Waning, Ch. 6

[neongrey]

Chapter 6, Lasila 4.

I suspect the second scene is going to prove impenetrable for people; what I'd like people to do is go through it as best you can and be as specific as possible with what's losing you, where, *and why*. This scene's thick with plot, other detail, and foreshadowing, but it's no good at all if you only get the best bits out of it on the second reading. There's things that *need* to be laid out here, but I need to have attention for it. This *is* a fight scene.

Other things I'm looking for:

Adrichel's a type of character that I personally consider brutally hard to get right, in any form of media. I'd like three things about him, please: - your overall impressions of him as a person and character; - what you think his goal was in these exchanges with Lasila, - your guess as to what his role in the overall story is.

The usual's fine too. But I do need you to please dig deep when I inevitably lose you in the lawyer battle.

Previously: Lasila learns that she'll be facing a new and formidable lawyer, whom her client Iluya fears is too skilled to succeed against. On her way to the meeting, Lasila is accosted and injured by a mugger and drives them off, inadvertently tapping into the dark magic Maranthe spoke to her about.

This time: Three people in a room. One person leaves having gained exactly what they wanted.

Next time: A new POV; next three chapters have a target length much shorter than the others. But probably next sub is 5 again; I want to clean up the exchange with Iluya once I have what I've gained from this in hand.

[Hobbit]

Hmmm.  I liked that chapter.  I read it slowly and carefully, going over things if I had to, and with a careful reading I think I followed the lawyer discussion fairly well.  Here's what confused me:

"I prefer three, if only because of the day and age. Even with the contractual obligation, families these days... lucky to have one, let alone two. But I suppose Iluya and Rienri’s position is rather different from that of my constituents."
What I expect him to be saying here is that more children will provide both houses with more heirs, and since houses seem to be running out of those, it's a good idea to have more babies, even if it's more than the social norm right now.  It just seems like this statement isn't actually saying that.  If he points out that families are lucky to have one or two kids, why would he think it was reasonable to insist on three?

With the part about how much money they each get for the third kid: let me double check my understanding. If Lasila had let the third child go to Linphori, Melqueth would be okay giving Judessa more more money?  But since Judessa wants the third kid, she should get less money for having him/her?  Either way, Judessa gets money if a third baby is born though.

"Let's say if a boy to Linphori and a girl to Judessa, based on the initial assumption. And nine thousand."
I think the main thing holding my understanding back is that I don't know how gender plays into inheritance.  Do genders inherit equally?  So is this just a way of flipping the coin?

That's all that I was confused about - I think I got everything else!

Now, about Adrichel...

Your overall impressions of him as a person and character:

He seems like a person that is using niceness to manipulate people.  He gets what he wants by making people feel warm and fuzzy and then positioning them where he wants.  He's not overtly nasty, but he has creepy undertones.  Too watchful, too forward.  If he was a character in a different story, I would think he might be honestly nice but oblivious to his creepiness.  But since he's a lawyer, and based on what we heard of him from Iluya and Lasila's brother...  I'm guessing he's fully aware of everything he does, including his creepiness, and that it's all purposeful.  He seems easy to get along with and hard to manipulate.

What you think his goal was in these exchanges with Lasila:

I'm wondering if he's planning on using her as a pawn in his Women can be Lawyers hearings.  Whether he actually wants women to be lawyers, or if he wants something else, remains to be seen (but let's be honest, more likely the latter).

Your guess as to what his role in the overall story is:

I am expecting him to be involved with Lasila's brother's quest.  Maybe he's orchestrating it.  And I'm fully expecting him to have some big plans.

 

[neongrey]

28 minutes ago, Hobbit said:

What I expect him to be saying here is that more children will provide both houses with more heirs, and since houses seem to be running out of those, it's a good idea to have more babies, even if it's more than the social norm right now.  It just seems like this statement isn't actually saying that.  If he points out that families are lucky to have one or two kids, why would he think it was reasonable to insist on three?

The motivation here, that Lasila doesn't mention because she doesn't consider it as having any real value, is that birth rates (and the population in general) are way down and have been declining for some time. So he's considering a contractual obligation or, failing that, encouragement, to have more children to be in line. This is something that could easily be reframed, too. The specifics of where he's coming from on that one aren't super important to be conveyed, but if it's seeming nonsensical that's trouble.

40 minutes ago, Hobbit said:

With the part about how much money they each get for the third kid: let me double check my understanding. If Lasila had let the third child go to Linphori, Melqueth would be okay giving Judessa more more money?  But since Judessa wants the third kid, she should get less money for having him/her?  Either way, Judessa gets money if a third baby is born though.

Oh, hmm, then that's not clear enough. In the event of a third, Iluya gets the money no matter what, but Melqueth's willing to let it be the higher amount for the fifty-fifty on it being a Linphori. If they end up deciding 'nah two's enough' the money goes to Rienri.

44 minutes ago, Hobbit said:

"Let's say if a boy to Linphori and a girl to Judessa, based on the initial assumption. And nine thousand."
I think the main thing holding my understanding back is that I don't know how gender plays into inheritance.  Do genders inherit equally?  So is this just a way of flipping the coin?

Inheritance is pretty much solely by designation. There's restrictions on women actually making money (either through the workplace or otherwise) but not on them having money, and most of those restrictions are fading at this point. Social stigma against women of Iluya's social class doing much of anything is still pretty strong though; given they're a social class that's only on the fringes of confronting the potentiality of anyone having to work in the first place, they're much further behind people who need to do it to live. So it is theoretically assigning a less potentially valuable child to Judessa though in this case I'd say there's an awareness that by the time this matters it will be even less of an issue.

And it is, of course, only by the first assumption of gender, which is probably the least important one. It is mostly a coinflip, and to keep from having to wait forever.

1 hour ago, Hobbit said:

He seems like a person that is using niceness to manipulate people.  He gets what he wants by making people feel warm and fuzzy and then positioning them where he wants.  He's not overtly nasty, but he has creepy undertones.  Too watchful, too forward.  If he was a character in a different story, I would think he might be honestly nice but oblivious to his creepiness.  But since he's a lawyer, and based on what we heard of him from Iluya and Lasila's brother...  I'm guessing he's fully aware of everything he does, including his creepiness, and that it's all purposeful.  He seems easy to get along with and hard to manipulate.

Hmmm. Creepy I can do with, though I'd prefer a bit more leaning to menace. But undertone is about exactly where I want it. So that's good. Lasila doesn't do badly here on the relative scale, but he still metaphorically beats the crap out of her. So there's certain ways I want that to seem and certain ways I don't, and a character who you want to seem that sharp is always tricky... nothing worse than a character enamored of their own cleverness, except perhaps a writer enamored of their character's own cleverness. Sounds like it's going okay so far, at least.

Thanks!

[rdpulfer]

- It feels a little weird that Lasila rushes to the Senate after this attack . . . just to talk to Melqueth. It just seems really, really out of place.

- That said, I do enjoy the legal part because it puts Lasila back in her element.

- Overall, I think it's a good chapter that furthers Lasila's legal subplot. But I still feel like the attack feels too much like an afterthought and as a result, way too out of place for the reader. 

 

[Mandamon]

I actually (gasp) quite enjoyed this chapter, for all the griping I've done in the past on the legal sections. Notes below on how I was following it. It has a lot of the political development I was missing with the first draft, which I like. It is a bit impenetrable, but once I got over the first section, it started to flow better.

On Adrichel (whom I'm assuming is Melqueth? you never actually say):
1) Overall impressions: Bold, entitled, assumes he has power over others. I was actually surprised he didn't push back harder. He could have. Seems to be a mostly benevolent power(?). I agree with Hobbit on the creepy undertones as well, especially at the end.

2) Goals: I must assume he didn't use his authority as a Senator because he wanted something from Lasila. Probably to set her up with Eshrin, because...Don't know yet.

3) Story role: He's certainly manipulating something, and seem to want to see Lasila closer to power. Not sure why, unless there's some attraction, but he also seems to be already attached to Eshrin?

 

pg 2: "Oh, not in the ways you notice first," says Senator Melqueth,
--this is a great line.

pg 2: confused on blocking. Is the guard Eshrin? Is Eshrin the same as Master Linphori?

pg 2: Eshrin was a good two years ahead of us...The only payment she'd take was kisses.
--confused here. Who is the "she" referring to? I thought it was to the sister who taught them (?), but writing makes it sound like Eshrin.

 pg 2: "I'll provisionally accept"
--accept what? Is this referring to the question a few paragraphs back about the guard being witness? I think so, but it was disjointed in the middle.

(my running commentary of the legal battle)
pg 3: ok--talking about when they have a kid...got it but I don't really care about what the length of time is.
"which would give us, in order, Linphori, Judessa, Judessa."
---Annnd you lost me.  Talking about who gets the money? Who the child will belong to? Honestly my eyes are glazing over.

(Edit from reading your above comments: I never thought about the birthrate thing, and I've read that in a previous version. I think including it will go a long way to clearing up the first section. Making it very clear that they are dividing up children to houses will go a long way. After this section it's fairly clear, if read carefully.)

"Nine thousand. For a Judessa"
--ok, this sounds like which house the child will belong to

"Let's say if a boy to Linphori and a girl to Judessa, based on the initial assumption. And nine thousand.""
--ok, I think I'm following this. They're making sure the houses continue. Hope the money amount isn't important though, cause I'm not going to remember it.

pg 4: "has a firm requirement she be permitted to pursue other companions through the term of the marriage,"
--This is much clearer than last chapter.

pg 4: "Should she opt to keep them, any resultant children are to be legally considered as fathered by Lord Linphori. "
--Eh?  This seems...excessive. I wouldn't think any house would agree to blindly accepting bastard children, but then, I don't know enough about this society to really know.

"No children to come of any of Iluya's other liaisons parentage to be verified by a qualified member of any major guild of water-mages and terminated if not his. At lower classes than this I would have no objection to legal fatherhood, but bloodline does matter among listed nobles."
--yeeaaah...have to agree. To the point where I don't even know why this came up.

pg 5: "In the event of failure"
--meaning failure to prevent pregnancy, or a miscarriage? I'm guessing this means if Iluya accidentally gets pregnant, based on the next paragraph. Still some disbelief that Rienri would then accept the child. Seems like an easy loophole for Iluya to "accidentally" get pregnant with whomever she wanted.

pg 5: "That's a fashion that hasn't trickled to the middle classes yet.""
--hmmm...she doesn't want to be identified as middle class in the paragraph above this.

pg 5: The whole section with Melqueth suddenly playing dress-up with Lasila reads as...strange, and possible very over a boundary for two who have just been discussing business? It does sort of make sense if he wants to set her up to arrive with Eshrin, but a strange way to get there.

pg 5: "She can do without being the coin in a transaction"
--yeah, this exactly. Doesn't this really denigrate her barganing power as a lawyer to go along with this arrangement right after negotiaton

[TKWade]

I'm just going to skip right to the second scene. (I read the whole thing and I enjoyed the first scene.)

With context I'm sure I would have understood better what's going on, but in the exchange it felt like L came out over Mel with the final contract. From my perspective, without clear context, it felt like a win. I'm sure there is more meaning inherent in that deal than I'm pulling away from it. I need to catch up on a few of your previous chapters. 

But then it gets a little weird towards the end. L seems like a woman who takes what opportunities come her way to advance her social status as well as career, but at the same time she kind of reads like an independent mind. So the bit with her and E getting paired up like they did came across odd. I just expected her to balk at the idea a bit more than she did. Maybe not outwardly considering social status, but in some form. Then again, that's coming from a place that lacks context on her character or her feelings towards Eshrin.

That's probably not much help :S sorry.

[neongrey]

2 hours ago, Mandamon said:

I actually (gasp) quite enjoyed this chapter, for all the griping I've done in the past on the legal sections. Notes below on how I was following it. It has a lot of the political development I was missing with the first draft, which I like. It is a bit impenetrable, but once I got over the first section, it started to flow better.

Yeah, I suspect the answer to 5 is to do more of it in dialogue, then, and I think that'll help with some of the issues in this one too. I wanted to avoid that originally since I don't think a blow-by-blow is super necessary, and I didn't want to get repetitive, especially since the meeting with Adrichel was intended to be the back half of 5 when I laid out the meeting with Iluya. But there's Things I Can Do.

2 hours ago, Mandamon said:

On Adrichel (whom I'm assuming is Melqueth? you never actually say):

Yeah, I'll call that a me problem, referring to characters by given name; Lasila pretty consistently refers to him by title-housename. He's introduced by given name in the summons he sends to Lasila but she wouldn't even thnk of him by given name.

2 hours ago, Mandamon said:

On Adrichel (whom I'm assuming is Melqueth? you never actually say):
1) Overall impressions: Bold, entitled, assumes he has power over others. I was actually surprised he didn't push back harder. He could have. Seems to be a mostly benevolent power(?). I agree with Hobbit on the creepy undertones as well, especially at the end.

I'd say his actions at least in the negotiation are benevolent, yeah. He's not terribly interested in taking Iluya for a ride, and he was after some specific things out of this, so no need to push back harder. (and if it does leave you surprised at him not pushing harder, that's just fine)

2 hours ago, Mandamon said:

2) Goals: I must assume he didn't use his authority as a Senator because he wanted something from Lasila. Probably to set her up with Eshrin, because...Don't know yet.

I mean, in this sense one can't legally obligate two people to attend an event together. And there's a line where 'undertone of creepy' crosses over to 'actually being a creep' that I'm not terribly interested in having him cross, at least in this way. This one's not really a question that can be answered yet, but the way in which people find it unanswerable is helpful.

2 hours ago, Mandamon said:

pg 2: confused on blocking. Is the guard Eshrin? Is Eshrin the same as Master Linphori?

pg 2: Eshrin was a good two years ahead of us...The only payment she'd take was kisses.
--confused here. Who is the "she" referring to? I thought it was to the sister who taught them (?), but writing makes it sound like Eshrin.

 pg 2: "I'll provisionally accept"
--accept what? Is this referring to the question a few paragraphs back about the guard being witness? I think so, but it was disjointed in the middle.

Yeah, some cleanup should take care of these. (It's Iluya, who is nobody's sister, who took payment for geometry lessons with kisses, and eshrin, who is master linphori, who lasila is provisionally allowing to stay on the grounds that on duty he's covered by every kind of NDA possible)

3 hours ago, Mandamon said:

(my running commentary of the legal battle)
pg 3: ok--talking about when they have a kid...got it but I don't really care about what the length of time is.
"which would give us, in order, Linphori, Judessa, Judessa."
---Annnd you lost me.  Talking about who gets the money? Who the child will belong to? Honestly my eyes are glazing over.

(Edit from reading your above comments: I never thought about the birthrate thing, and I've read that in a previous version. I think including it will go a long way to clearing up the first section. Making it very clear that they are dividing up children to houses will go a long way. After this section it's fairly clear, if read carefully.)

Sounds like a lot of this can be done as chapter 5 cleanup then. Division of kids between the houses can be done in more detail there and left brushed over here, and we can go over the thing initially calling for three there too.

3 hours ago, Mandamon said:

pg 4: "Should she opt to keep them, any resultant children are to be legally considered as fathered by Lord Linphori. "
--Eh?  This seems...excessive. I wouldn't think any house would agree to blindly accepting bastard children, but then, I don't know enough about this society to really know.

Hmmmm. Yeah, this is one of the things I was not expecting to be a real stumbling block as such. I mean she's saying outright that in such case there would be no bastardry because Rienri be considered the father regardless. By and large this is a case of the appearance of things mattering far more than the reality, and it's the sort of clause that would come up more frequently in contracts where it's expected there's not actually going to be children at all between the married parties. Basically she's tracking house continuity here rather than actual relational continuity. This is actually Lasila showing her social standing here because it's far more common lower down classwise, and she's not in a position as yet for this to occur to her, and Adrichel's not going to help her on that, beyond his notation that this would be more okay at a lower class. So that's not really going to be coming through in this scene.

But really when you start stripping away stigma against extramarital interaction, at least some of the stigma against extramarital parentage goes with it. Here, in both cases, it's the appearance-focused nature that's holding it back.

And, I mean, Rienri trusts Iluya. But you can't do a legal agreement based on 'I trust you, hon'.

That said, if it does seem excessive it probably should; Lasila's intentionally overreaching here because she's expecting to get walked back. Probably shouldn't seem that far over the line though, so I'll take a look at that.

4 hours ago, Mandamon said:

pg 5: "In the event of failure"
--meaning failure to prevent pregnancy, or a miscarriage? I'm guessing this means if Iluya accidentally gets pregnant, based on the next paragraph. Still some disbelief that Rienri would then accept the child. Seems like an easy loophole for Iluya to "accidentally" get pregnant with whomever she wanted.

failure to prevent pregnancy. 

I think what 5 need then is Iluya stonewalling on her wanting to not have to reveal who it would be, but generally being flexible on the kids-related subjects. Iluya very much does not want Rienri to know who she's with, which is in the realm of what's considered reasonable. But then so is him at least knowing who she's with. Without kids involved there's not a huge reason to compel her given basically that Rienri trusts Iluya, but with them, it's harder for Iluya to object.

The trick here, the as-yet unknowable trick, is that Adrichel knows why Iluya doesn't want Rienri to know, and Lasila doesn't. It's not deep mystery stuff, it's next-chapter stuff, but yeah.

And, I mean, yeah, she could get pregnant by whomever she pleased, though there'd be breach of contract involved if there weren't actually contraceptives being used for her PIV interactions. There's no particular reason to do so intentionally. Mostly, it's ensuring all bases are covered, on account of accidents happening. She could breach her contract, sure. Anyone with a motorcycle could drive it down the sidewalk, mowing down pedestrians. Which is an extreme example, but, you know.

Gonna be honest, I sort of find the notion of 'if she gets pregnant he's legally the father no matter who it actually is' being considered more extreme than 'if she gets pregnant and he's not the father, she has to abort' to be a little... not what I expected, even with my notations for backpinning it in.

5 hours ago, Mandamon said:

pg 5: "That's a fashion that hasn't trickled to the middle classes yet.""
--hmmm...she doesn't want to be identified as middle class in the paragraph above this.

Big difference between openly acknowledging what you are, and coming off low-class. But if it's not clear that her concern is how tacky that sounds... I dunno. I like the entrenched classism of the original sentiment.

5 hours ago, Mandamon said:

pg 5: The whole section with Melqueth suddenly playing dress-up with Lasila reads as...strange, and possible very over a boundary for two who have just been discussing business? It does sort of make sense if he wants to set her up to arrive with Eshrin, but a strange way to get there.

pg 5: "She can do without being the coin in a transaction"
--yeah, this exactly. Doesn't this really denigrate her barganing power as a lawyer to go along with this arrangement right after negotiaton

He's definitely going over the line on this. Lasila's going along with it because she feels like she stands to have a net gain, but if that's not coming through so much, I can do more with that.

Eshrin's very much not happy with this, and that's going to be duly factored into things.

Got a fair bit to go over, in this one and the previous now, so, thanks!

5 hours ago, TKWade said:

I'm just going to skip right to the second scene. (I read the whole thing and I enjoyed the first scene.)

Yeah, I don't think the first scene needs nearly so much work, hence why I directed attention where I did.

6 hours ago, TKWade said:

With context I'm sure I would have understood better what's going on, but in the exchange it felt like L came out over Mel with the final contract. From my perspective, without clear context, it felt like a win. I'm sure there is more meaning inherent in that deal than I'm pulling away from it. I need to catch up on a few of your previous chapters. 

No need to abbreviate characters; we're still basically first draft and I don't have a publisher. In this case though it's a lot more of him giving less ground than she does, and coming out of it with more of what he wants. But it shouldn't necessarily be unambiguous, especially not knowing what he went into this trying to get.

6 hours ago, TKWade said:

But then it gets a little weird towards the end. L seems like a woman who takes what opportunities come her way to advance her social status as well as career, but at the same time she kind of reads like an independent mind. So the bit with her and E getting paired up like they did came across odd. I just expected her to balk at the idea a bit more than she did. Maybe not outwardly considering social status, but in some form. Then again, that's coming from a place that lacks context on her character or her feelings towards Eshrin.

Yeah, I mean they don't know each other but it's also not being presented as, like, a personal thing. All they really need to do is, as stated, look pretty with each other for a little while. But as above, I can do a bit more with this being, basically, a calculated acceptance based on, you know, a quick cost-benefit analysis.

6 hours ago, TKWade said:

That's probably not much help :S sorry.

No, no, it's fine, every bit of eyes helps. Thanks!

[kais]

As an aside, for the level of specific comments you're after, line numbers in the document would be useful.

I only had one sentence of confusion in the second part, noted below. The dialogue was interesting and there really wasn't any legal jargon in there to stumble over. 

Adrichel: your overall impressions of him as a person and character: It took me forever to figure out who Adrichel was. I feel like he likes to toy with people and is a bit sexist. Has an eye for aesthetic. Not necessarily a bad person overall, but could be a minor irritant.

What you think his goal was in these exchanges with Lasila: To feel out her lawyer skills? 

Your guess as to what his role in the overall story is: secondary antagonist? I really don't know.

On 12/5/2016 at 3:29 PM, neongrey said:

but he still metaphorically beats the crap out of her.

To me, it seemed like she did alright in the negotiations. Not perfect, but not 'beat the crap out of', either.

 

As I go

- page one: his hair drips like honey is still so... sticky sounding

- I enjoyed the description of the statue

- page three: when they're doing the 'if its a boy, this house, if its a girl, this one', do they just have the two sexes then?

- About the only thing out of the ordinary is a specific plan for investment and re-calculation to ensure both houses benefit as much as possible. <-- I find this line confusing. Everything before it was fine.

[neongrey]

7 minutes ago, kaisa said:

As an aside, for the level of specific comments you're after, line numbers in the document would be useful.

Yeah, that would help; never really occurred. But this is the sort of exchange between characters where I've had difficulty both here and in other pieces of work where I go into it just knowing stuff's gonna not work out. But it seems like I may have come off here better than I feared.

7 minutes ago, kaisa said:

I only had one sentence of confusion in the second part, noted below. The dialogue was interesting and there really wasn't any legal jargon in there to stumble over. 

Adrichel: your overall impressions of him as a person and character: It took me forever to figure out who Adrichel was. I feel like he likes to toy with people and is a bit sexist. Has an eye for aesthetic. Not necessarily a bad person overall, but could be a minor irritant.

Yeah, my fault for not matching terms here. A bit sexist is probably about right; less so than his cultural norm calls for which is still a bit sexist on our end.

7 minutes ago, kaisa said:

What you think his goal was in these exchanges with Lasila: To feel out her lawyer skills? 

Your guess as to what his role in the overall story is: secondary antagonist? I really don't know.

To me, it seemed like she did alright in the negotiations. Not perfect, but not 'beat the crap out of', either.

A fair reading; I'm possibly overstating based on things that aren't discernable. One of the things Lasila proposed on her own was one of the things he was specifically angling for.

Either way, sounds like he is coming out roughly on target for where I want him.

Just out of random curiosity, on a scale from 0 to this gif, where's he landing at? (should I be ashamed of saying I'm channeling two different anime characters on him? nah)

7 minutes ago, kaisa said:

 

As I go

- page one: his hair drips like honey is still so... sticky sounding

look when you're wanting both 'yellow' and 'fluid' and Iluya's already got a lockdown on sunlight imagery for her hair...

 

7 minutes ago, kaisa said:

- I enjoyed the description of the statue

- page three: when they're doing the 'if its a boy, this house, if its a girl, this one', do they just have the two sexes then?

Yeah, two standardized sets of plumbing, three primary social distinctions, though the third is a minority.

7 minutes ago, kaisa said:

- About the only thing out of the ordinary is a specific plan for investment and re-calculation to ensure both houses benefit as much as possible. <-- I find this line confusing. Everything before it was fine.

Can probably smoothe that some though if any line should be confusing it should be that one; it mostly exists to lay down 'there is a lot of complicated accounting math going on here',

Thanks!

[kais]

16 minutes ago, neongrey said:

Just out of random curiosity, on a scale from 0 to this gif, where's he landing at? (should I be ashamed of saying I'm channeling two different anime characters on him? nah)

*Bursts out laughing* I didn't get fabulous sexual fluidity from him, but the level of douchebaggery is about right. Maybe 3?

 

[neongrey]

Ah, well, he's on the clock. There's time for that to ratchet up, lol.

[Robinski]

Comments.

• I enjoy the description of the senate building; the addition of the painter is a nice touch. Also, I found the encounter by the statue effective.

• The negotiations involve a fair degree of effort and concentration, but I quite enjoyed them. This is very much the sort of ‘language’ I deal with from day-to-day, if not the subject matter! There were moments where I drifted, but not badly. This said, I wouldn’t want to be reading it after 8pm (no stamina these days). Still, a positive for me, and a good source of character building for Mel.

• I glide through the rest of the chapter quite easily until I reach the part where Mel starts discussing Las’s wardrobe then posing the two together. That feels uncomfortable, but still somehow within the context of the story, so I don’t mind being discomfited in that part.

• A nice come-down at the end of the chapter, the re-establishing of reality with something of a bump, but it feels perfectly appropriate, of course.

The last line is a nice punctuation for this chapter. Nicely done, I enjoyed it. Some grammar stuff that I didn’t feel strongly enough about to mention.

<R>

[neongrey]

On 06/02/2017 at 3:59 PM, Robinski said:

The negotiations involve a fair degree of effort and concentration, but I quite enjoyed them. This is very much the sort of ‘language’ I deal with from day-to-day, if not the subject matter! There were moments where I drifted, but not badly. This said, I wouldn’t want to be reading it after 8pm (no stamina these days). Still, a positive for me, and a good source of character building for Mel.

I'm glad these scenes seem to ring through to people who're familiar with these types of proceedings. Guess doing my homework pays off! A bit dense is something I'm okay with in general, I think, to the rest.

On 06/02/2017 at 3:59 PM, Robinski said:

I glide through the rest of the chapter quite easily until I reach the part where Mel starts discussing Las’s wardrobe then posing the two together. That feels uncomfortable, but still somehow within the context of the story, so I don’t mind being discomfited in that part.

Yeah, it absolutely should feel uncomfortable, so that's good. The fact that Adrichel continually sails across the boundary of what is appropriate is an absolutely critical takeaway here.

Thanks!