1/6/25 - Ace of Hearts - Labyrinth of Birdcages sub 2, 3348 words

[Appol PhD they/he]

Hi everyone,

 

If you're reading this submission, thanks for bearing with the long gap between chapters over the holidays. Hopefully people still remember the gist of what happened in the first sub (I'm also aiming for a lower learning curve for this one so hopefully that helps too). I'm breaking up chapter 4 for this submission, with the first half + chapter 3 being this time and the second half being next time to avoid going over the word count limit, which I normally don't like to do but here I think there's a decent cutoff point.

 

Thanks!

[Silk she/her]

“charge back into the psychology room” I know he woke up there, but does he know for sure that that’s how he got to the labyrinth in the first place? In the first chapter he notes that he doesn’t remember.

Reading through the date with K, I feel like there is a lot of “telling” that K is acting different/J had been acting different rather than “showing.” Which isn’t always a problem, but I feel rather distanced from the narrative as it plays out right here. I’m not really discovering anything, just being told how things are by the narrator.  

I’m also wondering why this supernatural labyrinth and doppleganger that can take over peoples’ minds is spending this much time trying to manipulate these two characters’ romance. Unless this is less an adventure story (my first thought) and more an introspective story? The plot so far has geared me to think of it more as a science fantasy adventure, but thematically it seems like you might be setting up something more introspective/metaphorical.  

P4 I do like that the narrator makes the decision to go to V right away!

P5 “I was going to comfort her, but she didn’t seem hurt at all”  this almost seems to imply that thre’s more than one doppleganger or that it can possess multiple people at once (but sometimes chooses not to?)

Edit: the “so it was only after I escaped the labyrinth” on p6 seems to indicate pretty definitively that was not the case after all. I think it was the comments on p5 about her not being upset that J stood her up/still interested that made it sound like “supernatural personality change” stuff to me.

P8 “What? I say.” Lol

“I don’t know where this false confidence of mine came from…” hmm, interesting.

P9 “They leap into the air and circle…” at first I thought that they’d actually been released intentionally by V or J.

“This world seems to be shaped by our thoughts” – I’m startled that the characters seem to be learning this so quickly/easily

Overall: I found the bits with V to be much more engaging than the bits with K, pretty much for the reasons I already mentioned. As mentioned, it also felt like V and J were learning the “rules” of the labyrinth very quickly—partially  it just feels a little too easy, but structurally it makes me suspect that the bulk of the story is not about escaping/defeating/what have you the labyrinth but about what comes after that.

5 hours ago, Ace of Hearts said:

I'm also aiming for a lower learning curve

This is definitely a lower learning curve than some of your other projects, I'd say! (Nothing wrong with either, of course.) 

[ginger_reckoning]

Overall, don't have much to say other than my line by line stuff. I agree with Silk that I think they figure things out a little too quickly for it to be believable personally. Other than that, good stuff! I'm hoping that J can learn that he actually has good things about him haha

 

pg1-I like the lines about the “new low” of reading the internet articles and the reminiscing about the gentrified neighborhood, but I’m not sure if the target audience of this book (teens I assume?) would find this kind of discussion appealing or not, idk 

 

pg2-It is kind of weird that she seems to be so specifically perfect for the MC, but my prediction is that he is wrong about her being a doppleganger and she actually is just that nice and have the same interests as him haha. It says a lot about his self esteem that he can’t even conceive of someone liking him. 

 

Pg3- I also appreciate how quick this story seems to get to the point, and I like that the conversation with V is so frank. 

 

Pg9- I was a little confused about the shirt turning gray, thinking maybe it was something to do with the doppleganger. It seems like they figured out pretty quickly that they can control their outfits here. Maybe even if there was one experimental step between the first and the leather outfit

 

Pg9 - Ahhh, so V also likes her. I thought she was just a concerned friend at first but this makes sense

 

“Hit them once” How does he know this? Did he fight them before when he was here? Or is it just a guess?

 

Okay, I see the explanation below. I still think there should be maybe one more instance of manipulating stuff before making this logical jump. I do like how the MC is using intuition and intelligence though (and is secretly more confident than he thinks he is haha) 

 

“Step ladder” Objection!

Edited January 7, 2025 by ginger_reckoning