. I enjoyed the core relationship of Cely and Toril, it's a good, interesting dynamic. Without spoiling it, the ending worked well for me. Well worth reading.