Appol PhD - Smear part 2, 4437 words (VLGD)

[Appol PhD they/he]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm including two files here, one being the second half of the story for this week's submission and the other being the full 9k word story for those who held off until this week like I suggested. Thanks! 

[Paul SB]

“Are we really so scared that we can’t even try?” — Have you heard of male-pattern alexithymia?

What Worked:

I would say that the opening paragraph sucks the reader in beautifully (if the reader is at all interested in a family drama).

“A proper woman was neither attracted nor unattracted to men. Her sexuality was not “straight,” but rather “dutiful.” — This explanation is pretty spot on for pretty much the entire West from about the 17th to the mid-20th Centuries, and it’s nicely succinct.

“Now that jar is shattered, the ink spilling across the page I had been using to try and write a more controlled story into my soul for Kate to enjoy. I can wipe up the spill, but what’s left on the page will be a smear where neat blocky letters used to be.” — Nicely done metaphor.

“I know there must be blood, but all I can see is the pretty little lake waiting for me back home, where painted fall treetops get smeared into something hazy and lifeless the further down I look.” — Ooo, this is good!

 

Overall, this was a very interesting look at the intersection between gender and social status. The attitudes of the humans are very much like the attitudes of people who marry “beneath” them in terms of social class, or marry a member of a colonized people. It gives the reader a lot to think about.

As far as constructive criticism, I don’t have a whole lot. I would like to have seen more about how Western gender norms for males make it very difficult for many of them to have healthy relationships with women, give them very little but stereotypes to fall back on both for introspection and understanding others, and, of course, how those expectations mould other people’s responses to them (which easily becomes self-fulfilling). The other thought I had is that none of the humans ever go beyond stereotypes, which gives an impression that there can be no common ground between the species. I’m not sure how you can fix that without introducing more characters, to show an interracial couple that live happily and respectfully together to their dying days (like the old Solon of Athens quote “Call no one happy until they are happily in the grave).

 

[Silk she/her]

p1 “...of someone discussing war criminals.” Heh.

P2 the ace/aro discussion here seems to come a little abruptly, both for D and for the narrator. Both of them discovering this about themselves at the same time seems a little.. much somehow? I think it’s partly because it happens mostly in exposition over a page and a half, partly because this seemed like something the narrator already knew about himself based on earlier bits of the story, and partly because we’re also disentangling it from arguably abusive behaviour in D’s case.

I do like the comparison with the femme fatale and almost wonder if some of this comparison could be set up earlier.

P6 The coursework/real life dichotomy you’re setting up here is interesting too…

p8 That cop’s an awfully good shot.

p9 The academic in me (not gender studies, but hey) thanks you for so promptly getting to “total lie.”

p10 “My knuckles sting…” well yeah, especially if you don’t know how to throw a punch, punching someone in the face is a good way to break your hand! (citation: former boxer)

p11 “...requires me to be a man threatening…” Nice.

P12 “knee deep in water” - ocean or the lake?

By the end of the story I’m still confused about when the narrator actually went to the ocean, since M and K being there seems to suggest he’s still at the lake.

Overall:

There were a few places where I stumbled over sentence structure, but this seemed to smooth out later in the piece. There were a lot of poignant lines, and I liked the repeating image of the smear (though I’d consider trimming back the extended metaphors with the ink bottle a little bit, the first occurrence at least felt a little over-extended).

I made the joke in my early comments about waiting for the horrible abusive bombshell K was subjecting the narrator to, but I actually thought you did a good job describing the mundane ways people can fall into being miserable with each other.

I alluded to this already, but my biggest stumbling block was the way the exploration of sexuality, and to a lesser extent the gender dynamics, seemed to come up all at once midway through. Again, this seemed to smooth out later in the piece, but I think some of it could be seeded earlier. It might also help to really hang a lantern on the fact that the narrator has never thought about his own sexuality in this way before.

But ultimately, I enjoyed the piece—there was a lot of quiet tragedy and some incisive commentary and I thought you provided a narrator who was really well-positioned to tell the story he did.

[Appol PhD they/he]

Finally got around to doing edits on this now that I finished Labyrinth of Birdcage edits. Thanks for the feedback!

On 1/21/2026 at 9:51 PM, Paul SB said:

The other thought I had is that none of the humans ever go beyond stereotypes, which gives an impression that there can be no common ground between the species. I’m not sure how you can fix that without introducing more characters, to show an interracial couple that live happily and respectfully together to their dying days (like the old Solon of Athens quote “Call no one happy until they are happily in the grave).

This is a great point, and I added a bit on how selkie marriages got better after court rulings. Since as you say the point isn't really that these two species can never find common ground, and it's more about how power dynamics can get in the way of that. 

On 3/13/2026 at 8:26 PM, Silk said:

I alluded to this already, but my biggest stumbling block was the way the exploration of sexuality, and to a lesser extent the gender dynamics, seemed to come up all at once midway through. Again, this seemed to smooth out later in the piece, but I think some of it could be seeded earlier. It might also help to really hang a lantern on the fact that the narrator has never thought about his own sexuality in this way before.

Yeah this took a lot of thought and I ended up adding extra bits and pieces to the flashbacks. My goal for it is to not be 100% clear before the discussion but have it recontextualize the relationship in a way that makes sense and adds more substance, so I tried to flesh it out earlier without fully hanging a lantern on it. 

On 3/13/2026 at 8:26 PM, Silk said:

p10 “My knuckles sting…” well yeah, especially if you don’t know how to throw a punch, punching someone in the face is a good way to break your hand! (citation: former boxer)

In high school a girl with a black belt in some martial art or other told me something along the lines of "if you punch someone in the face you'll break your hand. If you slam your palm into them, you'll break their face instead." That stuck with me for writing situations like this haha. 

[Silk she/her]

1 hour ago, Appol PhD said:

Yeah this took a lot of thought and I ended up adding extra bits and pieces to the flashbacks. My goal for it is to not be 100% clear before the discussion but have it recontextualize the relationship in a way that makes sense and adds more substance, so I tried to flesh it out earlier without fully hanging a lantern on it. 

Yeah I think this could work well! 

1 hour ago, Appol PhD said:

In high school a girl with a black belt in some martial art or other told me something along the lines of "if you punch someone in the face you'll break your hand. If you slam your palm into them, you'll break their face instead." That stuck with me for writing situations like this haha. 

Solid life advice haha