industrialistDragon

So I've been thinking about this a bit and I think maybe it's the accretion that's sabotaging these most recent chapters, rather than the chapters themselves. Like, there's been so much back-and-forth in the timeline that even a little more seems like too much; or like, there's been so much travel that even necessary bits feel like overkill. If that makes sense? There're also genre expectations that I think are not really being addressed, maybe. We're in chapter 14 of this murder mystery and we haven't even seen the body yet, and that usually happens first, to set the story in motion. I'm sort of starting to get exhausted, because it feels like I'm still waiting for things to happen, or for the reason why they won't happen to be addressed. Taken on its own, there's not a lot of issues with this chapter. It could be tightened and trimmed a little in places, like any draft, but it moves the plot, it provides tension, it's perfectly fine. Taken with the rest, though, and it's more oddly disjointed inaction from Q&M. I'm just so tired of watching them eat and drive and make phone calls while everyone from the cops to the newspeople to random dudes who die in plane crashes do a better job of investigating than our main protagonists, the professional investigators... As i go: "yet" is used 3 times in the first 4 sentences of the first paragraph. This is more musings from Q, but they are striking me better than last chapter's. I think maybe because they're at least new information, and more in-character for him. Last chapter the introspection felt off and treading water-ish. These don't so much. I feel like this newscast could be cut down a lot. I'm not sure why the local politics matter yet (or if they do at all) and I skimmed them until I got to the attack. I am sort of unclear what new information I-as-a-reader get out of this, but I'm super happy Q and M are FINALLY catching up to what I know. I think, maybe, I wouldn't mind Q and M being so far behind the rest of the story if it was more like this chapter, where they are at least making good progress and not rehashing a ton of things. I loved M's section but I do think it could be tightened up a bit. There were a few sections where some of her thoughts felt a bit flat and the whole thing is a bit, sort of, jittery to me. I am not sure the Blues Brothers reference is landing quite the way it was intended to, especially with M's upbringing muddying the waters, and double especially as a weight-bearing portion of the plot. That's still a decently obscure film, I feel like, and Q really only makes sense if you know the reference. Otherwise, it sort of looks to me like Q thinks Canadians are really, really gullible.

lol, That ain't even half of it! But most days, it's not that bad anymore. I have physical therapy stretches, strength training exercises, -- *cough*whichIreallyshouldbebetteraboutdoing*cough* -- sorry, something in my throat there, more ergonomic peripherals than you can shake a stick at (I think I keep the Microsoft Naturals 4000 in production all on my own with the way I burn through them), and I like to think I've gotten better about getting over my ego and either planning more time to do things, or simply asking for help when I need it. It's mostly jar openings, pulling heavy cake pans out of the oven, and the odd grippy, fiddly thing like cleaning doll parts. And shopping bags. Can't put shopping bags (or anything, really) on my forearms. It's like instant death, since a lot of the tendons in your hand actually attach up on your forearm or elbow! I'll never be a pro gamer, digital artist, or 100WPM typist, but I can do almost everything I want to with enough preparation, workarounds, and breaks.

lol, I'll take those shocked faces as a compliment! But yeah, if you computer at all, hand-and-wrist-health is super important. I did not learn this until after I'd wrecked mine -- heck, there was a span of 5 or 6 years there where I couldn't even curl my fingers into half a fist! (I've since regained almost all my range of motion at least.) Luckily, it's not difficult to maintain your hands and wrists, since primarily all you need to do is remember to take breaks (and stretch, but if all you can manage is breaks, that's still a lot), and if things in your hands and wrists are twanging, pinging, or twitching, stop if it is at all possible.

Well, my nippers finally arrived and I started trimming up the big sprues and flashings. As expected, my wrists and hands only lasted through about 20 minutes of work before I had to go ice them. (Take breaks when you game and use your compy, kids, don't end up like me!) The cheap nippers I got went through the plastic easily, at least; I was a little worried about that. I think I'm going to have to buy the specialized tool for removing seam lines from Games Workshop, though. I tried it with the X-acto and it was not good for my hands at all (tendons should not twang like rubber bands). Ah well. Incremental progress is still progress.

I agree with the others regarding the lack of specificity. Overall I knew what was going on, but I had to make a lot of logical jumps and untangle a lot of details myself before I got there and having to do work like that to parse a tense section can kill tension and immersion for me. The dialogue in this section is sounding particularly stilted to me. It almost reminds me of villains from an anime, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I feel like the dialogue here isn't consistently stilted in the same way, if that makes sense? So if, say, M always talked like a fantasy anime villainess, that would make sense to me, but if she's sometimes like that and sometimes just awkward and stilted then it feels like it's not a part of her character and just awkward dialogue, if that makes sense? It feels unintentional right now to me, I think, and I think I want it to feel intentional, if the dialogue is going to be that way. There was some good tension on the run through the house, with the items being thrown around, but the net just killed it for me. Where does a normal house even come up with a net like that? Like, up to now, the objects being used against the kids were either related to the ghost/mannequin connection, or something that one could imagine would be found in an average, lived-in house (maybe a hoarder's house, but still. House stuff. Toys. Yard decorations). But a net, at that size? The struggle to free the moms brought some of the tension back for me. I had a decent idea of the blocking, but it did get confusing in places. A sure has a lot more power now! I was confused about which ghost was doing what, though. Is the ghost of B the one blocking the basement stairway access while M is upstairs waiting with the moms-equins? Are they working together? It seemed to me that the bones in the dresser were B's bones? But if that's the case, why were the chains there? If they were M's bones, why was B around them? (If they were M's bones, why hasn't she done something more secure with them, instead of just shoving them in a basement where she then dropped the people who most want to get a hold of them?) I liked the scene with B, I was just confused how he and the bones got there.

So, I had a lot written about where the sense of urgency went, because I feel like it's mostly vanished and the story is just sort of glooping around in a gooey morass right now, but I don't think the whole long paragraphs amount to much useful critique here. Q feels oddly detached to me right now, and I don't think hanging a lantern on the questions around his motivation is quite enough to get over the problems they cause. Basically, I'm just so super ready to get to what feels to me like the point of the novel and start doing mystery stuff. The traveling, the introspection, like @Mandamon says, it feels disconnected from the rest of things. Like, is this a travelogue, or a conundrum? Q doesn't even get to a satisfying conclusion to all his musings. He's already decided to see this through to the end, that's how he got here, after all. The talk with TOM is interesting, but I also don't think it's really ... doing a whole lot for the plot. TOM is using his apparently godlike powers to bend the rules of the world just to make a few vague threats. I don't feel particularly threatened by him, though, because, to me, all of the danger and peril so far seems like it has come from either Mor or Q&M themselves. It's like he's just randomly stopped Q and M in order to give the mommyvan time to arrive. The mom is giving me super creepy Stepford Wives vibes. Did TOM send her? Did she sneak his DNA with the hug? Are the kids remote-operated undercover androids? I agree with @kais that the descriptions of her and the kids need a bit of work. They're not super cringey, but they could be a whole lot better. This twitter thread doesn't involve puffs, but it's a great visual reference. It's talking about styles, what is involved in maintaining them, and why people would choose a certain style, which could be useful to think about from a character standpoint. Iron_spike on Twitter: Black Hair for Non-Black Artists

Lol, it's not actually that difficult, it's basically just a human form. You can mostly tell which parts go where from their shape. The doll is made up of a jointed inner skeleton and an outer shell, which is common for a doll of this type. The shell parts are the ones that look like the outside of a person, the bust, the torso, the upper thighs, etc. This is a "ball joint" style doll, so the inner skeleton peeks through the shell at elbows, wrists, and ankles (shoulders, hips, and knees, due to the jointing types being used there, usually end up covered by the shell), and those joints are round (or bean-shaped like the double-jointed elbow). I have to assemble the skeleton (which is the complicated part), grease up the joints, then fit the skeleton pieces into their respective shells. Less complicated than a giant spaceship, for sure (but more potential for horrifying photos, I like to think). I've already sent her head off to be stripped and repainted. :3

Well, since someone else posted his assembly-required puzzle toy, I'll post mine. This is a Boss Grade Mirai Cortex and unlike certain spaceships, she doesn't come with instructions (there're a bunch of fan-made walkthroughs, though, so it's not totally uncharted territory). I'm still waiting for my nippers and extra-tiny drill bits to arrive, and then I'll have to wait for a weekend when I'm not working two or three jobs, but I'm super excited to play plastic Frankenstein.

Pretty much everything @Mandamon said is the same for me, including where I started to skim. I'm not sure I buy that things are getting out of hand from Mor's perspective. It's seemed like so far everything's gone just about the way he wanted it, with the exception of T (maybe) still being alive (maybe).

I distinctly remember giving that exact same critique during that book too.

This is a lot choppier than the previous section and I am having a hard time figuring out what's happening. It feels like the information is all jumbled up and out of order. For instance, I expected E to talk about how they knew of the barn when they first mentioned it looked familiar, but that information doesn't come until almost half a page later. I am also very unclear on where the house comes from. I feel like the info about M and her powers and her wanting to come back to life should be hinted at earlier. Right now it feels to me like it's coming from nowhere. It does a good job of giving the villain a reason to be kidnapping people, so I like it. It just needs a bit more support from earlier. I also have some issues with the use of poison ivy in the ghost repellent. It feels a little... hmm... direct? for metaphysical uses. For a ghost repellent in this world, I'd expect, like, plants and herbs associated with forgetting, or warding off bad dreams or bad memories, discouraging unwanted guests... or like... peaceful rest... sleep... I could even see plants with antiseptic properties... I can't really describe exactly why, but poison ivy doesn't seem to fit where it's being used to me. The last time I touched something that had touched poison ivy, I had to have multiple rounds of those steroids that make you go a little loopy. Z-packs? I can't imagine what would happen to me if I had to collect bags of the stuff! It's odd that after all that attention, the bags of poison ivy just sort disappear from the story once they get into the house. If it was as powerful as all that, wouldn't just having the plants in their bags repel some of M's attacks? What about A? Would he be repelled from his doll for sharing a backpack with the stuff? Could, like, entire forests be cut off from ghosts if the ivy made a complete circuit around an area? I'm overthinking, I know, I know. The scenes in the house itself were good and spooky, but also slightly confusing in the way things are described and the order they happen. Also, as an aside, if you neglect your lawn long enough, most municipalities will mow it for you! It'll be stupidly, ridiculously expensive and you can get a citation or even a lien, be fined (on top of the bill), and other not-great things, but make it look bad enough for somebody to complain and the "city" can and will fix it.

Overall: This chapter seemed a little more scattered than usual to me. I'm back to being confused, too. As I go: Well, I have lost whatever momentum I'd gained from the Q and M action chapter. I have also completely forgotten why E was in such a rush, and I'm totally lost in the timeline with all of these back-and-forth skips. Is this before or after she talked with the sheriff? I like the idea of heels with actual traction! lol walking across ice in the irl versions is an exercise is bravado and balance. Okay, I guess it's after. I am also confused by the use of more top-secret chimeras out in public for the search. I can believe animals used to track animals (though honestly, scent is just molecules so in theory couldn't a sensitive android track by scent too?), but it seems counter-productive to use animals the public isn't supposed to know about out in places where the public news drones (and numerous actual people) are already canvassing... While this is yet more travel from Q and M, and I am getting very heartily tired of travel from them, I feel like this is important travel, and I don't really think it should be all the way cut? It's even relatively brief and it ends with M explaining herself so that is very good. I just wish I hadn't had so much travel from them earlier so I wouldn't be so done with it right now. It's a nice, quiet scene. Thinking about it a little bit, I do wonder about where their sense of urgency went, though. It was all run-run break-laws-for-the-greater-good and now they're just like "ah well. we'll pick up the desperate race to save a life and exculpate ourselves again in the morning."

Like the others, the casual discarding of such an important piece of clothing as that suit didn't sit right with me. At the very least, i feel like I need more support for the decision. Likewise, I'm still unclear what is driving Q to pursue this, especially when it's been one disaster after another for him. M's motives seem to be sheer cussedness and a minor's inability to agree to binding contracts, and I'm fine with those. Q, being the driving force of that section, I feel like needs a bit more than that. M & Q have a lot of action in their chapters, and it's good action, but I feel like not a lot really is going on in them, if that makes sense? They've done a very large amount of traveling and called each other a number of amusing names, but we're 9 chapters in and I'm really wondering what they're doing with the plot? It doesn't feel to me like they're very connected at all. Maybe they only need to show up, Columbo-style, at the halfway point, so that the villains can have more uninterrupted chapter space to set the stage for them? I don't know. They're on-model in a way they weren't in previous versions, and that's a very large improvement that I've been noticing and appreciating. My problem now is, mostly, that they don't seem to be the protagonists, or part of the main plot of the novel. They just keep retreading things I-as-a-reader already know.

This was a nice breather after the last chapter. It had good pacing and was pretty clear. The reason A is not there makes sense, but I feel like it maybe needs to be hinted at a little before it happens. Some of it might be WRS, too, but I am once again feeling like this is a good idea that sort of comes up out of nowhere. Also, now that I know it wasn't voluntary, I think for me it would have helped point out how strange A's absence was if maybe E and D remarked more on it while it was happening. Or otherwise somehow the story pointed out that A was supposed to be there and wasn't. Maybe A tries to come out and is, like, pulled away somehow? or it looks like he runs away? Or, I don't know. The reasoning is fine here and it's a decent bit of worldbuilding that's consistent with most of the rest about the ghosts that I've seen in the story, but I feel like it's again not really being supported by earlier chapters. the lost friend scene is really good, but I do also wonder if the comparison to a lost pet is really appropriate. I don't mind the comparison in the dialogue so much, since it is acknowledging that the situations are not the same, and feels appropriately kid-like, but the one in the internal monologue feels like a little much. I think it could be cut and not lose the impact of the scene. Both things can be true. If he's transmale and likes boys, he's gay. It's a little unclear in the text which he's being outed for (I think it's the trans?), but either one was basically a death sentence back then, so. The result is the same.

I feel like there has to be a better way to illustrate that than just flinging all the corporate slogans at each other. I know I've seen "protagonist is a company man fighting other company men" that I've enjoyed. I think even my beloved Telzey battled some scifi company men back in the '60s... I think the key is going to be humanizing the protagonist a lot more. What are corporations but their people, when you get right down to it?

I've definitely read my share of cyberpunk, and while it's not my favorite genre undiluted, I can usually get into it. Usually it's the 80s fear-of-japan and orientalism that gets me, though. Is this a tie-in thing? I missed that part.

I had it pegged at around 1:4 scale so I'm glad I was close! (American Girl Doll was around what I was visualizing. I am woefully uninformed about vintage and antique dolls). I have some 1:2 scale dolls for whom in-scale swords could definitely be "is it a kids' sword or dagger" size, and that's what I was sort of referencing. I don't think it needs changing, just that I was confused. If they somehow mention size so it's not relying on the assumption of either doll-size or adult-size, it should be fine.

Well, honestly, I've very little to say here. I am a musical mooch, and rely on others to make my listening choices for me. Your music sounds very music-y? There are notes and things? ^^; I have also never been able to grok poetry. I can do synonyms, though. Peace... tranquility, haven, serenity, ease, surcease from [whatever (want, strife, anxiety etc)], sanctuary/sanctum, refuge, patience, silence, repose, soothe, allay, quietude, beatitude It's the doubled that makes it sound weird. The first one works from a grammar perspective for me, since "there is/there are" is a valid sentence structure indicating the presence of something, "a thing that exists," and "some days" is close enough to that for me. "some days" = "there are days that exist where I think I feel like I'm missing out." So, honestly, would it just be possible to remove the "somehow?" I dunno, man. It's what I got.

Things are getting spooky! I like it. I approve of the !notsage incense. (It might help to play up some of the magical properties of it -- like the smoke not behaving in normal-smoke ways but instead doing magic-smoke things -- to show more that it's having a real effect) I am not sure if the reminiscing about another dog is really the best thing for the middle of an intense fight scene. It felt a bit out-of-place. For the fight scene, it's clearer than any other action sequences I've seen you write. I had a decent idea of what was going on, right up until the end, when D goes down. I got confused there. there also seemed to be a reference to more animals being present than just the one dog, which was very confusing. I'm not sure how the kids managed to break the mannequins, either. They were fighting, D went down, something something, everything is fine, is what I got out of the end. I think @Mandamon has pretty well nailed it with the worldbuilding comment. This is the mannequin's big scene, where it all comes together, so I feel like we really need more description here-and-now and support from the prior chapters.

Well, color me disappointed. I really wanted a continuation of the action from 7 and I definitely feel stymied by this switch to office thriller. It feels a bit like filler, even though I know it's not.. Something feels a little disingenuous to me to have E and M acting so credulous and serious about "discovering" T's "crime." Could M really resist gloating that well? Is E really that blinded to M's methods of operation that she doesn't suspect ANYTHING is amiss? Also, haven't we already gone over this info, from the "proper" perspective? I am unsure what reviewing it in deception mode is doing for me-the-reader. I admit to skimming E's descent to rock bottom. Not that it's not realistic, but the story just seems to wallow in it. When it gets to E going to see the sheriff I'm interested again. I like seeing the kill from another perspective and getting new information. I'm not terribly interested in M's snow job on E and generally being a mustache-twirling villain. Unfortunately, I started skimming on the drive out to the site again. It's not bad on its own, but the accretion of multiple, highly-detailed travel scenes is starting to wear on me. The stuff with E and T is good, but with so much detail and plot happening in their POVS and switching back and forth so much, it really makes me wonder who the protagonist actually is in this series. Q and M are on the title, but they've done very little so far, and almost seem more like comedic interludes to this, the real plot.

From the way it's phrased, I thought the sword was doll-sized at first. It's a person-scale sword? I am more than happy to talk about how big "doll scale" can get, depending on the size of your dolls... I'm unclear why A is tearing up all the books. I'm also unclear what's happening with the crystals and the door. I don't think the journal is cliche, but I'm not certain what sort of information it's conveying, or maybe more, how the information relates back to the ghosts and getting the moms back. It's an interesting bit of worldbuilding, but I was expecting something more about the ghosts and less about why E can sense them. the last couple pages felt to me like they are edging back towards adult thoughts again, but the rest of it I thought stayed pretty well in kid-mode. The bikes maybe went a bit long, but I didn't mind too much.

Not much to say here, pretty much just a RAEBNC. Hung together pretty well, action is good, and now that the narrative isn't referencing things I'm supposed to know but haven't seen, my confusion is gone. Asmodemon makes good points though.

I had an awful lot to say about the first version of this, but since I see that this is a redo, I'll just post the comments on this one and skip the other. So, this is better, but it still has a lot of the same problems as the first version for me: namely, that I'm being hit with a lot of made-up words and little context for them. There's more context than last time, so at least I have some idea of the setting, but it's still a little much for me. I have setting, but I'm still missing personality and character, and a decent amount of plot is just plain buried under all these fake brands, made-up jingoist slogans and oddly-capitalized compound nouns. If he's in vacuum why does he have to subvocalize? I'm still getting close to nothing on Y's personality. He's dystopia-average cynical, and he leers at D. I'm not engaged with cynicism, jingoism, and sexual references as a personality, so I'm also not feeling much tension with this last flubbed install. D is literally a cardboard cutout posing for photos. Why do I care what he's doing at all? And I'm skimming again, at about the same point as last time (the fight). I simply don't care enough about faceless corporations and generic-feeling characters to be invested in this conflict. The new ending, the one that's mostly story and has finally lightened up on the jingo and fake brand names, is interesting me again. I like the mystery of it, and I can almost get more of a sense of personality out of Y. I think I still prefer A as a character, little as we've seen of her, and that should say something. If I was picking a section, I'd go with some of the back half, with Y figuring out what's wrong with his interface. It gives flavor of the world, personality, and a reasonable amount of made up words. Second choice would be the fight, I suppose. Everyone likes action and sex.

I can see there was a lot of talk on this one, so I'll just say that i read it, and i'm getting caught up. Lots of good tension here, especially at the back half of this section, in the house.

Well, I got to it, at least. I remain mostly confused by the police and the story's treatment of them and what it's assuming I've picked up on prior to this. M is enjoyable, as always, but this police station section sort of feels like it's just spinning its wheels to me. As I go: WRS is hitting real hard here, I guess, because I'm having the same confusion as last time. Am I supposed to know these police before now? It's really unclear to me from the text and I know you said no, but everything in the text is acting like yes. "“I didn’t enjoy your last visit" when was this? what happened to make the police dislike them so much? was there like one line in the beginning of like ch2 about it? am i supposed to be inferring an entire relationship complete with descriptions and antagonisms from like one line of text like 4 chapters ago? At this point, I had two brand new trainees scheduled to arrive on one of the busiest days of the season: one I sent off to organize things in a misguided fit of optimism, and one of which was plain MIA. So I didn't get a chance to really organize my thoughts on the rest of this.