7/8/24 - Ace of Hearts - Everlasting Sunset sub 29, 4041 words (L)

[Appol PhD they/he]

Hi everyone,

 

We're moving into the emotional buildup for the climax. Feedback thus far is that the way the story focuses on each of the soldiers and their one interest doesn't feel the most effective, so feel free to skim over those sections assuming that holds true here as well.

 

The interpersonal relationship I'm more curious about is the one between A and M. The story is structured to focus on one of A's interpersonal relationships per part (P in part 1 and Am in part 2), and M is the one here for part 3. I'm guessing that the story can do more to tie their relationship into the primary plot of stopping B, but other than that I'd like to hear how it comes across.

 

Thanks as always!

[Mandamon he/him]

Finally caught up!

I agree that the focus on each soldier's interest isn't very interesting. You could focus on one or two maybe.

A lot of the beats in this chapter were good, but I'm not sure they belonged here. I think this could be combined and re-sequenced with the last chapter. For example, the discussion of the body should probably come first. Freeing the soldiers is a BIG beat, and I think needs some time to breathe. That could be a whole chapter by itself, but focusing on what this means for the world instead of their hobbies (and why M hasn't done this before now).

There's also a big emphasis on their opponents being stupid. I'm not really a fan on this. It means the characters are stupid for going along with thing for so long. It means there's no challenge to defeat them. I'd much rather have a smart opponent.

 

Notes while reading:

pg 1: I don't that any of this first paragraph is needed information

pg 4: Freeing the crew is a touching moment, but then it goes back to their hobbies. I'm instead wondering what effect this might have on the rest of the world. Are they planning to free others? Recruit more soldiers?

pg 4: "But one rogue overseer could free us all and turn us against the ministry?"
--yeah, that's sort of what I've been wondering. Why didn't M do this before now, if they knew about it?

pg 5: "I’m not convinced B is all that smart, either"
--By now, all of the main villains have been dismissed as stupid. I'd much rather have very smart villains that need to be outwitted.

pg 7: So I'm still thinking they could have had a successful revolution by now just by freeing a few soldiers...

pg 8: "had already forgotten that thread with everything else going on"
--me too.

pg 10: "The Calamity doesn’t want to hurt people, not directly."
--Eh? This is the thing that sends monsters to attack people?

pg 13: "Tried to be the perfect minister who thinks only about pretty gardens, long chats with friends, and teaching little girls not to fight with each other.”
--Is...this what ministers do? We haven't seen any of this.
 

[MyDude she/her]

I liked the chapter! It’s nice to have segments that are just characters talking things through and reflecting on what has happened.  

 

However, while reading the dialogue scenes it's hard to tell the difference between the characters. They all shared a lot of sentence structure and word choice. A lack of body language for them didn’t help. It was a stiff feeling to the conversation and found myself detached from what their speaking of. The big revelations that have these huge emotional effects on the character weren’t given the breathing room to land or give an impact. 

 

But the last segment between A and M was really sweet in the end. The more wordy descriptions of their conversations gave their words the weight it needed. The child-like sincerity between them was touching

I look forward to seeing what their planning will lead up to, with the doomspe

Good job!

 

[Silk she/her]

I'd echo @Mandamon and @strange24 this time around

P1 the note that A had to learn to interface with the doors made me realize/reminded me that there’s still thing I feel like I don’t know about the psionics and who has access to what – it’s mentioned that the doors are a bureaucratic secret, but isn’t A a bureaucrat?

And since it seems like a lot of people have access to psionics even if we don’t necessarily expect them to (see: G’s summoning in the previous chapter) those doors seem like they may not be terribly secure…

               Edit: Ah, you hung a lantern on it pretty much immediately after I had the thought.

This moment of joy from the soldiers is great, but I actually had no idea the console was the thing placing limits on what they could and couldn’t do, as opposed to being a matter of training. The lifespan piece works better because we knew something was restricting their lives unnecessarily. (I assumed someone wasn’t going around and offing all these soldiers, ahem, manually, but didn’t know other than that.) If the soldiers were actually sickening and dying and a certain point, that might be interesting to play up more. In-world, I wonder what the justification for this restriction is, if there is one. 

P3 “Xan rand a hand through T’s hair…” are they an item?

P4 “One rogue overseer could free us all…” Mm, yeah, that’s actually a good point Makes me wonder how this has stood for so long especially if the enemies aren't particularly smart. If nothing else, I‘m surprised nobody has tried to use this for their own ends.

P8 Took me a second to remember what “the body” was referring to.

I’m… surprised at the notion that B might have been puppeting dead bodies in monster forms for… reasons? I always assumed he was alive at first.

P12 “T flashed a polite smile.” She seems less on board with some of the stuff she’s experiencing now than in the first chapters of the book, when she seemed just fine to help soldiers etc. I’m curious about the difference.

Overall: this feels a bit like the breathing room we were talking about needing after the last chapter ended! Although it addresses some different things – it’s still weird to me that we haven’t talked about the Queen’s death basically at all, except briefly to propose (and then reject) propping A up in her place.

As for the relationship between M and A, it feels like a nice moment, but again like we don’t have all the setup that supports it. There has been some contention between M and A but on the page, it’s mostly been in-the-moment stuff. We know that there was a previous relationship between M and A when M was P, but don’t have much information on what that relationship was. Plus, the previous A/P relationship plot thread seemed to drop off when P died after the duel, and even after we learned who M was, it hasn’t really been brought to the fore again.

As for your comment about this relationship supporting the defeat of B more, you’re probably right there. One way to explore this further might be to give readers a better understanding of this rebellion that A has stumbled into—it seems like it’s pre-existing and M has been a part of it, but we don’t really know to what extent or what’s been in place before A got here.

8 hours ago, Mandamon said:

I think this could be combined and re-sequenced with the last chapter.

Sort of touched on this, but agree.

8 hours ago, Mandamon said:

(and why M hasn't done this before now).

Not to get too prescriptive but THIS would be a really interesting thing to be able to explore, and could may be do some of that tying back to the main plot that you were asking about. 

8 hours ago, Mandamon said:

pg 13: "Tried to be the perfect minister who thinks only about pretty gardens, long chats with friends, and teaching little girls not to fight with each other.”
--Is...this what ministers do? We haven't seen any of this.

Good call. All of the ministers we've seen have been leading soldiers, pretty much, even if they don't fight themselves.