Silk

“So that’s what the reality bubble they were in was called” – I think I missed it actually being named? P2 “…couldn’t summon her exoskeleton without…” I thought she’d already summoned it, only de-summoning the weapons? P3 “…being given field orders” I mean, I’m also a little surprised that A now trusts M as much as she apparently does. The fact that someone else in the group proved to be untrustworthy doesn’t necessarily mean M is trustworthy. P4 “Can’t keep tabs on him while he’s restrained.” Au contraire, wouldn’t being restrained make it easier to keep tabs on him? P5 “And then I’ll kill them too.” Mmm. I assume the hypocrisy here is quite on purpose. P6 “He stiffened, but didn’t dodge…” So was he just standing there while A decided what to do with him? Wait. Am I misremembering, or didn’t H-from-the-interludes kill H-who-killed-Celosia last chapter? P8 “…not when this boy already knew so much about her.” Does he? All he’s said about her is she’s “supposed to be legendary.” P9 “Are you better than but not…” a couple of missing words throughout this line of dialogue, I think. P12 “Some kid named Hex…” I don’t think he introduced himself… P13: Do neither Jac nor Ix have specific laws about capital punishment, how to handle treason/rioting/murder etc? A and M seem to be having this discussion about whether or not to kill the soldiers in the absence of any larger cultural expectations about what to do with them. P14: Pronouns for M had shifted to they/them after they announced they were agender, but shift back to she/her here. I am having a hard time remembering who Fluo is. P16: “Not the one who died under…” I think the reminder is good and necessary given all the clones running around, but having A just blurt out the whole story here felt a little “as you know, Bob.” Just a little finessing to make the reminder feel more natural, I think. Overall: I like the reveal at the end of the chapter, and the emotional weight that you give the last line, but once again I feel like this could have used more setup. I didn’t really get a sense of “I know you better than I should” from M before now, and the “I want to save P” thread seems to have been dropped/resolved after the on-screen death for P that we did see. (I suspect more emphasis on this will also make the emotional hook come across more strongly--it will feel like a continuation of an existing thread and not re-opening a conflict we thought we had closed.) I’m interested to see where it goes, but don’t have a good sense yet the potential shape of the conflicts to come.

Go ahead!

It happens! I think we figured it out Right to the comments, then: Probably partially WRS, but it took me a hot second to remember who either of these characters were, especially the POV character. I'm glad to see this is an interlude, though, rather than signaling a shift in focus to completely different batch of characters. "...because they had been beaten into submission." Enough people in the ministry apparently think the soldiers are treated badly enough that I've started to wonder why nobody seems to have done anything about it before now. p2 "what lurked beneath--and she meant that quite literally--" this is a fun teaser, but seems like an odd aside for her own thoughts, a little "as you know, Bob" dialogue without the dialogue. p3 "...she hated the comfort she took in that." Nice character moment here. "...all those little boys." Another gendered term here. Having trouble getting a handle on when characters use those before they don't. Also, its use here makes it seem like the gender roles as they are in Ix was common knowledge to everyone but A? "...so broken that they couldn't fit back into society" - hmm, not quite convinced, I don't think we've seen this. Edit: Ah, I see you've hung a lantern on it. Carry on then. p4 Interesting. I had assumed T went to see I because of her relationship to A. The interlude seems like a missed opportunity to give us more information. It's one of the biggest things I've been struggling with throughout the book, and here we have two characters who clearly HAVE more information, but aren't giving it to us. The sense of forward motion at the end of the interlude is great, but I think the factories need (surprise!) some setup before now for it to be fully effective. Otherwise, great some characters we know are going off to do something, but it's a new something that I don't know how it relates to the rest of the story. p5 "And pitiful." Hm, not sure what about this display is pitiful. p7 "even ... or ... are better than 'your majesty.'" Okay that was a great line. p9 "So B was also originally a solider..." Didn't we already know this? I thought B had at least strongly implied at one point that she and A were clones of the same stock, which I took to mean B was trans. "I don't do that philosophy sh..." I thought that was an ancient swear word? p13 "Could it be?" I had assumed this immediately from the physical description in the first few pages, so having A come to it here makes her seem a bit slow on the uptake. Overall: I enjoyed the interaction between A and G--I actually really enjoyed G's personality--but toward the end the conversation felt like it started to drag, and I'm not really sure what it accomplished, or what G wants to get out of the conversation. If he's just looking to protect A and her people, couldn't he have just done that, since he seems to know everything already? I'm also not sure whether to be expecting a physical fight or philosophical debate in the next chapter. The story is better set up for the first IMO, but parts of the discussion between G and A pointed more toward a battle of ideals.

Go ahead! and I'll say right now that I'm going to be late critiquing this week, the block of time I usually use for crits is taken up this week until Friday...

Yeah, I had the same reaction at this point, but then I remembered we do know about it, as I think it was mentioned once before now. It's another thing that could use more setup though, I think it was only mentioned the once.

Here we go! First sentence : repetition of “to the floor/against the floor” “…from terrified to confident” in terms of specific body language, what does this look like? “so lovely and blandly ministerial…” not sure what A is getting at with these comments about ministers here. P2 “The real B was killed and replaced by this… thing.” This… seems like it should be a bigger deal, if true? I don’t think we’ve gotten any preparation for this specific revelation. Some confusion about the blocking throughout this section, particularly in regards to who is staying behind vs. fleeing and what they’re fleeing to. P9 “Let the Cal consume you” this does not sound especially reassuring… P10 “Now Haf stood at the center of the town square…” so what actually happened? Overall: I think most of my struggle with the first chapter of this submission, especially, was my lingering confusion over what was actually happening from last chapter. Clear that up, and get a little more clarity on the physical layout/blocking that I mentioned above, and I think this becomes a lot more compelling. As for the sacrifice, I didn’t find the event contrived, necessarily, but I did find the dialogue to be laying it on a bit thick – “made my life worth living” especially when it immediately follows from “you don’t get it, do you”? Again, I thnk more shoring up of the connections between people and making that feel less contrived will really help here. The second chapter I found my attention wandering a bit more. I’m having a hard time connecting with the POV character in this section—I don’t think it’s necessarily a problem that he’s an out-and-out villain, but that makes it harder to be interested in what he does especially when I don’t really understand what he wants or what his role in the larger story is yet. I’m also not really understanding what happened with C and her crew that led us to this point.

Sounds good!

“This is the person who killed S.” Have we established that? Did anyone actually see who killed him? Or are they just guessing and letting themselves be driven by emotion? I think the latter is actually a really fun and effective way to explore the emotional impact of what happened last chapter, just need a bit more clarity here on how much that's actually happening. P3 “Xan said out loud” as opposed to over A’s earpiece, I sppose? It took me a moment to track why we needed to specify “out loud.” I am losing track of the talk about the numbered bases. Could be WRS but I don’t remember there being much discussion about specifically numbered bases. P4 “B had taken credit… only after A mentioned it” Arguably, the same thing has just happened here with M, since M was being vague enough that she could have just been fishing for info. “I needed you to see the truth beneath J’s veil of peace…” the truth being that the soldiers are treated poorly—information we had already? It feels like this scene is a reveal, but I’m not fully sure what the reveal is. P6 “She’s taking control of the conversation.” I mean yes, but she’s basically been controlling the conversation this whole time. p7 “…to see C monsters advancing, humanoid ones.” Are they advancing through the structure—isn’t it fortified? Are we looking out into the ocean? B’s reaction seems to indicate the threat is fairly immediate, A’s reaction less so. Edit: Ah, we get some more details on page 8. I wonder if we could get this sooner, and a bit more of the physical scene, I’m still feeling a bit lost. So… what purpose did the monster attack serve? Overall: As always, I remain interested to see where this is going. I’m still having trouble tracking the intrigue, and the chapter felt a little long and unfocused to me – we watched A work through a bunch of different scenarios and doubts in her head, but I felt like I didn’t really have enough information about any of the possibilities to get invested in one over another. Plus, the cycles of doubt before and after the monster attack felt fairly similar. The biggest question I have is about what characters like M and B want. I don’t have to know exactly what they want or why either of them is doing what they’re doing, but aside from the partial reveal about who’s actually on whose side here, I don’t feel like I understand that much better now than I did when the characters were introduced.

Go ahead! Sorry for the late reply.

“…for letting him die in my place.” Curious as to whether the soldiers feel this way. P2 “…and she summoned her exoskeleton.” Not sure why she does this? The last chapter indicates she was hiding that she could do this, and then she doesn’t do anything with it after she summons it. P4, on L going back to J – It’s apparently easier to move between these two places than I would have expected given how infrequently it normally happens. P5 I was expecting there to be a scene between A and Xan here, not for A to just walk away. “…and that he had lived for a decade less.” Wait, are soldiers cloned into being at a certain age? Did we know this already? I do like the endcap for the scene though. P7 “Assessing S’s wounds” sounds more like a medical examination than a coroner’s report. That being said, I’m not convinced we learn much from this assessment? There’s the comment about it being a “distinct weapon,” but since the Ixes can have any weapon I don’t see how this proves anything? P8 “Why did you do any of that?” Unsure who L is directing this remark to, or who is responding. Since it’s apparently fairly easy to travel back and forth between the cities (see: L getting picked up because she wants to leave), why not just transport S’s body home for whatever appropriate funerary rites there? Or, if the point is that J doesn’t have these rites for soldiers, maybe worth calling out explicitly. P10: these guards actively attacked people and can only be placed under house arrest? Regardless of whether or not they were conspirators, if they participated in the attack, this seems odd. There are submarines?! “M is at the hideout Z was using…” Aren’t these completely different nations? We had to go through tunnels to get here. The narrative seems to have jumped very quickly to the conclusion that M is the one we’re looking for. That A is also unsure helps me suspend my disbelief a bit, but A’s also just going along with it. Overall: Pretty much echoing @Mandamon's thoughts here—I agree that this (and actually, the last chapter to some extent, I thought) were some of the strongest/most natural character moments so far. I’m also not totally following the intrigue with M and the deserters. It seems like we’re spending a lot of time chasing them without fully understanding what the shape of the intrigue is or why it’s happening. I do however like the forward motion we’re getting. I’m looking forward to reading more!

Go ahead!

You're all good! We just had a quieter week without any requests for submissions this time. Keeping an eye on this thread will tell you whether there are submissions you should be expecting to receive. We've been in a quieter period recently but hopefully things will kick back up

P2 “And who do you think he’ll target? Someone important to J…” I mean, yes, but is L here openly as herself? Not clear on this point, but it seems like a random princess just showing up in a place with tense relations like this could cause an international incident. Also, L has been offscreen enough during this section (not the submission, just overall) that I keep forgetting she came along. P3 “That’s what she was hiding from you.” Didn’t she already know how to summon pglass? Thought we’d seen this somewhere else in the book for some reason. P4 “...sending a child into a life-threatening situation.” I do like A’s musings here on how L is actually older than the soldiers. I think this kind of juxtaposition is actually more effective at calling into question how soldiers are treated in J than just having everyone talk about it all the time. P5 “So no, J isn’t justified…” this feels almost like A’s getting ready for wholesale revolution, which I’m not quite sure the text has earned yet. A’s been doing a lot of “working within the system to fix the system” kind of work, and I’m not sure we’ve hit anything—at least that’s been given enough weight in the narrative—to fully support the “burn the system down” dialogue that we’re reading here. “It means that you made me feel better.” This is a nice moment, though. I actually find it one of the most effective A/soldier interaction so far. P6 “X had saved Am not only from death…” Maybe WRS, but I don’t remember this at all. Have these two characters, who’ve been supporting characters up until now, ever discussed this at length? This might be a symptom of there being so many characters overall. P8 “It could get ugly tomorrow.” As I read all this foreboding about the referendum, I find myself going back and forth on whether this is meant to be reflective of actual coming violence, or the trauma that gets foisted on these soldiers because of their circumstances. Either is potentially interesting and I think both could be viable, but I don’t quite have enough information about Ix and its circumstances to understand which is which. P11 “...and they motioned for her to come closer.” Small thing but at first I thought the sniper was actually just calling her closer to talk or something, it wasn’t clear that he was egging her on. P12 “...stopping them and the C monsters…” are there monsters too? Edit: Ah, I see they’re mentioned a bit later as having been snuck in, but even then they don’t seem to be hugely significant to the scene, even in a background sort of way. But I’m also wondering what A’s soldiers are doing. Why can’t she have one of them handle H while she chases after the sniper or vice versa? P14 is this the first time we’ve heard of reality bubbles? I am immediately intrigued and would like to know more about these. P15 “...and after checking the status of everyone” I really like the way this last scene is structured overall, but having A specify this right off the top makes me wonder why on earth nobody said anything before she came across the actual body. Everyone is just standing around quietly and nobody mentions off the top someone is dead? I can’t quite suspend my disbelief that far. Maybe just reframe so the initial conversation and such is more chaotic? Like I said, I think the bones of the scene work well! Also: Xan seems to be missing from the scene. Maybe intentionally? Overall: I think there is some good movement in this chapter and it it made concrete connections (and a tangible threat of) the dspeaker thread in a more effective way than anything else so far this section. I know I mentioned it in my LBLs, but worth reiterating that the interaction between A and Sp was I think one of the most effective we’ve seen so far, it’s starting to feel more like the story is hitting its stride with this kind of characterization moment. I’m waffling on whether there is not enough buildup to this kind of violence—we’ve seen very little of Ix and everything so far is meant to suggest that it’s less violent and more culturally sophisticated than J, and H in previous chapters feels like he could be just as easily “posturing” as “credible threat” much of the time—or maybe there is too much. The more I think about it, the more I wonder what this scene would look like if it caught everybody off guard (except maybe A’s soldiers in their paranoia). But right now it definitely feels like the scene is sitting on an uneasy middle ground. One thing I’m not too clear on, and it’s partially a worldbuilding piece but also partially trying to tease out how this chapter fits within the theme of the story, is whether H and his crew are all men? (And I know there are female Ix soldiers like C, but WRS sorry, I can’t remember if C and other women Ix soldiers are to be read as trans.) Because in a way it feels like the story is confirming a gendered binary (males are soldiers and violent) that it’s otherwise trying to take apart. Obviously I don’t have the full picture yet, and there’s enough discussion of it in the text to make me suspect that the story is going somewhere deliberate with this, but it’s something that piqued my notice here. Good to have you back!

Welcome back! Please go ahead.

I hope you have everything under control soon!