07-25-16 - Waning, Ch. 9 (S? S, I guess)

[neongrey]

I guess this is (S). I'm a bad judge.

Previously: The living goddess of Ilidria is dead and Lasila Vahendra has been invited to celebrate her return. Lasila's elder brother Varinen has left to assist with negotiations that might put an end to the war that has been draining the city dry.

At the celebration, Lasila finds herself trying to put together the pieces of political discourse she catches, and meets both her escort's brother and his intended, Iluya of house Judessa; though she finds her escort, Eshrin, a difficult person, the two girls hit it off, and Iluya offers a potential lead for a job.

Savae doesn't appear in this chapter, so I'll hold off on a full recap for them.

Last time: Iluya warns Lasila that there's more going on than meets the eye; a particular Senator is more aware of Lasila than he should be, and that Eshrin is suspicious of why Lasila might be present at this event. Before they can discuss much further, Lasila is taken to see the priestess Maranthe, who invited her to this event. She also briefly makes the acquaintance of a stated high priest of the goddess of the moons, one archmage Savae Alevrin.

Maranthe and Lasila discuss magic and the war against the shudkathra; Maranthe uses Lasila's blood in a brief ritual that reveals... something. Savae departs and makes arrangements with a veiled shudkathra woman, who is somehow involved in the death and rebirth of the goddess. They then go and make a prearranged exchange with an agent of an organized crime group.

This time: Lasila makes a decision that is no choice at all (or is it?), meets a boy, talks politics, and takes something she wants.

Next time: The goddess Alia. And...

[kais]

S you say? Eh eh? 

 

Overall

The magic discussion fell a little flat, but I wonder if part of that is WRS. Lasilia's new mentor is very interesting, and I'd like to know more about her. I still feel no connection to Lasilia, and do not feel engaged in her story line. I am happy Lasilia finally enjoyed the orgy properly. About time!

 

As I go

- 'she was the picture of lack of surprise' is wordy

- page 1: likely WRS here, but is it just this brand of magic that is illegal, or all magic? I'm missing backstory I think

- 'Do you want to revolutionize the world?' Did you ever watch Revolutionary Girl Utena? It's a Japanese anime popular some time ago, and this harkens very much in that direction

- page 2: The questions in Lasilia's mind don't connect with me because I still don't connect with her character. Danger, contingency - I think you're trying to elicit tension in the reader, but it falls flat as I am not invested in Lasilia.

- page 2: She consents immediately? This is a big deal, or at least so it seems. Why consent so quickly? What does this mean?

- page 3: 'squeezing like iron" - iron doesn't squeeze.

- page 3: unsure how I feel about the forced kiss. If it was male/female it would be concerning immediately, so I'm not sure if you're trying to elicit that same reaction here, or are hoping for a different one

- page 6: all this forwardness from Lasilia seems sudden and out of place for her character. Are you trying to show a change in her post discovering magic and getting tongued for a little too long?

 

[neongrey]

2 hours ago, kaisa said:

- page 1: likely WRS here, but is it just this brand of magic that is illegal, or all magic? I'm missing backstory I think

This is one I'm going to tentatively chalk up to WRS, yeah; magic is literally everywhere, though in the sort of way that, I dunno, plumbing is in reality, in the sense of the presence thereof being taken as typical, not in the functional sense (though the plumbing here is magic... heh). This particular magic is............... incredibly shady, and not only because it's presently being used solely as a weapon of war by an enemy. We'll see a bit of it in action earlier on before this point when I do that insert scene with Savae earlier on and in 11 we'll see two people do some unpleasant things with it. How shady is not really supposed to be knowable yet, though. 'Stealing blood from poor people' might be a thing later on.

2 hours ago, kaisa said:

- 'Do you want to revolutionize the world?' Did you ever watch Revolutionary Girl Utena? It's a Japanese anime popular some time ago, and this harkens very much in that direction

Reference, intentional and otherwise, is definitely a personal problem of mine.  I'm not saying that there's a character we've already encountered that I've been known to describe as 'basically Akio Ohtori' (who is probably not discernible yet), but I will say the series is hugely influential on me, just as a general matter of course.

2 hours ago, kaisa said:

- page 3: unsure how I feel about the forced kiss. If it was male/female it would be concerning immediately, so I'm not sure if you're trying to elicit that same reaction here, or are hoping for a different one

Mm. Well, I'm not going for romance or romantic with it; it's far more of a symbolic gesture, so there's that. If it seems overly aggressive I'm okay with that given it's not pursued further. If it's worse than concerning, I'd need to look at it some, but I think 'unsure' is about where I want you to be, so I think I'm probably good that way.

2 hours ago, kaisa said:

- page 6: all this forwardness from Lasilia seems sudden and out of place for her character. Are you trying to show a change in her post discovering magic and getting tongued for a little too long?

Change, not so much, but those are definitely influencing her, as well as this actually being the first time we've seen her on even footing with pretty much anyone. Which is not something that occurred before I say that, so I might need to do something about that. See how it works out going forward, too.

Thanks!

[kais]

17 minutes ago, neongrey said:

'basically Akio Ohtori'

I'm not certain whether I should be horrified, amused, or a little in-between. Does anyone turn into a car? Are there soul swords in people's chests? (Is it too embarrassing to admit I have a rose ring from that series that I still wear sometimes?)

[neongrey]

No cars, alas (but it is my favourite movie), probably no duels or highly sexual holes in people's chests, quite a lot of people posing dramatically in elevators enclosed rooms talking about needing to break open the world, definitely a whole load of bi people.

I definitely wasn't eyeballing prices on an etsy seller's rose rings just the other day, nosiree. (foiled by the canadian exchange rate, unfortunately)

[kais]

I think I paid $60 for mine, and that was back in 1999!

For the revolution of the world!

[neongrey]

If I wanted to spend something like a hundred and fifty, I could get it in silver......... one day, hahahahaha

[kais]

Silver you say?

ETA: Holy wah that image is huge!

Edited July 26, 2016 by kaisa

[neongrey]

Yes indeed! In all three styles!

Still jealous, because you have one and I don't, hee.

[Mandamon]

I think this was one of the better chapters I've read, simply because things happen, Lasila protags, and we start to find out more about the plot.  Looking back, I'm not sure I would have given it 9 chapters to get to this point, though.  I'm with kaisa that I feel a lot less engagement with Lasila than I do with Savae, Maranthe, or even Irahi.

I also noted the coerced (?) kiss.  Lasila does seem to change drastically in character after that point.  I like the new forwardness.  It gets things done and moves the plot.

On magic, I would disagree that it's WRS at this point.  We may have seen a couple examples of magic, but I have no idea what, if any, rules there
are to it or how it's organized. 

 

Notes while reading:

pg 2: "Oh, she knew exactly where Maranthe was going with this"
--had to read this a few times to follow Lasila's logic.  I'm guessing she means Maranthe wants to train her?  Is there a school of magic?  We haven't really seen anything about it yet, so I don't know what to expect.
"I ask you once. Do you consent to learn it?""
--ok, this is a lot clearer.

pg 3: "Something strange in that last bit. Lasila closed her eyes and took a breath. "Do we have unknown gods?"
--interesting

pg 3: not sure how I feel about the kiss.  It seems wholly disconnected from the rest of the conversation.

pg 4: "facing-- for once--"
--what does this mean? She's been facing a lot of people recently.

pg 4: "This time, she led."
--As opposed to?  Also, where are they they they can dance?  I was imagining her in some corridor somewhere.

pg 6: Good to hear some more information about what's actually happening in the war.  Makes things a lot more concrete.

[neongrey]

3 hours ago, Mandamon said:

On magic, I would disagree that it's WRS at this point.  We may have seen a couple examples of magic, but I have no idea what, if any, rules there
are to it or how it's organized. 

When the question is 'is all magic illegal or just this form of it' and the immediately previous chapter was a fairly extensive discussion of legal forms, I am going to call that fairly textbook WRS.

Otherwise, I feel no particular inclination to go all RPG rulebook with the stuff. 

4 hours ago, Mandamon said:

--what does this mean? She's been facing a lot of people recently.

No one remotely close to her in age.

4 hours ago, Mandamon said:

--As opposed to?

As opposed to the last time.

Thanks; gonna have to think about some structural stuff when I get to this.

[Robinski]

Summation at the end – straight into the comments.

“She was the picture of lack of surprise” – This phrasing is awkward. I sit here puzzling about a word that means ‘lack of surprise’ – knowingness, maybe?

“Consider this a courtesy; you do not want your blood to be in the hands of another.” – Awesome line, just packed with portent. Gives rise to several reader questions, for me anyway.

“His mask was black filigree metal, and they caught his deep green eyes spectacularly” – Feels like there is something missing, you use ‘they’ as there was something else on the mask, like stones?

“She tried to keep it light and smooth but found herself doing it quite heavily” – Very inelegant phrase, it’s not even the word count, ‘using more force than intended’ or ‘pressing harder than she meant to’ or something like that would be preferable to ‘doing it’. I think it’s the lack of sophistication that is out of place with your narrative style.

“and they both stopped where they stood on the floor” – redundant

“I believe my brother is responsible for your father's safety” – this is a nice connection, unexpected and more subtle than some. It’s good that they have shared stakes, strengthening the connection between them – I like how you did that.

“Put like that-- I'm still not sure I agree” – Lasila’s comments about wanting fine things seem rather shallow. I can see the attempt at balance, but considering that she is concerned with feeding herself and keeping the house, I would wonder if the balance is quite right.

Anyway, going on from that, Irahi’s description of the war is very welcome. This is the first time (that I can recall) that we have heard anything of the realities of the war. I find it very effective. I wonder if Lasila should be more affected by if, more horrified? Not sure.

“There's something else that made my father sure this was genuine, but he never told me what.” – Nice touch of mystery and intrigue. This will stick with me (in a good way) as another question to be answered, as it sounds portentous.

“He looked down into it rather than drinking”

“looking closely at her face”

“No… I don’t know that I’d be bothered. If you were offering, that is-- not that it would be my place to suggest you were.” Then “Let's call it an offer, then. Come on, there must be somewhere private that hasn't been claimed yet.” – I like the whole arc of the chapter and I think the discourse (verbal and physical) between Lasila and Irahi was well done. It was right at the end here that I felt their banter got very awkward. I think this last exchange could have much more impact, be more elegant, smooth and enticing.

-----------------------------------------------------

I enjoyed this chapter, the scene with Maranthe and the one with Irahi. Both were convincing and both conveyed some good new information. I note others have mentioned being ‘disconnected’ from the magic. I can see where those comments come from, because we have not really seen magic in action, I feel. Anyway, I enjoyed the additional information, the intrigue and felt that the tone was much better in terms of this being an orgy. I would still like more sensory clues as Lasila moves through these three(?) chapters to attach a more risqué tone to the event.

All in all, generally I'm happy and looking forward to reading more.

<R>

[rdpulfer]

- Ohhh, I really like the part about preventing one's blood in someone else's hands . . . 

- Maranathe is an intriguing character. I like that we can't be sure if we can trust her or not, and you do a really good job of building up the tension around this, even as Lasila goes through the ceremony.

- The conversation with Irahi was good, but I'm not sure it belongs in the same chapter as her interaction as Maranthe, but that may just be me.