4/28/25 - Ace of Hearts - Labyrinth of Birdcages sub 14, 5292 words (V)

[Appol PhD they/he]

Additional content warning for light torture. Also we're a bit over word count limit this time, but I couldn't find a good place to cut it off in between 3k and 5k words.

 

Hi everyone,

 

This is the end of 4th arc and the start of the last one. I'm not super happy with how the 4th arc ends, and I'm trying to find ideas for reworking the entire "J gives them a pep talk at the end and they find the willpower to beat their doppelganger" way that most of these arcs have ended, so any comments and suggestions are appreciated. For this last arc, I think it's important for the story that the interpersonal dynamic in ch 27 lands well, so any insight there would be super helpful.

 

Thanks a ton!

[ginger_reckoning]

This is pretty good set up for the conclusion of the book! As for suggestions, I like how the doppleganger coming after J shakes things up and heightens the stakes, and the conversation provided some good answers for the questions raised in the book, with good connections to the themes. As for the segment with P, like I noted below, the praying sections comes across as a little odd for P. I know it's a reference, but to me it seems like they are praying to J and that's what gives them strength. But story wise, I think it's fine to still have P need J's help here. If you're looking for suggestions, it might make it interesting to have J say helpful things but ultimately fail to know how to help, which causes the labyrinth to target him instead. So when P has to step in to save J by reminding him of how he can also accept help the way he's been helping people, they realize that they can still save people, which makes them overcome their own mental block and escape. Idk if that's too convoluted or changes the character of J or P too much from what you had planned, but it's just my suggestion

As for the dynamic in chapter 27, I really like it. I think J might be a little too admiring of this thing, which I note below, but other than that I think it's cool 

 

Okay, going full giygas mode I respect it

 

“I can use it against you” I mean correct me if I’m wrong but it seemed like the other dopplegangers had some level of control over the reality they’re in 

 

“It’s right” i think the word “correct” might be better here because for a second I thought J meant it was, like, “good” 

 

Pg 3”Poor kid must be” I mean, again, it kind of has a point haha

 

Pg 5 So I don’t understand here, is P calling the hotline for themself or volunteering there?

 

You know I never really thought of it, but this thing basically is asking people to kill themselves, and even uses some of the same arguments as suicidal ideation, such as “people would be better off without you”. Something to keep in mind I guess

 

Pg 6 I’m a little confused what is meant by the background advancing and attacking. Since its a physical space the background is like the sky, right? I guess it makes sense that its supposed to be a little incomprehensible but I have a hard time envisioning the action. Also the line “each time they rise” makes it seem like maybe this attack is happening multiple times at once?

 

“Straight” oh yeah I thought this was the doppleganger talking at first, it is surprising haha

 

Referencing the prayer moment makes sense, but yeah I’m with J here, P didn’t strike me as religious so if you didn’t know the context this would probably seem to come out of nowhere

 

Pg 8 oh sh*t he’s got a gun! (fr tho this definitely is a huge raise of stakes here, it’s very alarming considering everything has been not really all that physically dangerous so far. Not in a bad way) 

 

Pg9 Yeah, I was thinking they were working on a lot of assumptions

 

“I never get the simple cases” hold on, so there’s an entire agency of unethical transdimensional doppleganger therapists? Haha that’s awesome 

 

Pg 11”you get adults these days” I think using “people” instead of “Adults” might make it sound more natural (and as a bonus show it doesn’t view children as people yet. Of course natural might not be what you’re going for with this thing)

 

“Created by” Yeah I was not expecting this answer

 

Oh my god the soviets??? (That’s actually kind of cool/funny)

 

I mean homophobia makes sense from it, especially considering it was literally created by the silent generation and baby boomers. It’s still kind of funny that it almost convinced J to empathize and then was like “Why are you gay?” haha

 

“Not ll that different from all the orders” First of all, might want to describe what the DSM acronym stands for at some point, I don’t remember if its been mentioned in the story already. And given the direction this book has taken so far, I think it’s important to clarify that this conclusion should mean that some of the disorders should not be classified as such, rather than saying being queer should be classified as a disorder. As in, some of these sentences read like he’s agreeing with the premises of behavioral therapy rather than analyzing them from an outside perspective and rejecting them, which seems to be what you’re going for 

 

I think it would be interesting if they solved the problem by convincing the doppleganger otherwise, but Idk if that’s the direction its going since they seemed to be mutually baffled by each other 

 

Oh hell yeah this is cool at the end