4/1/24 - Ace of Hearts - Everlasting Sunset Sub 21, VLG (4106 words)

[Ace of Hearts]

Hi everyone,

 

Thanks for the feedback last week! Like I mentioned I'm planning to rewrite a lot of part 2, which I hope will help with the clarity near the end.

 

For today, we have the end of part 2. No funny April Fool's Day shenanigans, unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately). Mostly I'm curious if the sacrifice here comes across well or if it feels contrived.

 

Thanks as always!

[Silk she/her]

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.

[Mandamon he/him]

As usual, I have a similar response to @Silk. I think there's a lot to be unpacked in the last chapter of the second part, especially to really get the impact from the decisions. The sacrifice wasn't contrived, but I still want more leading up to it to really make it worthwhile.

I'm still not connecting with the character in the interludes, as I don't really know his purpose or the reason for his viciousness. Having one or the other would help.

Notes while reading:

pg 2: “How cute.” 
--exciting intro! I got confused here, however. Were the two stepping in front with shields what caused them to fall, or that B decided she can't kill them?

pg 2: No better than what?
--I think this is supposed to be in quotes?

pg 2: “Not think. I know who you are. But you’ll never find out.”
--Losing the thread a bit here. There's a lot happening.
1) some about men vs. women going on, but not followed up on
2) something replaced B? Literally or metaphorically?
3) Should have figured what out?
4) A died already?

pg 3: "it was similar to how she had looked"
--I feel like this could be delivered with a lot more surprise, or at least some emotion from A.

pg 6: The sacrifice works pretty well here, but I think could have an even bigger buildup.

pg 7: "We are called doomspeakers"
--wait, is A one as well? Did we know that?

End of part 2: Interesting! I'm wondering where the third part is going.

pg 9: Should we recognize who Hex is pretending to be around Haf?

pg 16: Well, Hex's POV is as disturbing as ever. I'm still not sure what he adds to the story, though.

 

[Silk she/her]

8 hours ago, Mandamon said:

pg 7: "We are called doomspeakers"
--wait, is A one as well? Did we know that?

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.