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Waning, Ch. 11 (S) (long)


neongrey

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Please be advised that this submission is slightly in excess of six thousand words; I do apologize. If that's too long for you to cover, I understand; there wasn't a break-point I really liked for this. If doing a partial's more your speed, right after Maranthe sends Lasila off is probably as close to 5k without ending in the middle of something as can be done.

That said, this is a big chapter; this is most of the layout for Lasila's end of the plot, and this is the final nail in Savae's position's coffin; they're going to be in bad shape going into the middle third. That was a bad sentence. Much like chapter 3, I suspect Maranthe's scenes have lost something in downplaying her as mystic, and I think rework will be on those two chapters in tandem; this is in a lot of ways a direct follow-up.

Previously: Eshrin escorts Lasila to the party; she meets Rienri, Iluya's intended, and Iluya is quite happy to see her. Senator Melqueth never quite keeps his hands to himself. Savae sees their plan to poison Senator Riruna with some enchanted earrings is going quite swimmingly, and hands off a decoy 'token' to Aserahin, to get back to Varael.

Last time: Lasila gets into a conversation about taxes at an orgy. Savae does something stupid.
This time: Three different people kiss Lasila. Savae does something *really* stupid.
Next time: Did I mention my protagonist is bisexual? Through no fault of their own, Savae gets in trouble. ... but actually I'm going in for rework on History before I do that.

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Overall

No real quibbles. It was a thick chapter, and not in terms of word length. I think, with it being a party, that I expected a bit less in terms of intense plot and world building and a bit more, I don't know, airiness? The kissing and sexual tension in general kept the chapter moving, which I did appreciate. I'm not a fan of political intrigue, so this had enough other 'stuff' to hold my attention. Although after the part with Maranthe wanting to hire Lasila, that felt more like the end of the chapter. It was strong. It was hard to get invested in anything after, because what I really wanted was more of the magic stuff and less about Lasila's brother.

 

As I go

- hello hands!

- chests together *fans self*

- lawyer, bah. Live a little! It's a festival!

- page two: GAH CUTAWAYS! Don't make go write fan fiction. I WILL DO IT!

- page three: 'line of her pelvis': not quite sure where that is. 

- page six and I'm growing a bit weary of the back and forth between Lasila and Maranthe. It's not as engaging as I would like it to be, considering the information being provided

- page six: with that said, once I hit the part with Maranthe wanting to hire Lasila as a lawyer, I was back in and ready to go

- quite the kiss there, Maranthe!

- My, Lasila is certainly a lot more bold after that kiss with Maranthe!

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On 13/02/2017 at 10:01 PM, kaisa said:

Although after the part with Maranthe wanting to hire Lasila, that felt more like the end of the chapter.

Mostly it's because of the next one that I arranged it as it is; there might be more sliding around I can do, but mostly I don't want the bit with Irahi in the same chapter as what I'm opening off the next one with.

On 13/02/2017 at 10:01 PM, kaisa said:

- quite the kiss there, Maranthe!

amazing what slapping five years onto a character's age and some shuffled context does; I remember this didn't fly nearly so well before, lol.

On 13/02/2017 at 10:01 PM, kaisa said:

- My, Lasila is certainly a lot more bold after that kiss with Maranthe!

tbf, there's also no prior employment arrangement, too, hehe.

Thanks!

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Overall, I enjoyed the chapter, but it's a little disoriented. Lasila jumps from meeting to meeting, and the last one, with Irahi, seems tacked on. By that point I'm getting overwhelmed with the rest of the chapter. As @kaisa says, the exit from Maranthe is pretty strong and you might be able to cut it after the meeting to slim it down some.

 

Pg 1: fun to read, but I also feel we know all this information already, both about Lesila's finances and about Adrichel. I'm not getting much new from it.
"Tonight, you are anyone at all."
--maybe get rid of the last two words? seems unnecessary

Pg 2: "work the blood of your former goddess into silver"
--interesting. I assume the blood is potent for magic?

"something about a priestess casting down her goddess to raise up a god'
--I feel like I'm missing some motive here, along with Savae. is this just WRS, or are we still missing why this happened? Especially since the goddess is expected to revive/resurrect.

Pg 3: "awareness of the shudkathra language"
--I suppose not unexpected that Savae knows this, but has this been stated before? Or does her using the shudkathra language tie in with her magic?

Pg 4: ---

Pg 5: "light stings at her eyes as the priestess arranges her gown around her."
--Seems like too much here. There's no mention of the lighting source. I assume it's reflecting off all of Maranthe's bling? I wouldn't think candles would have emit enough to do this, but I don't know what's lighting the room.

The discussion of the magic is very dry. Yes, Lasila only comes at it from a legal aspect, but it feels like this is missing a lot of the sense of wonder that could be included. There's none of the fear or awe that usually comes along with an unknowable power we define as "magic." Especially when Lasila hints that it brings death, on the next page.

Pg 6: Continuing thoughts from the last page, the whole discussion is...strange. They're talking about something very powerful that can cause many deaths and Lasila just shrugs it off. The closest analogy I can think of is a professional assassin talking about a fancy new weapon. The level of detachment by Lasila here is remarkable. Even an assassin would ask questions about what the weapon can do and how it's controlled. (EDIT: I'll second that I want to hear more about the magic, along with Kiasa.)

"Of course what she did was magic then-- would someone have been able to tell?"
--Lasila's been denying this the whole time, so I find it a bit unreasonable that she suddenly accepts it the moment she's confronted.

Pg 7: "A conspiracy. But to what end?"
--I don't follow everything here. Seems like Lasila might be making some leaps of logic.

"Forgive that I must do this as a parting"
...Uh...what just happened here? I didn't really catch the attraction between the two and the kiss seems very forced on Lasila.

Pg 8: seems a random encounter here, but something that needs to happen for the plot to procede.

Pg 9: ""Small world," she says, trying to recover. "I believe my brother is responsible for your father's safety. "
--Yeah, very convenient. How many people are here total? If there are a relatively small number, this meeting would seem less coincidental. Are there crowds? Or small groups of people?

"spider-silk lace"
--what is this and why does it matter?

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4 hours ago, Mandamon said:

I assume the blood is potent for magic?

shudkathra magic is in many aspects blood magic but slightly more pertinently here and working back into pretty much all of Savae's stuff, Savae's goddess is big into blood. One thing I lost a lot of that needs to be re-worked back in is Savae working on this mask; it's briefly brushed on by what Ka/thalan/ia delivers and then never again. That was more present in the first draft, should be.

4 hours ago, Mandamon said:

I feel like I'm missing some motive here, along with Savae. is this just WRS, or are we still missing why this happened? Especially since the goddess is expected to revive/resurrect.

The motive is not something we have, no, though Savae's dismissing it as generalized thirst for power, hence why they don't feel it's worthy of specific comment. But it's been knowable since about chapter three that Maranthe's the one who had the goddess killed.

4 hours ago, Mandamon said:

--I suppose not unexpected that Savae knows this, but has this been stated before? Or does her using the shudkathra language tie in with her magic?

They, please. Not in this draft, it's another thing that needs to be done when I go to fix the Savae stuff. The how doesn't need to get more than brushed on but they have ties to the shudkathra occupying Var Bandor to the south; this is relevant a lot to the Varael stuff; with Maranthe they're mostly just hired as a translator. Maranthe only takes Savae's goddess seriously when she has to, as this bit kind of indicates, and doesn't much like when she does.

4 hours ago, Mandamon said:

There's none of the fear or awe that usually comes along with an unknowable power we define as "magic."

This story plays a lot with magic-as-mundane and has since page one; this current scene opens off with Lasila casually using a magic pitcher that's chilling water as she pours it. So, no, there isn't, but I don't think the story is setting any expectations that there should be? (if it is, do you mind pointing out any places you recall it? I should look to them) It's expensive, but not unusual. This is not a story about let's-explain-how-magic-works-to-an-unfamiliar-character in any capacity; there's always that aspect of authorial wow-look-at-how-clever-I-am-and-let-me-show-you-by-having-my-authorial-construct-be-amazed-by-it that I find insufferable. It's definitely not an unknowable in this story; it's not a blanket replacement for "science!" but it's categorically not an unknown quantity in anyone's lives here. This is kind of like expecting fear or awe from someone who can't afford electricity being presented with a light switch.

That said, this and three will need to be looked at in tandem, I do think it's losing a fair bit in this case by letting Lasila have too much control over the conversation. Maranthe's, as I mentioned above, more of a mystic and she will take a different angle on things if Lasila's not talking all over her. Some of what Lasila says needs to be in here though, it pins up a lot of what she's been doing in the background.

Just needs more iteration, I think.

4 hours ago, Mandamon said:

Especially when Lasila hints that it brings death, on the next page.

I mean, not quite so much hints as been noted as 'this power is the weapon of the enemy' repeatedly since about the first chapter; perhaps not quite so thoroughly reinforced elsewhere that the aelin and humans' own magic is used as their own weapon in the war, though I wonder, because arcanists getting sent off to the war comes up a fair bit... I'll keep an eye out as I go back over everything.

4 hours ago, Mandamon said:

They're talking about something very powerful that can cause many deaths and Lasila just shrugs it off. The closest analogy I can think of is a professional assassin talking about a fancy new weapon.

It's a gun that only takes a specific type of bullet, which has only ever been fired at Lasila's people but guns themselves are a general fact of life, in this analogy.

That said, we're definitely losing a lot of the other things that can be done with this, which again was present in the original; more iteration will deal with this, I think. The broader potential implications are a big draw for Lasila here, far more than being able to blind muggers. After all, fire's heating people's houses in the winter, rather than only lighting shudkathra on fire in the war...

I wonder if part of the solution here is to just show how Maranthe arrives, because she sure doesn't use a door...

4 hours ago, Mandamon said:

Lasila's been denying this the whole time,

Where/when? I absolutely, 100% must purge even the slightest suggestion of this anywhere it appears in the text. She doesn't know how she did it, couldn't repeat it yet, but what she did (and the fact that she's bothered more by someone trying to rob her than by what she did) cannot ever be the slightest bit in question.

4 hours ago, Mandamon said:

I don't follow everything here. Seems like Lasila might be making some leaps of logic.

She lays out her exact train of thought in that paragraph. Do you mind pointing out which aspects seemed disconnected?

4 hours ago, Mandamon said:

what is this and why does it matter?

The fact that shudkathra silk is spider silk maybe isn't quite reinforced enough, but it's been noted as contraband since Iluya's entrance on the first page of the story. I'll make a note to fold that in a little better.

Edited by neongrey
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- I really like the beginning with Illuya and Lasila dancing while conversing - the present tense really works here, and the dialogue flows really well. 

- The acolytes' entrance is a little strange. It makes the transition from Illuya and Lasila's scene together to what follows a little jarring.

- Overall, I liked the intrigue. I think it could have been probably split in two chapters - starting from when the acolyte summons Lasila, but for the most part, it works for me. 

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14 hours ago, neongrey said:

I wonder if part of the solution here is to just show how Maranthe arrives, because she sure doesn't use a door...

That would help a whole lot. I completely missed that this was a thing. I think we've only seen Savae do magic, Lasila's one time, and the dress magic? Might not be remembering everything. If we see a few other characters doing magic, even if it's expensive, that will demonstrate that it is a common thing.

14 hours ago, neongrey said:

She doesn't know how she did it, couldn't repeat it yet, but what she did (and the fact that she's bothered more by someone trying to rob her than by what she did) cannot ever be the slightest bit in question.

Hmmm...good point. I was going from what I remembered, and the submission with her bout with magic was several months ago, so might be WRS. I might be equating that she couldn't repeat it and is worried about it as "denying." 

A sentence or two about how she remembers how performing the magic felt, even though she can't repeat it, might serve to shore up the reader's impression.

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6 hours ago, Mandamon said:

I think we've only seen Savae do magic, Lasila's one time, and the dress magic? Might not be remembering everything. If we see a few other characters doing magic, even if it's expensive, that will demonstrate that it is a common thing.

Savae is the only POV character who's per-se intentionally cast a spell on the page right now; only one of the four is outright incapable. But the entire economy is based on magic. It's in literally every chapter in some regard. There's been multiple conversations about it, Lasila's been researching laws, it's a daily fact of life. I get that somehow this isn't coming through on your end but I'm not sure how to reinforce this more thoroughly without having people basically be astounded by light switches, so to speak. I'll keep an eye out when I go back for rework but I'm still not convinced that in this regard I'm delivering anything other than what was promised.

6 hours ago, Mandamon said:

Hmmm...good point. I was going from what I remembered, and the submission with her bout with magic was several months ago, so might be WRS. I might be equating that she couldn't repeat it and is worried about it as "denying." 

I'll keep an eye out but she's not even worried about what she did (or terribly concerned about repeating it, though the fact that she might accidentally might be a concern to work in, even if it's not actually going to happen); there's a fair bit, here and there, about the cut on her arm and how that went away without a mark, and that she doesn't understand/is kind of weirded out by. She doesn't have a framework for blood-as-power, so there's that.

So, I mean, I dunno; at present there's no notation about her being unable to do it again either; I am honestly not sure where you're getting any of this from and it's kind of concerning because it's pretty antithetical to the story being told and the character telling it.

I might just grab another set of eyes to look for that because I have no idea where this is coming from.

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Random thought, but I enjoy the thought that, in coming back around to where I read to before, we are approaching the point at which we can see the story progress beyond the celebration.

  • her fingers pressing to the small of Las's back, warm against the skin” – I feel that these words distance me, as reader, from what Las is feeling, company to omitting the first one and saying ‘her’ skin. Maybe Las is trying to distance herself from her feelings however.

  • more prestigious ears” – Was that deliberately catty? ‘More prestigious ears than yours and Melq’s’? Ouch.

  • we've still got the house” – I've got no sense so far that Las’s house is anything to be especially proud of. This comment seems to imply that the house is fit for a family of quite high (middle class) standing – but my impression of it has always been of a place that is not that big, and maybe a bit run down. I don’t really picture it as a family home for a prosperous merchant. Possibly because I can’t recall much if anything in the way of description of the building itself.

  • looking down at Ilu's face” – Hmm, is she that much shorter than Las?

  • Las considers Ilu a moment, at the silky dress swirling around her” – Considers…, at?

  • how much of Ilu's pink clings there” – where? – her hips, her chest? I didn’t think it was clear.

  • Something between impatience and exhaustion washes through Sav” – Great phrase, I know this feeling!

  • There are grammar points that I'm skipping because I don’t want to argue about it.

  • Then, because they can't resist” – I know you didn’t use the word ‘resist’ earlier, but the sentiment of not resisting still felt a little repetitious to me.

  • A gift, from my god to yours” – Great line.

  • Is that irony? I'm never certain about that sort of thing” – Lol, excellent. I know this feeling too :)

  • than a priest of the goddess of the twin moons rejecting any such dualism in their own nature” – I don’t know who this is a reference to, but I can’t recall feeling that either of the possible candidates was rejecting their dualism.

  • Instead Mar taps at the table” – Instead of what?

  • That's not a real question, is it?” – I feel like I comment quite a lot on dialogue on RE, and that I'm often dissatisfied with it (or parts of it), personally. To me, this here is an example of great dialogue and indicative of much of Waning’s dialogue, which I almost always enjoy. I feel you capture the subtlety that ‘real’ people so often use (consciously or not) to try and convey more than one thing in what they say, by the way they say it, or to hide what they actually mean. I’ve been peddling the idea heard on WE more than once (but no originally) of reading dialogue out loud to test for plausibility / authenticity, certainly in later edits. I feel that dialogue should engender emotional response in the reader, not just convey information; and I don’t mean the reader should feel the emotion of the speaker (sometimes, maybe), but perhaps might also feel the reaction of the listener / receiver of the dialogue. Pushing the quality or limits of one side of the dialogue gives the person on the other side something to react to that can elevate their responses to the general benefit of the scene, I think. Anyway, to stop blathering and summarise, I really do like the dialogue in Waning. Thanks for your patience.

  • Would it surprise you if I said I don't meet people very well” – Lol, and then I get to climb down. What does she mean by well, easily? Often? Comfortably?

  •  “she rolls onto her back, settling into the cushions” – I feel like her wings are getting squashed.

  • a dress that's only white by implication” – awesome description, and “Shining silver embroidery and scintillating beads offer a parody of modesty” – more awesome still.

  • There's hundreds of regulations about what you can do with magic” – Okay, I said no grammar comments, but this is about the third or fourth time on this one. If it was one character in their dialogue, I can rationalise it as being a character tick, but it has issued from more than one mouth, and I believe there was an instance in narrative (I’m not going back to look for it). Convention, dare I say it, grammatical rule would be ‘There are hundreds…’

  • We must reframe the very structure of the work-- and for that I need a lawyer.” – I don’t see why a lawyer is the most appropriate person for this task, compared say to an engineer, or a doctor, or a scientist. What is it about the study of shudk magic that only a knowledge of statute can address, rather than just a knowledge of complex systems, which it seems to me the others would a have? This leads me to thinking that Mar’s proposal is simply a ruse.

  • I fear I'm going to need to extrapolate” – Rofl.

  • more undone by that single kiss than by any of Ilu's (rather deft) attentions” – Bam, great line.

  • Half the women here are wearing this colour," she says, keeping her voice light; a tease, not a barb. "Have you said that to many of them?” – Yes, perfect response.

  • It takes half a second for her to hazard a guess as to his age relative to her own” – She’s already made this judgement, has she not? This felt repetitious to me.

  • It's a little later, but shall we make this one to the health of our families?” – I’m not getting her meaning. As in ‘It’s a bit late because they’ve already left’? If so, they haven’t arrived yet, have they, so the toast probably is still good anyway.

  • I find Las’s speech about the war less than clear. I’m not following her ideas.

  • She gives him one last once-over, too” – I didn’t count the once-overs, but there were enough that they started to feel comical, I thought.

Long? Yes, but I thought this version of the chapter conveyed the nature of the gathering. Not so much that it was wild or debauched, which I didn’t get, but certainly that inhibitions were checked at the door. Descent plot progress, I thought, without being rapid, but I’m in this for the intrigue more than the action.

<R>

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18 hours ago, Robinski said:

Random thought, but I enjoy the thought that, in coming back around to where I read to before, we are approaching the point at which we can see the story progress beyond the celebration.

Almost, but I've got some revisions to make before I move on first-- mostly cleanup on Savae's stuff. Their story is, at the moment, kind of a mess and I need that cleanup done before I can progress it. Lasila seems to be in much better shape than the last time we hit this part of it.

18 hours ago, Robinski said:

more prestigious ears” – Was that deliberately catty? ‘More prestigious ears than yours and Melq’s’? Ouch.

More as in plural; just a phrasing issue, I think.

18 hours ago, Robinski said:

This comment seems to imply that the house is fit for a family of quite high (middle class) standing – but my impression of it has always been of a place that is not that big, and maybe a bit run down. I don’t really picture it as a family home for a prosperous merchant. Possibly because I can’t recall much if anything in the way of description of the building itself.

Should feel a little bit ambiguous; Lasila and her brother can't afford to maintain the whole house so a lot of it is shut up. It certainly would be sufficient, if they could afford to keep it up.

Of course, Lasila's not about to admit to any of that.

19 hours ago, Robinski said:

looking down at Ilu's face” – Hmm, is she that much shorter than Las?

Lasila's nearly five eleven, Iluya a little over five five, so yeah.

19 hours ago, Robinski said:

than a priest of the goddess of the twin moons rejecting any such dualism in their own nature” – I don’t know who this is a reference to, but I can’t recall feeling that either of the possible candidates was rejecting their dualism.

It's a gender crack, is what it is. Lilune loves dichotomies. Maranthe's making a largely reductionist crack about Savae being an ungendered priest of a goddess who loves duality. Savae is taking it as more a comment on their own statement being reductionist than for its literal meaning.

Also, it is a statement on the fact that the particular moon/blood/goddess sort of thing is generally associated to we the reader with certain antiquated but still in recent memory breeds of feminism that focus heavily, heavily on anatomical concerns as being the strict definer of womanhood, and has taken a hard turn toward anti-trans bigotries in recent years. I like the imagery, and in this combination, therefore it is critical to hammer down that no, that's not what's going on here.

(also, it can only refer to Savae here, not only because Savae is a priest of the moons-goddess, but also because by this point Maranthe's been using the masculine to refer to her god)

19 hours ago, Robinski said:

reading dialogue out loud to test for plausibility / authenticity

I actually don't do this at all; I can't, that sort of verbalization makes me wildly uncomfortable. My sometime-collaborator (nobody here has really seen his hand on much, outside of dialogue massage on Eshrin) does-- not just the dialogue, the whole thing. But he doesn't have my neuratypicalities.

There's any number of complexities to it, and I wish I could say I did it through the hard work of keeping in mind each character's goals in a conversation or how they feel about what they're saying or to remember that people talk past each other, not at at each other, but the sad truth of it is that it's like falling off a log and comes entirely naturally to me. I more or less have a sense of perfect pitch for dialogue; dialogue that's out in the wrong way is literally physically painful to me. Which is not to say that my dialogue's always right, obviously, any more than someone with perfect pitch always hits the correct notes. But it changes the sorts of issues that come up.

19 hours ago, Robinski said:

I feel like her wings are getting squashed.

probably not, if they're out flat but I've been glossing over them in description a lot, I should work that more, yeah.

19 hours ago, Robinski said:

Convention, dare I say it, grammatical rule would be

The rule in the sense in which you are using it is of course always irrelevant so long as the result is intelligible and the usage is appropriate to the context. In short this follows a a descriptive grammar but isn't adherent to perscriptive formalistic grammar.

So let's talk about usage and flow of a conversational sentence here. Because both the dialogue and the narration are written in a conversational style-- they're following the speaker/narrator's train of thought. This means that while I the writer have control over the complete sentence, in most cases the speaker has not decided the words that are going to be used before they are used. They know the meaning of what they are going to say but the words have yet to be set in stone. This means that one word must flow naturally into the next. In practice, this is a large contributor to why you should always use contractions unless you're going for specific enunciations.

So, let's look at half of the sentence or so, and let's read every word there. Aloud, if that helps. And let's say it as we would if in a conversation. "There's hundreds of regulations" places the stress in this part of the sentence on the first syllable of 'hundreds'. That "there's" is a sort of conversational schwa, fading into the background; it is not important part of the sentence. 

Compare to "There are hundreds of regulations"  and feel where your tongue is in your mouth, feel how it has to move between that 'there' and 'are'; there's a forcible glottal stop there. It's, physically speaking, a little difficult to say; the flow of the sentence is thrown off-kilter because of it. It's not a natural usage-- I would absolutely nail someone for pulling a 'there are' in dialogue, and possibly in a narration, depending on the tone of the narration (as sometimes that does shift to a more precomposed form)

So conversationally it's correct, Cambridge dictionary backs me up, I don't mind you bringing this sort of thing up because I love discussing descriptive grammar (which indeed does not mean everything I write is per se correct, because i get way repetitive a lot and have a bad habit of finishing different sentences than the one I start, and, hell, sometimes I'm just not paying attention), but you really get a little bit condescending when you get on the subject. :)

If it makes you feel better, consider it a contraction of 'there exists' :P

20 hours ago, Robinski said:

What is it about the study of shudk magic that only a knowledge of statute can address, rather than just a knowledge of complex systems, which it seems to me the others would a have?

She needs a contract lawyer with the capacity to work the magic because she needs someone who can can draft contracts with demons.

20 hours ago, Robinski said:

She’s already made this judgement, has she not? This felt repetitious to me.

that they're similar in age, yes, but it's a different honorific if he's older than her.

20 hours ago, Robinski said:

I’m not getting her meaning

this would be a typo.

20 hours ago, Robinski said:

Long? Yes, but I thought this version of the chapter conveyed the nature of the gathering.

yeah, I feel like most of the length is feeling that way from considering it as a separate unit (ie as a unique submission). There's possibly other ways to break all of this up but the big thing is that I don't want the final scene of this and the opening scene of the next in the same chapter. So I think this is good for now, and I'll see if it feels overweighty within the whole.

Thanks!

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