4/21/25-ginger_reckoning-A song for silence-sub 19-4427 words, (L,S)

[ginger_reckoning]

Hey all! Thanks for reading and sorry for the delay, thanks for reading anyway. Just so you know, I decided to skip a chapter since last time. It was pretty short, only 6 pages, but basically it had A talking with D about the events of the previous night and how they were going to try to keep it more professional, then making a plan for what to do next. She also drank a potion to make her bones hurt even worse as a punishment for herself. 

 

In this chapter, this is leading into one of the first scenes I came up with for this story, so I want to include it but I feel like it's abrupt, it doesn't come up naturally, or it's just too goofy. Any thoughts are appreciated. 

 

Tags are for language and mild sexual references. Thanks!

[Appol PhD they/he]

Overall: I like most of the ideas here, though as indicated I don’t think it comes up super naturally. I don’t think it’s too goofy though; the tone feels about right for the story to me. I’ve touched before on how right now the flow of the story doesn’t feel super controlled and things seem to come up out of nowhere; I think that’s the kind of thing where the story needs to have a clearer idea of how to force the issue. If S and A are going to have this bet, what’s the kind of situation where both characters feel like they need to do this? Another throughline I commented on here is that most of the dynamics feel like they could use more complexity. One thing I liked about A’s discussion of parenthood last time is that it did feel raw and complicated; she really wants to fall in love and live a normal life but even in her moments of joy there’s this threat of her passing on her condition. We don’t get much of that here, with A and S both digging in their heels and arguing their one broad viewpoint.

As I go:

Pg 1-2. I like J working with S to make something happen, though I think we could get to the relevant parts faster.

Pg 3. "Me-forsaken place" is pretty funny, though I still don’t feel like the narrator is doing a ton for the story

Pg 4. I like the idea of A viewing her pain as necessary and us reading around her to see it’s not doing her any favors, and I think it could be fleshed out more. Right now the dynamic feels a bit simple

Pg 5. I think we’re supposed to see T’s behavior here as a concern, but it also feels like something that needs a bit more for us to work with

Pg 8. I said before that I like S needling A during serious scenes, but I don’t think it works as well in PU because S isn’t really involved with the conflict here, so it feels like it’s butting in out of nowhere rather than as the antagonist

Pg 10-11. I like the idea of throwing complexity and uncertainty into A’s dynamic with J, and I’d like to see it come from more than just S’s dialogue because it doesn’t let us explore a ton about A’s character in regards to this

Pg 13. I’ve been prefacing a lot of comments with this, but I like the idea here and think it could be refined. I think the limitations are 1. A and S are kind of black and white in this argument and 2. There’s no reason this has to happen now or a clear plot connection, so it feels a bit out of nowhere

Pg 14. I feel like they’re skipping over that neutral spell bit rather quickly. I doubt S believes it’s actually neutral, since I assume it’s crafted by humans for human sensibilities