1/28/25 - Ace of Hearts - Labyrinth of Birdcages sub 4 - 3559 words (VL)

[Appol PhD they/he]

Hi everyone,

 

Sorry for the late submission! Anyways, this novel is divided into about five small arcs, and this is the end of the first one. I'm curious if they'll start to feel formulaic and repetitive down the line, but for now I don't have any specific questions.

 

Thanks!

[ginger_reckoning]

 

That was a nice, short and sweet arc that still had a very compelling conflict and resolution! I do wonder with a five arc structure, if the arcs will all have the same characters, or different ones. It did kind of remind me of a Persona game, if you've ever played one of those (I've only played persona 5) with them going into the psyche dungeon across a few days, fighting mobs and confronting the "boss". Not that that is a bad thing at all! Other than that, I thought this was a well written mostly-self-contained arc and some of the problems I identified were then addressed by the text which was nice. 

pg 1“One way glass” not sure how he can tell this at a glance?

 

Pg 2 “So I guess I did know” not sure how this connects to the previous sentence

 

I do think this is an interesting conflict, and honeslty f*ck the doppleganger

 

“I don’t care anyone else” missing an “about” I think

 

Pg 4 “I dont feel any different” lol

 

Pg 5 “if that’s really what you want” hmm, it does seem like maybe this will come back later if she didn’t really internalize the whole “making choices for yourself” thing

 

“The pigeons on the way back” sorry, not trying to be too nitpicky, but I think it flows better as “that attack us on the way back” 

 

Pg 7 “the stick” I understand the reference here, but I’m not really sure how this will apply to this situation since fighting it didn’t work. Guess I’ll have to keep reading!

Actually, on reflection, I think this line is referencing the doppleganger’s actions and not the main characters’.

 

Pg 8 “You know that I’m…” yeah if that were me I would probably be a little pissed off at J just sayin

 

I really like this conflict and its resolution!

 

[Appol PhD they/he]

On 1/28/2025 at 4:56 PM, ginger_reckoning said:

It did kind of remind me of a Persona game, if you've ever played one of those (I've only played persona 5) with them going into the psyche dungeon across a few days, fighting mobs and confronting the "boss". Not that that is a bad thing at all!

Oh my god I can't believe you identified my inspiration this has to be the coldest read I've been on the receiving end of.

It's specifically inspired by Persona 4, which I spent a lot of time thinking about since I have very mixed opinions about the narrative (as in actually mixed, lots of parts I really like and lots of parts I really don't). Sounds kinda stuck up to say that I wanted to write my own story inspired by it fixing the parts I don't like but that's sort of how the motivation shaped up.

[ginger_reckoning]

Oh haha, that's awesome, I didn't realize the inspiration was so direct. Personally I would say that as far as motivation goes that's completely fine, I mean some of the most iconic works of fiction in the world are from inspiration from other works (Dante's Inferno comes to mind) as long as you are okay with other people drawing this comparison as well