Chapter 1:

Maybe it’s because I’m not invested in this fandom but the characters don’t really read as separate people at this point. They don’t have specific “voices” or anything interesting that tells them apart. The prose is bland the way most prose on AO3 is bland.

The premise of all your faves working at Staples is... OK I guess?

I could read it very quickly because nothing interesting happened. Even though it’s a set-up exposition chapter meant to hook you, it didn’t hook me or tell me anything very new about teh characters, save that they work for Staples or are about to work for Staples.

The SPAG is not very bad so there’s that. It was very legible.

Chapter 2:

Dear god author’s notes before the fic should not be this long. I feel like I’ve been transported to the early FFN era.

So last chapter they make a joke about the PMS section’s acronym but do not ever explain what the hell PMS stands for in the context of Staples. Because I am not a regular Staples customer nor have I ever worked there, this is annoying and obtuse. This acronym, completely unexplained, continues to be used in this chapter.

There are little setups for interesting stories to be told by the characters, which could give them some flavor, but instead of writing them, the author decides to say they couldnt come up with something. You’re not smooth!! I know you couldn’t come up with anything either, author!

I guess the POV switches between characters every chapter because of course it does.

The author is obviously going for the “2 characters hang out together and through their interactions we get to know their character and relationship with each other” but keeps doing the friendship equivalent of fading to black.

Chapter 3:

I thought as time went on the author’s notes would subside. Instead, they are only getting longer. Oh you’re trying to create suspense? How? By writing boring stuff and making the audience go “Oh it’s going to get better”?

Yet another “character establishing chapter”... Pity the characterization isn’t that interesting.

Our protagonists talk about starting a band. Some gay stuff happens between one of them and a side character like in last chapter, to kind of keep establishing that this is a slash fic. The job turns out to be seasonal.

The prose continues to be bland. This feels like the writing of a college freshman, if that makes any sense. Like someone who’s taking their mandatory writing course for the first time and focusing on making the prose not-bad instead of good. There is more excitement and character in the author’s notes than in the fic.

Maybe that’s why the author’s notes are so long.