industrialistDragon

Overall: I was very confused. I agree with the others that this is a much better leading chapter and it makes me wonder why the prologue/chapter 1 is first. This is so similar it causes confusion, and if the prologue information is important later, would it be better placed closer to where it becomes vital? As I go: I am very confused by this opening. Wasn't the hydra dead? Where's the crossbow? Is this even the same book? I have tech whiplash. What happened to the potions? Has there been a major time-jump? I can't tell what the first chapter has to do with literally anything in this chapter. I'm so confused. What is going on? Why do I care about enhancement batteries when I was reading about channel potions just a couple page ago? What does this R-person look like? Does she have skin? Hair? Eyes? Clothing besides glasses and gloves? Why do I care about her? She doesn't seem anything like the person I was introduced to in the first chapter, and I don't care for her very much right now, since the only emotion she has shown is mild contempt for people who appear to be doing nothing wrong. I think I'm going to imagine her as a nude talking hamster with gloves and high-tech sunglasses from now on. I will always care about talking ham-hams. I am unclear why professors on a dig would be wearing inappropriate clothing, but I have now decided they are chinchillas, since I lack any other description to tell me otherwise. Poor things, they really can't handle the heat, but they look so adorable in their button-up shirts. Also I am unclear why the interns seem to be doing the important digging. Maybe they're crows, and very smart. I am lacking so much description, so much context. Is it daytime? Nighttime? I don't remember. Why only one guard? This knight's description feels like it was lifted verbatim from the first chapter and it is confusing me. Is this a first chapter rewrite? What is going on? The knight is described better and in more detail than any of the other characters so far. Is he the protagonist? He's apparently the only human so far and he really shouldn't be picking on ham-hams like that. Multiple pages in and she's finally put on a shirt. I've decided her fur color must be butterscotch, because it's my favorite, and would look good with the green. I still don't understand why they're using Greek gods in modern vernacular epithets. It sounds stilted and awkward to me and drops me out of the story whenever they do. And I'm afraid I'm not terribly interested in this fight. I'm unclear why they're having it, and I never got invested in R to care about danger to her. I don't understand why the knight is there -- if it's to duel, then why didn't he just say so? This seems like a world where dueling would be an accepted thing. If he came to talk to R's charges, why is he dressed like a recognizable outlaw and sneaking around? Wouldn't it make more sense to just dress in regular clothes and walk up to the dig like a normal person would? The same goes for simply talking R-the-guard-ham-ham. Is there a reason for them to be fighting at all? I know more about R's sword and the knight's multiple weapons than I do about her. Are the weapons characters? Why is the knight talking to R as if she were in charge of anything? She wouldn't be the ones calling the shots as a mere guard, famous or not (is she famous or just in possession of a nickname? I can't tell). I'm afraid I have no idea what the knight's plan is and why he's hiring a ham-ham to go scare some people somewhere maybe? Ham-hams are inherently adorable. This is a more interesting world and starting scenario than the first chapter, and I would be more likely to keep reading this one than I would have on the first one. This has good bones, but I just have no idea what's going on.

I had some issues with this section. So this is just as-I-go stuff. I'm catching more word-level editing issues here than in other sections. Nothing terrible, but awkward and repetitious some. So, I'm feeling some major disappointment with M's section. The "building a doomsday device" is fun, but I feel like I was expecting a different climax to his sections. For so much of the beginning, M is focused on putting the band back together, and I was all-in for putting the band back together -- seeing old friends, meeting new ones, finding a new home, making everyone work together, all that great interpersonal stuff. But then, it swaps to the BUT WHAT IF IT'S A CONSPIRACY sections and I don't meet new people, really, I just get one new name and some stuff that's supposed to be portentous but isn't, really, because everything M talks about has been portrayed as fairy tales and impossibilities in the text. Then a little later I felt like eventually I could get behind watching M slowly going crazy as he prepares to show them, show them all, a nice good descent into super-villainy (because to me, nobody but a super villain would come up with a plan like that). But then, it swaps to here, where it's a summary of building a grand device and now I'm just tired. I do not care about his device, or his danger -- it's remote, and feels to me to be largely unconnected to what's happening to the other characters in this book. Ordinarily, I would like a "build a thing" story -- finding the parts, testing, learning from failures, etc., but I'm not even getting that. It's mostly a summary. I feel like maybe, M just needs a single unifying theme here, so I can get on board. Is he putting the band back together, slowly going crazy, or building an impossible thing? If he has to have all three, maybe he needs his own book, and not be the b-plot in this one? There are so many POVs already and I'm just not sure if knowing where the superbaby comes from is really all that vital to what I've seen of the other story... I also don't really know what this device looks like. it has arms, and a central spinny part but not much else. Yes, if M's storyline has any bearing at all to the other one, I think I'd really be more interested in it if it was hinted at sooner and more often. The S & WW stuff is also interesting, but I'm not feeling much from it. No real sense of urgency or danger. I feel like I'm reading the beginning of a different book, not the end of the one I've been reading from earlier pieces. Moving on to E's part, I have mostly forgotten what E was doing and why I cared. Some of it is WRS, but some is not. Everything's hopped around so much that I've never had a chance to get really invested in any of the characters. Weren't they just fighting? Z and P against E? Why are they now being friendly towards her? I feel kind of cheated I didn't get to see the assassins in action, even a little, as they were breaking free. "These people were completely psychotic. // ...there was no way she was letting them loose" -- This is problematic, E passing judgment on her own people like this, and in this way. E makes me feel very uncomfortable when she decides that an oppressed slave race she is a part of is inherently too violent and "psychotic" to continue living. Without even thinking about treatment, help, meds, anything. Nope, just "Ari are inherently evil and should not exist I must get rid of them, even though they are my own people." This has massively problematic implications. I know they are unintended, but they are still present and have an effect. It's like, here she is, this "good" girl from an oppressed, enslaved, minority species, raised away from her culture and domesticated into the majority culture, experiences the way the culture treats her people when they are living as themselves, experiences the culture her people manage to have despite all that, then decides that they're not good enough and have to die or be contained away from the rest of society. I don't... I don't have words to really describe how uncomfortable this makes me feel. I don't know that rooting the Ari issues in real world problems will help this issue here. There's a lot of unconscious bias in having E, specifically, condemn the enslaved Ari. As they are now, the Ari are already a minefield, but I feel like this could be a really big one. I'm quite frankly rooting for Z and P at this point and would not shed many tears if they ended up killing E. So, the not-quite-a-drain is pulling the superbaby off course? That's really neat.

Over all: I tripped up on many of the same issues that @kais did. Z has a lot of what's reading as Hollywood autism, and that's a problem. That she has autism is not the issue, but the way it is portrayed is problematic and ableist. It's coming from the perspective that she is damaged and less-than a "regular" person, and attributing to "autism" a number of behaviors and symptoms that aren't actually part of autism itself. The words that were chosen to describe her actions seem to me to be revealing less about Z and more about how the author thinks and feels about people with autism. Beyond that, I also agree that more description would help immensely. I do think this chapter is the best I've seen so far at integrating the heritage aspects alongside the more general fantasy and science fiction ones. I feel like adding in more description of sights and smells and reactions would help this even more. As I go: "supposed to be fun" -- I was under the impression that healthy juvenile humans moved constantly and have an intrinsic reaction to music, any music. To have no reaction is very strange. Is Z supposed to be sick or otherwise incapable of movement? "one of the few emotions" -- So Z is depressed? Feeling numb all the time is a sign of depression. It's also a sign of sickness or extreme fatigue. Does Z have some kind of chronic ailment? So between L and the mean girls, and Z and the mean girl, the only time I've seen a female interact with another female in this series is to be catty with each other. A gentle reminder here that it is possible for two women of similar ages to exist in proximity to each other without it being a vicious competition of one-upmanship. "didn’t experience emotion" -- Ah, Hollywood Autism. That explains the other things. So, yes. This is a big old case of Hollywood Autism, which as @kais points out is neither realistic nor believable, especially in women, and mostly just portrays the symptoms of disorders that commonly appear alongside autism (comorbid with) but aren't autism itself. It is incredibly hurtful to both people with autism and people with disabilities in general. Claiming that Z can't understand basic emotions infantilizes her greatly, and hamstrings the writer in portraying her as a fully-rounded, human character. "turn of age" -- So this is something specific and not just an oddly archaic, outmoded phrase? People turn 40, and somewhere within the next 5 years, they're dead? Everyone? Always? That's neat, but I'd really like to get a hint of this earlier, as it's really intriguing to me and I feel like it would go towards differentiating this work from all the others like it. Especially if the lack of elderly people matters later on, I would really really like to have had this spelled out much earlier, and more clearly. This is the kind of thing that would work well as a first chapter, since it intrigues me enough to keep reading. "We go out there to drink sometimes" -- Why are they worried about underage drinking? Unfortunately, as cool as the robot was, I feel like the ending didn't really keep me interested. I've seen the "robot plays message from desperate woman in power to the chosen rural youth" before and its inclusion here has turned me off the rest of the story. I'm not interested in what she has to say because she's not saying anything new or bringing any new twist to that setup. Tropes are neither bad nor good, but if they are intended to be used in the work and author should be aware of how their implications change the rest of the surrounding prose. Including this here makes me uninterested because I've gone from thinking "here is something new and interesting" to "I've seen something just like this before." But like kais has said, edits can fix all of these things Keep at it!

@Mandamon I'll trade you your cosplay electronics one for one of my manga ones.

Got mine. One about sewing patterns, which, yeah, qualified for, but now I'm freaking out about making handouts and visual aides because decoding map glyphs and IKEA instructions is a thing that's REALLY difficult to do when you can't show people the glyph or instruction in question. Two others I only vaguely qualify for about specific recent manga, for values of "qualify" that looks like they went "Oh, I see this one works in libraries and wrote 'anime' on their list. That's good enough!" And basically, right now I'm trying really hard to corral a massive freakout. The last manga I read were Red River and Loveless! That's like mid-90s, early 00s! Aahhhhh!

As much as my academic soul cringes at using it as an official reference, Wikipedia is a good place to start when you have no idea what questions you even need to ask. Otherwise, PMs are a good place to ask questions you're too self-conscious to broach publicly. @kais probably has more lived-in knowledge, but if you can give me an idea (even a nebulous one) of what you're interested in/wanting to do/looking for/curious about/etc, I can make you a reading list.

Over all: I had many of the same problems as @Robinski, @kais and @Mandamon -- I was confused at the beginning, and had trouble relating to L and J. The general is still a problem for me, since he's still not his own character. He's no longer the butt of jokes in-world, but he's clearly not meant to be as fully rounded an individual as even the other generals or supporting characters. If the problematic aspects of the tropes he's representing are going to be avoided, he needs to be his own person, with a life and non-plot-related interests and motivations. He's less so, but still reading problematically for me. I am unclear how he ever would have reached the rank he has. If he's been mind-wiped, how can be expected to do his job the way he was before? Why is the other general acting as his support attendant? I feel like she'd have better things to do than nursemaid him, and if he's still valued in his position, then they'd at least assign him a page or something to help him get through the day. I feel like, over all, L is acting more true-to-age here. In this section I believed more often that she's a teenager, but it's still uneven in places. Is G reacting to L's glamour, or herself? It's okay to leave in a little suspense about this, but I feel like if it is indeed that L stole the princess' face, it needs to be hinted at a bit more before this. I'm not feeling confused-suspenseful like I think I know but i want to turn the page to make sure, but more like confused-frustrated, like there's a part I'm supposed to have read in a previous section but it wasn't there, or like an error made it through the drafting process and it's impacting my enjoyment of the story (if this was a finished piece). If this is the case, then wow do I have questions about the adult staff of this castle, too. If L has dropped her glamour, then I'd expect that to be noted somewhere.

First off, I liked this one much better than the first one. It holds together better and so far seems to have a more focused plot. That said, starting in a tavern with the protagonist overhearing stories is a very, very overused device and it made the start of the story very slow going for me. it picked up once the captain is introduced, but it slowed down again on the ship. Like the others, I feel like the purpose of the story comes too late and thus I have trouble figuring out what's going on until that point. All of these little disconnected scenes leave me with a very disjointed feel for the story. I had difficulty keeping track of the passage of time between jumps. By the end, I wasn't sure if I was reading a cohesive story or a collection of vignettes with a set of common characters. Not that collections of vignettes are inherently less that a cohesive story. They're fine, they're just not my thing and since I'm not quite sure what's going on, I'm not sure if the choppiness is inadvertent or intentional. The characters are agreeable enough; I don't dislike any of them, but I'm not particularly invested in anyone, either. they feel a bit bland to me, and while I'm fine with a little blandness, I don't know that it's something to be desired in all the characters. Likewise, the setting. There's nothing that turned me off, but there's nothing that really set me afire with interest, either. The sea monster is nice, and I liked the little mentions of religion around the contract near the end, but I'm left feeling really neutral about this piece. It's not bad, it just didn't really catch and hold me.

Over all, I had much the same problems as @Mandamon. I didn't feel like the two cultures here meshed well, and was thrown out by the odd way the Greek elements in particular are being used. I also second @kais' recommendation for Silver on the Road, it's fantastic, and would also add to that just looking up "weird west" as a subgenre in general. It's had a bit of a resurgence recently. As-I-go: "support a whole stack of books" -- What does this mean? If it's referencing strength, then i'm confused about why this is strong? I know scrawny-looking office ladies who can lift stacks of books. If it's supposed to imply he's intelligent, then I'm confused by the comparison. Why wouldn't he be intelligent? If it's because he looks like an outlaw, then again, there's the equation of being criminal or uncivilized with being inherently unintelligent and that's such a weird nonsensical stereotype to me. It's a little akin to the "she's not like other girls" trope, where in order to compliment one person, the compliment denigrates the rest of a group. And if it's neither of those things, I'm just lost. Is it a play on the other phrases that are references to a square, solid build? Isn't a rifle-bow just a crossbow? Repeating crossbows with magazines and auto-winching crossbow attachments exist already and have existed long prior to the Wild West times, so I'm a bit confused as to why these rifle-bow devices are being treated like they're special fantasy objects here. Wait, she's in the Old West and she's concerned about underage drinking? Prior to Prohibition, there was no minimum drinking age in the US, anywhere. And outside of the US, I was under the impression that underage drinking wasn't as much of a taboo (or any taboo at all, depending on where/when you're talking about). Unless she's super young, like pre-adolescent, I'm really confused as to why she'd be worried about having tried alcohol, especially if she ended up not liking it. That's a pretty common kid thing I thought? So, I do enjoy the western setting and feel of this piece, but the Greek parts feel really superficial to me. They are using the gods in a very modern vernacular and that's really disorienting. I'm unsure why the Greek names for certain items were included because of how separate and occasionally random they feel. If it was so that magical creatures could be included, then I'm wondering why the animals can't just have Greek-myth common names, since there's a long history of people naming animals after other things that they resemble. You might try reading some other "west with mythical animals" books to get a feel for how other authors have combated the issue. She's seventeen? She feels much younger to me, maybe 14 or so. I did enjoy the action sequence and the magic reflux. It was very well described (yeek!)

Over all: some good suspense, but I still don't like Re. The walking bits in the beginning dragged for me. There wasn't enough description for me to get invested or feel much tension. It seemed like they were just walking and having a meeting, instead of Walking To A Meeting. I also wished there could have been more connection to E. I was excited that finally the threads were going to overlap! But there was no mention of E. Once the attack and the disturbances are discovered, it goes much more quickly. I like the way each mage made their own decisions, and they way they objected to differing degrees. That was good (M's sections could use more of that). I'm sort of left with the feeling that this should be more momentous than it is feeling right now, and that some of these lines-in-the-sand were not earned in earlier sections. As-I-go: There are 4 uses of the word "much" in the kicker and that just feels like a bit... much for a single paragraph to me. Oh yay, it's Re. :[ I'm not entirely buying his motivation at this point. He just wants to talk to the LC, so that's why he's abetting the hostile takeover of their base? It feels a bit disingenuous. Or pointless. If Ri and co are successful, what's Re going to do, write a sternly worded letter to the mage council with the knowledge he gained from "talking?" I also... I think I kind of feel like it's not letting his character grow, as well, this insistence that his only motivation is to "hear the other side." He's consistent, but at this point, he's starting to feel a bit stunted to me. He just witnessed a brutal attack on a harmless old man, and I feel like that, plus In's mistreatment, and the other things he's seen directly linked to the LC should maybe modify his reasoning by this point. I'm a little unclear why Re is so against Ri being in charge here, since she's been in charge of this particular plot thread the entire time, and while he was annoyed with her-as-a-person before, I don't feel like he's been particularly against her being in charge. "That was reasonable" -- Yes, having reactions to traumatic and sudden events is reasonable, yet Re is still as phlegmatic as ever. Does he react to anything that's not related to his infatuation with In? I would really like to see some more emotions from him, even just in internal monologues. Yes, if i'm stuck with Re as a POV, I really want him emoting more towards me, even if he doesn't show it to the other characters. "wouldn't get in the way" -- Then what's the point of talking to the LC? I'm really having trouble understanding why Re is a part of this expedition at all: why he participated in getting the mages there and why he was allowed to tag along. Does he serve any purpose other than complaining here? Surely they don't need him to get home? Honestly, HD is feeling a bit similarly to me too. I've either forgotten or never really noticed they were pro-LC. With how blatantly hawklike Ri and O have been this entire time, I find it a little weird for these pro-LC people to be here on this espionage-cum-sabotage mission (and moreover somehow surprised that a mission run by Ri and O would end in sabotage. How was this not foreseen?). Why would O and Ri want them along? Why would anyone pro-LC be willing to condone an expedition like this, run by these people? I would really have liked some more emotional build up to Re's switch from pro-LC to willing to help with the sabotage. That's a nuanced position that's not really been borne out I feel like by his reactions and reasoning from his other pov sections (or this one) so far. I like it though. It's a good decision from him. It makes me like him a little better. I don't think he's earned it, unfortunately. The part with the drain crystals is really cool, and I like the little bitsof characterization in there (like O having to be pulled back, and HD being professionally intrigued. I feel like you could play these up a bit)

Overall: there is definitely promise here! But there's not a lot of reactions or descriptions, and a lot of intentional obfuscation, so I had a really hard time caring or remembering anything. Questions How do you feel about the conflict? I feel not a whole lot, honestly. It feels useless and pointless so far because I have no points of reference. Clearly if this is a prologue, then the "end of the world" didn't really happen (otherwise it wouldn't be a book, it's be a short story and that would be the end). I couldn't tell any of the characters apart, I didn't know what anything looked like, and no one was particularly sympathetic to me because I didn't know what they were thinking or feeling. There's a daughter in there somewhere and apparently our POV-dad didn't care about her enough to tell her to log out of her psychic-magic system before he crashed it, and if he doesn't care, why should I? Is what I’ve written is interesting? It's well written. Structurally, nothing really dragged past the first page or so; grammatically I found nothing to complain about. Character-wise, well, I want to like them, but they're all pretty generic and personality-less for me right now. The POV character comes closest to having a personality that I could distinguish, but I feel like his motives are being intentionally obscured, and thus, since I don't know why he's doing anything, I'm not terribly interested what happens when he does it. I also retained none of their names. No people names, no job names, no place names, nothing. What questions does this makes you ask (if any)? What does anything look like? Taste like? Feel like? Smell like? Where is this located? What are they wearing? Do their clothes have weight? Does the armor make a noise? Have a smell? Pinch? What is the table made of? What is the door connected to? Is this room large or small? How can a small room fit four people and a holotable? Does it have walls? Windows? A transom? A musty smell from too many bodies? Tacky photos of prior councilors in metrically-precise rows down the entire length of a wall, in an unbroken chain representing the past 500 years of prosperity? What's the air like? Why is magic associated with humidity (and wouldn't humidity just be unbearable to people accustomed to dry air and not like good the way it seems here)? Are the people large or small? Do they have hair? Eyes? Lips? Skin? BO? I rather like the idea these are just talking skeletons, now that I think about it. Headcannon accepted. Talking-skeleton apocalypse. Is there anything you feel I do well? There is definitely drama and tension here, but I need, as @kais says, buy-in. Why do I care? Okay so the world is ending (but not really because it's the prologue), but why does this affect me-the-reader? Whose emotions do I latch onto, who am I rooting for? I also enjoyed the gender parity and competency. That there was both a warrior and a scholar represented without it being called attention to for weird reasons was also nice. The technical aspects are well-executed. @Robinski has a point about the warrior-skeleton. I am super into talking-skeleton apocalypse. Is there anything you feel I do poorly? / does this intrigue you enough to want to continue reading? Honestly, I skim all prologues at this point, unless they're done really-really well. If it's not important enough to put in the book proper, why do I need to read it? I've found prologues tend to be filled with people who die by the end of the prologue and/or appear nowhere else, so if I'm going to make an emotional investment in a character, I'd rather it be someone who was going to last more than 5 pages. (I have problems with POV-just-to-die in general. I want to care, and care more than just a chapter). So, had I found this organically, I might not have read past the first paragraph or page, and given my trial chapter to either a random portion of the book, or the actual chapter one. That said, this is tension-filled and seems like a solid, if well-worn opening. Had I more reactions and emotion, more reason to care about warrior-skeleton, I would have kept reading. As-I-go: This is a lot of names-with-no-context to be thrown at me at once. I'm having trouble distinguishing person-names from job titles or other place names. There's action and tension, yes, but without description and context, I'm left adrift and separated from it all. 3 pages in and I'm super lost. I feel like in-medias-res works when there are enough tactile details to anchor me to the scene and enough characterization for me to see separate personalities quickly and efficiently. I'm not getting that here. It's just been talking heads yelling at each other in a nondescript room somewhere. "panicked retreat proved" -Or common sense. I'd run too if and armored person with a sword came at me threateningly, clean conscience or no. I'm a little unclear what happened here. Person 1 (our POV) summoned person 2 (a knight) from a war -- somewhere, somewhen, somehow -- said person 2's job title a few times and now Person 3 (too dovelike for war) is being executed because saying a job title means it's okay to execute people in a room? I just have no hooks to differentiate these people or to get a grasp on why things are dire enough to maybe possibly be executing a head of state and staging a coup? What do they look like? What does the room look like? Do they have feelings? What do things feel like? Smell like? Taste like? "Could no one else see" -- Well, no, I can't. I can tell there are angel/demon overtones here, but I'm secular and have never followed any Inspirational/Christian series. Most of this is completely without reference for me. I want to, that's a testament to the writing here, but I don't know what's going on. I can't tell anyone apart, and I was hit with so many similar-looking names at once, with such a lack of sensory descriptions that none of them have stuck. I want to be in on this tension, but I feel like I'm being actively blocked. Multiple-sensory descriptors aren't just good worldbuilding, they let different people attach to the sense description that they most identify with and use that to tell characters and places apart. I'm missing so much of that here. There's a lot of intentional obfuscation going on here I feel like, and it makes me wonder why this prologue is here in the beginning. Like, if there's so much that can't yet be revealed, why put this story as the opening? Maybe it happened first chronologically, but if nothing can be described or explained right now, I feel like maybe it's better put closer to where it actually becomes vital information to have. lol, I'm glad that bit of theater opinion has resonated so well! It me.

Yes, those "tribal" tattoos with the spiky designs and single color reached the height of their popularity in the 1990s, and while they are not direct copies of Pacific Islander designs, they are strongly influenced by the Pacific Island designs. There was a big "back to nature" push in the '80s and '90s that bolstered the interest in all things "native" or "tribal" and a lot of people pulled imagery and stereotypes from cultures they had no connection to and knew nothing about without examining why those things existed how they did (sound familiar? It should). The spiky, one-color, geometric designs are a direct offshoot of this interest in "native" cultures, but stripped of the significance and meaning those cultures had for their original designs. That's not to say that the modern designs are inherently problematic! They're mostly aesthetic at this point, and far enough removed from the source that some of the sting has gone out of them, I think. They're not entirely controversy-free, either, but that's besides the point. My issue wasn't with the fact that the men are tattooed, it was that the tattoos, plus the men's behavior, plus the way they are described that adds up to a problematic stereotype that affects a culture for whom tribal tattoos do have deep meaning and significance. The men can still have tattoos, but why they are tattooed, and how the tattoos and the men are described in the text needs to be more closely examined.

Ah, I apologize. Sometimes I get confused.

Over all, I also had difficulty feeling much of a threat in this chapter. The end confrontation was good, tension-wise, but for most of the rest I struggled to stay interested. I thought L's parts were better than the doctor's. His felt sort of jumbled, like I couldn't get a handle quite on what he wanted or why. He wants to leave, yes, but why hasn't he gone already? Surely the big boss guy has been away on multiday raids before, and surely, if the doctor's been here that long working under the conditions shown here, he's lost patients before, too. I'm not really convinced things are suddenly goading him into action. This sort of just seems like more of the same for him. I also noticed the way the goons are coded. The tribal tattoos paired with the violence and criminal natures and descriptors like "swarthy" Is really problematic. From this and last chapter, it appears to me that the tattoos are being used to highlight the uncivilized, unintelligent, and violent nature of the men, and that is highly problematic. The idea that tribal tattoos means a person is more likely to be unintelligent and violent has real world consequences; the Maori in New Zealand often still today face discrimination issues based on just this stereotype. That is not to say these men can't be tattooed, rather I'm saying that the description of the thugs and goons deserves more interrogation. If the tattoos are indeed necessary, then how can they be described to avoid the implication that comes with the "violent, tattooed tribe" stereotype? I noticed some timing inconsistencies. At one point L says CP is ten minutes away, then a few paragraphs later, she says she's walked for half an hour without reaching it. I am finding it difficult to believe the stupidity of the villagers in this story. Even in ancient times people knew about things, ideas, and cultures outside of their own immediate environs. Medieval Europe and ancient Rome both had extensive trading networks that spanned most of the continent. Could the average villager get Chinese silk or lychee fruit delivered to their door the way the average person today can? No, but they would have likely heard of those things, enough that they'd be able to talk about them at least. Whether all the things they heard were true, however, is a different matter... L and the doctor both have this thing where they act surprised when the villagers or P behaves in a way that is anything more than baseline human and that really turns me off of both of them. It feels condescending and belittling to me and I become uninterested in what else is happening to them. Paired with L reading to me as some kind of pale-skinned apocalypse-elf type, and everyone else being described with words that tend to be used with darker skin-tones, L is beginning to feel problematic on her own to me. She keeps making these references to how great and "civilized" her home is, and she keeps talking about how the place where she is now is so "uncivilized" and then being surprised when the people she's interacting with display the most basic markers of a functioning civilization... and it just starting to feel really colonialist to me. Again, that's not to say that L can't think poorly of her surroundings, but rather that the way that L (and to some extent G), our POV character, describes the things she sees, and what words the author uses to convey that information to the reader, needs to be carefully considered. How can L convey her unhappiness without resorting to implication-laden stereotypes as shorthand? I also had questions about the use of petrified wood; it's not wood anymore, it's stone. Going to have to disagree, here. Direct sunlight will definitely make just about anything fade! However, it's entirely possible to have ink fade on paper, and paper oxidize over time, due to any number of factors involved in the piece's creation and storage beyond just exposure to light. Factors that can affect the longevity of a work can include storage methods and storage materials, and temperature and humidity and age and what went into the paper and how it's made, additives like sizing and the sort of pigments used in the ink, the stability of said pigments, even how often it's been folded ... Given the general griminess of the world, I'd guess this is at the low end of the quality-and-durability spectrum, and since this appears to have been stored in poorly-cured leather of some sort for many years, I'd imagine all kinds of reactions have taken place. It's a bit odd to be faded, but not impossible. I'm a little more surprised critters haven't eaten it, to be honest, or that the leather hasn't degraded and damaged the map.

Overall, I really enjoyed the look at the HoT, that was cool and wondrous. The rest sort of dragged for me. I'm not entirely sure what revelations I'm supposed to be noticing here. Is it just the link between time and matter? That's neat, but since I only learned about the existence both of them a couple chapters ago, I don't really have much invested in why this is a big deal. As I go: "He hadn’t even touched it since coming" -- Didn't he? I thought he did, in the bit where he's having an attack in the great hall, but i'm not quite recalling... "blinking in shock at the callous use of eugenics" -- he reacts to this and not to the queen's speeches? He clearly knows eugenics when he sees it, even with his messed up memory. So I am confused. "built into the species" -- Please be careful with this! There are some really gross race essentialism stereotypes built into the common popular idea of a multispecies society that are starting to show up here, and I am noticing them more and more in this book, with its larger focus on the nonhuman characters. Make sure your nonhumans are not just stand-ins for their entire species and that the individual's faults or proficiencies are not attributed to their membership in the species. "prejudiced bigot" -- I'm not really getting that from WW. Condescending, sure, supercilious maybe. But is WW's attitude any different from R's? The LC's? Those snake-people pretty much uniformly to some degree or another? This has pretty much been the Book of Species-First Attitudes and Walking to Meetings this entire time and S is only now having some issues with the stuff he's hearing/witnessing? I guess I'm not understanding why R's views are acceptable enough to make him a POV, why I apparently need to understand why the LC believe the way they do (given the amount of time spent explaining their motivations), why I'm just supposed to accept that being Ari means at some level thinking every other species is weak or useless, that the queen is doing a good thing brutally controlling her own people based on thousand-year-old stereotypes and race essentialism, but I'm supposed to write off WW based on a couple lines of dialogue? How are these things different? Why is WW bad, but the others acceptable? WW is the only one who's showing negative attitudes towards S, I guess... I kind of feel like this Diss stuff is coming out of nowhere. The first part of the book was all about the LC -- where they are, how to get to them, what are they doing, why are they making that play in the senate -- and now we've dropped that almost entirely to focus on the Diss. The LC are only relevant now to the extent that they're messing around with In and E and if they're not the point of the novel, I'm feeling like why did so much attention get lavished on them? Fabric nerd alert! Gauze is a weave, silk is a fiber! You can have cotton gauze, polyester gauze, silk gauze, whatever gauze. Anyone who's familiar with fibers and weaves could probably tell from a distance, too. Do I think S has enough specialized knowledge to tell the difference? Not really, but I appreciate the added detail from a reading perspective, so I'll give it to him. Once you know what to look for, nothing quite looks like silk except silk.

Oh, I thought I posted here already, so sorry! I agree with most of the others, that this is a much better introduction to your world, and I would have enjoyed reading this chapter first much more than the other. I do also think that this still suffers greatly from a lack of integration between the bits of heritage that you want to incorporate and the world of the story. The inclusion of more non-English words is a great start, but I feel like they could be used more consistently. Also there's the issue of italics. There is a little bit of controversy around the use of italics for non-English words, especially when the words are not foreign or unusual for the the character using them. Some places recommend using italics, some don't. I'm not entirely sure they're necessary here, especially for decently-well-known-to-English words such as "fiesta." Additionally I feel like italics may be working against your stated point of the novel, to show a world based on your heritage, since the purpose of italicizing non-English words is to point out their foreignness, or difference from the unstated "normal." The other main thing I noticed as I read was the apparent age of the characters. None of them seem like teenagers to me. They seem much younger, no older than 11 or so. When i read this, the tone of the prose and the actions of the characters lead me to believe this was a novel aimed at a much younger audience, a middle grade book. There's nothing wrong with being a middle grade book! I know plenty of adults who enjoy reading them (myself included). However, if the purpose is to write a novel aimed at teens, then I feel like this is missing its goal by a fairly wide margin.

I agree with most of what has already been said here. With flash fiction, it's especially important that everything in the story point in one direction towards the purpose of the piece. Like the others, I feel like this piece lacked focus. What is this story about? Is it about the restoration of magic? Is it about the woman and her grief? Is it about the robot and why it was built? Is it about the science community and the woman proving them all wrong? Is it about the cave and the device and why they exist? Any one of those things would make a good flash story, but they're all touched on here, and they're all treated with equal importance. I don't necessarily need the story to be longer, however. I think ~900 words is more than enough to tell a complete, well-illuminated story. Not everything needs to be a short story or novel to be fully-realized or good. However, the less space there is, the more a story needs to be focused on the overall theme of the piece. I feel like there's just not room in flash for side plots or explanations that don't directly feed into the primary theme, so if all those multiple themes are still desired in the piece, a longer format would probably be required. I do think this could slim down easily, to one or two of the most salient ideas, and then those themes could be expanded on to fill out the word count again without needing to add any extra.

...Some, but not a ton. I feel like this was a pretty abrupt face-heel turn and I am reacting to the lack of foundations for it. I really expected more reactions from the members he gathered, more walkouts, more pushback as the ridiculousness and unethical nature of M's plan comes to light. Surely not every two-house mage is an amoral, Machiavellian, conspiracy nut? For me, M is still coasting on his good-guy image from last book, right up until the point where here reveals his doomsday plan. The lack of in-world reactions plus the dissonance between the M i knew from the previous books (which is still in effect for much of the "putting the band back together" sections here) and the M that would contemplate a doomsday plan like that was too much. It still is. I'd like more hints earlier that M's gone off the rails since we saw him last, building to this nutbar scheme.

It wasn't as bad as last time, but I was very confused. As I go: Again, I am vehemently not on board with M of all people non-jokingly advocating for the unwilling enslavement and non-consensual assault of another thinking, sentient being. "Should we make more magical sentient AIs? Is it ethical to do so," he muses, whilst simultaneously describing how he's going to break the fabric of reality to rip a thinking creature from its home and use it as a glorified battery. It's really stretching my suspension of disbelief here that all of these people are just agreeing that they should basically summon a timelord and then egregiously violate him in order to stave off, like, the 2012 Mayan calendar apocalypse. Because, from what I gather of the in-world state of the things M's mentioning, that's what it is. Stories, nut-bar conspiracy theories, and ancient legends are what M's talking about. And everyone's on-board, with basically no problems, uniformly despite their differences, based on just two cryptic meetings, a basement full of junk, and the decades-old goodwill generated by a super-secret secret society. It's starting to sound silly to me. I feel like up until this M sub-plot, everything I've heard in-world about the Diss, about 3-house mages, and about their "we don't hurt people with magic" society would lead to this plan of M's being laughed off by pretty much everyone. His proof doesn't even prove his point, it just proves that something weird happened with the Meth 50,000 years ago. Arg! I am frustrated. Wait... He's the villain, isn't he? I didn't think he was the villain in his short, but all this plan is missing is some sharks and some lasers, and it's a mustachioed villain's doomsday infinite power plan. I feel like the twist is going to be that M precipitates the very thing he's endeavoring to prevent, and it'll be some kind of irony/symmetry with the LC -- violence, destruction, slavery, and death in the name of "peace" and "security." Ahh, I knew this chapter was missing something, and that was Walking To A Meeting. With E this time. I am a little unclear why the manacles and the collars are short circuiting each other, and I can't quite remember if E had the both on at an earlier point. Did they put them both on her at the beginning when she turned herself in? I'm completely baffled as to why the fight breaks out once at the meeting, and who is on which side. I'm unclear on the politics that they're speaking about before the fight, but it didn't seem like that was all that important to me. I am honestly not particularly interested in why the LC are doing anything. I find them fairly one-dimensional, and they've not really done much to make me think they're anything other than a bunch of bad guys for the good guys to beat up. N is feeling a little bit of a plot device at the end to me. Is there some kind of background on the knife that i'm missing because I haven't read the rest of the series? I feel like from what I've read here in the subs, that magical objects like the knife aren't really a thing in this world. Systems, yes, but those have been mentioned extensively and been explained in detail so that they seem to have substantial, real-feeling limits, and the knife just feels like it popped up out of nowhere with the random ability to do +5 damage to Ari with no costs associated to it. Did N have it last book and was just keeping it in a pocket somewhere? It feels awfully convenient. Additionally, all this Grace being able to interfere with anything N seems to want it to feels weird to me. I don't feel like I've seen enough Grace stuff happening to really believe what N is doing is possible. Like, with the pixie story, and the other instances of Grace, all the changes were very much centered on the caster. Making the caster more likely to strike true, making the caster harder for others to hit, augmenting the second house in in a grace+other two-house mage. The last section had N mostly using grace to increase evasion, and to make it more likely his strikes hit their target, I feel like I'm remembering, so it didn't bother me so much. This, he's actively interfering with E's casting and I've not really seen anything like this in the mage powers up to this point, so I'm really skeptical of it. Isn't it awfully convenient that he can do all this stuff that none of the good guys are prepared to counter, even the other Grace wielders and the ones with the supposedly non-magic powers nobody's seen in thousands of years...

Getting caught up on the backlog. Mostly just saying I read this, since @kais and @Mandamon have covered most of it. For the synopsis, I did notice that there were a couple lines of extraneous background info, and that the lines I was snagging on were also the ones that weren't totally in present tense. Like, for Q -- the sentence with his marriage, from what I'm recalling, it's not super vital to this story? Like the actual details of what happened? iirc, it comes up more in the next one, so maybe here, it can be smooshed down to a couple words and added in where the emotions it brings up are vital to this story? Sort of "Q hates the idea of taking care of M, due to a bad marriage 5 years ago, but..." or something, maybe? Sort of refocuses it on the emotion of the characters, rather than on the facts? Synopses are so tough! For the rest of it, the first couple pages feel a little jittery to me -- not quite enough description and a little too much in medias res, I think, maybe -- but it settles down nicely with the description of the suit. I do like that description of him getting dressed! But I did get confused by that line about the belt, same as kais did. It got a bit jittery again for me around the walk through the piazza, but settled at the McDs. The flirting with the lady is, of course, a delight.

Do you haiku? https://haikuthatcanpayyou.pgtb.me/36wh5V (Meriam-Webster and Paypal are running a haiku contest)

Over all, this is an improvement from the first version, but I also had the same issues as @kais, @Mandamon, and @Alderant. The general is nothing more than a harmful stereotype right now for me, and it is very strange to only describe one person's skin, and that with food (does L want to eat her? Did L miss breakfast? I'm wondering that more than having that word describe anything useful). @kais has listed my top links for issues around food-descriptors and harmful stereotypes, so I'd like to talk about some of the meta-commentary on this story. I see here you've stated you intend this piece to be an epic fantasy. I don't know what audience you're aiming for, but from what I've seen here, this appears to be a novel aimed at teenagers. I would expect different focus and characterizations from a novel aimed at adults, regardless of the age of the protagonist. So my first question of this work would be, "Is this an epic fantasy?" But, what makes an epic fantasy? From this chapter, I would guess that an answer to that would be "a setting in the past, primarily in western Europe," and while that is certainly a very common choice, I believe that a European or even medieval setting is not necessary to make a story an epic fantasy. Rather, in my opinion, epic fantasy is defined more by its scope. The fate of nations, the salvation of the world, the fate of the universe in the balance, dangers that are grand or large in scope, affecting more than just the protagonist and the protagonist's near associates, are a defining feature to epic fantasy in my mind. Right now, I don't see that from this piece -- the focus so far is very much on L and her daily troubles. The things that are going wrong in this chapter are affecting L and pretty much L only. There are some hints that she's working for something bigger, but I have no context to place them, so I don't feel like the scope of this is epic. Sometimes on the forum we call this a lack of stakes, but there are stakes here -- L is in danger of losing her job and getting in trouble -- but they are not epic stakes. You have stated you were wanting to fold aspects of your culture and heritage into your work and that's awesome! However, I don't see much of anything here beyond the typical western European fantasy stereotypes. We have a kingdom, with a king, some miniboss-esque generals, a princess, magic, chambermaids and stable hands so a semi-feudal class system. I see one depiction of skin tone, which is problematic; a couple of italicized words for things that are not plot-essential or character-essential; and some modern-sounding, possibly ethnic surnames. What I am seeing from this chapter is not an integration of heritage into the core of a story, but a veneer of it, thinly laid atop generic western European stereotypes. You also mentioned that you have been unable to find stories like the one you are writing already extant in the world. And while I can't really help you with something as personal as redoing your worldbuilding to better incorporate your heritage, I can show you books and stories where authors have done that very thing with their own backgrounds and culture. Sometimes seeing how others have solved a problem can help you figure out how to handle it in your own work. I'm going to start with two novels Shadowshaper by Daniel Hose Older; and Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova. Shadowshaper is urban fantasy, and Labyrinth Lost is more of a portal fantasy, but both feature Latinx protagonists. The Chaos by Nalo Hopkinson also merits a mention here, since the protagonist in that one is Afro-Caribbean (actually most of Hopkinson's back catalog would likely merit mentioning in a non-European, not-necessarily-medieval fantasy list, despite much of it getting categorized as "magical realism"). Unfortunately for epic fantasy fans, a lot of Latin American and Spanish-speaking literature got sort of typecast as "magical realism," to the point that it's difficult to find anything else translated into English. If you're interested in seeing the more magical side of the Latin magical realism genre, I can definitely find you a long list of books, but since you mentioned fantasy and epic fantasy specifically, that's what I looked for and what I'm recommending here. This means I did have to move beyond just a Latinx/Hispanic heritage. I also tried to find books where I could also locate the author talking about using their heritage in their work. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemisin tops my list of non-European-centric epic fantasy, sine that's exactly why Jemisin wrote the trilogy. Here she is talking about this series: Link 1 and Link 2 Ken Liu's Grace of Kings, is also epic in scale and decidedly non-European in setting. Liu talks a lot about his heritage and how it influenced this story here: Link More recently, Marlon James' Black Leopard, Red Wolf is out now and being compared to the Lord of the Rings, so it is definitely epic fantasy. Moving back into a territory I feel is closer to your own story, there's Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor. Okorafor has written numerous novels heavily based in her African heritage, and they are all amazing. I'm mentioning Zahrah the Windseeker specifically because to me it is the most "fantasy" like of the ones of hers I've read. Akata Witch (and Akata Warrior), the Binti novellas, and Who Fears Death all have a more real-world-feeling setting to me. Okorafor makes no secret of the way she draws on her African heritage to write her novels and interviews with her discussing that are all over the place. Here is one where she's talking about different cultures' views of family, in the context of the Binti novellas: Link Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi, and Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi are two relatively-recently published fantasy novels that are getting good reviews. Children of Blood and Bone has been something of a sensation, and you can find author interviews in several places. Here's one on Teen Vogue, where she talks a little about using her heritage in making the world and setting for her. Beasts Made of Night is also getting Tolkien comparisons, but here the author used his Nigerian heritage to make his world and setting. Here's an interview where he talks about it: Link Cindy Pon writes novels influenced by her Taiwanese heritage. Her duo, Serpentine and Sacrifice, are definitely non-European fantasy. She is less epic in scope than the others, but I enjoyed her books. Here she is talking about her Taiwanese heritage (it's in conjunction with her scifi novel, Want, but I believe it is still worth the read: Link Continuing east-Asian, Aliette de Bodard writes amazing fantasy and scifi novels using her Vietnamese heritage as a basis for her worlds. Her In the Vanisher's Palace is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast through the lens of Vietnamese folklore. She also has a trilogy of well-reviewed fantasy books based on Aztec mythology. Here she is talking about her Aztec books, research, and incorporating culture into her worldbuilding: Link One last recommendation is Fonda Lee's Jade City. It's a modern fantasy, which is why it's getting listed last, but it also draws heavily on Lee's heritage and the the way family has a special meaning for her as an Asian-American. Here she is talking about it: Link Getting back to your story, I do believe it has good bones on it, but from what I have seen of this section and what you have stated as your goals for it, it needs some serious revisions in order to meet those goals. I look forward to seeing what you do with it!

For me, two things: 1) Consistency. Pick an atrocity and stick with it. The word choices and phrasing had me bouncing around from one implied real-world horror to another and that got old really quickly. 2) Emotion. Reactions: I need more of them. Especially from S, who should be making some real-world connections here. He is me, in this book, and I am noticing similarities. It makes me mad when he doesn't (or at least, feel like he should). I feel like, the queen is trying to say that what she's doing, while bad, is so much better than genocide, and, on paper at least, she's right: some is better than none. But also, the extermination of S's facet's Ari happened thousands of years ago and has been treated as a distant historical event by everyone, up to and including In and E. I feel like In and E might not even believe in Ari, were they not living members of the species and feeling the continuing repercussions from the war. It happened to strangers. Ancestors, yes, but strangers. What the queen is doing is ongoing, happing right now, to her own people, some of which In and S have seen with their own eyes. It's more present. Yet they're reacting to the two things in similar ways. Changing things away from general "insanity bad violence" to something more logical and grounded will also help.

Sorry, this is pretty much just as-I-go. I had... issues. Okay, the opening scene with In going all brainwashed killer and S trying to wake him up is intense, yes, but I got some really worrisome vibes off it. "I'll make you hurt me" (so that the guilt you feel from my pain will make you remember you love me) just sounds so emotionally manipulative, I'm immediately reframing what I know of S around it, and not liking what shapes up. It's pretty easy to take S's need for external help with his anxiety and turn it into a manipulator's need for everything to be about them. The trite, pat dialogue through this scene just seems to reinforce it -- S is just aping these emotions to get In to focus on him. In -- emotionally damaged, vulnerable, looking for guidance; S -- needy, self-absorbed, unable to express real emotions so relies on worn-out phrases... I know, I know I know I know it's not that but, oh, this scene just feels so repugnant to me! Please think about word choice. Coming off of that scene above, where we are shown through actions and emotions that the Ari are emotionally unstable and prone to violence, then going straight in to "yes and we keep them in ghettos" is just really, really problematic. Really problematic. "emotionally unstable" is a go-to accusation to lever at anyone who the ruling group wants to control (whether women, or black people, or the non-neurotypical, or anyone else); and "prone to violence" plus "we put them in ghettos for their and our own safety" I really shouldn't have to explain. "rehabilitated" -- Riiight. paired with ghetto, and the removal of a "strain" of thought, and everyone's basically okay with it because we all know that Those People just can't be trusted to control their own emotions. Why even the Ari say so themselves! It's the Eff talking and she's Ari herself! I am pretty much done with this chapter, right here, since this is reading still really problematic for me. All right. All right. I took a little break. Maybe I'm reading too much into things... "put in a special reservation," --- Then again, maybe I'm not. Is this referencing the Japanese internment during World War II, or the Trail of Tears and Native reservations? It's a yikes either way, and neither one is somehow better or more humane than outright genocide like I think this is trying to portray, and it's in no way mitigated by having a member of the oppressed minority saying these things, but I suppose I'm curious. "within their own species, culling the crazed creatures" -- So, this looks like a reference to minority-on-minority violence being used as a "reason" for the above internment of all members of that minority, so I guess that's a point for the Japanese internment source. It's still problematic. And then the added "crazy people are violent and must be killed for the betterment of society" stereotype on top of it just compounds the awfulness. "amenable to interaction with the other species," -- Wow, now there's a loaded phrase... At this point, I'm sorry to say I've run out of energy and skimmed the last couple pages or so. I'm still trying to rebuild my stamina from the Thing that Happened to me and I've just run out of processing power. This is, I think, the most problematic sub I've seen from you. It's just so all-over-the-place with what it's trying to reference, and the words that it's using. No one's reacting to any of these implications, and I would expect S, at least, to pick up on some of this WWII stuff, since I assume he's gone through a standard US high school education. I want to try to sum things up a little more, but I"m just plain outta juice. Please take @kais's and @shatteredsmooth's advice and rework this.

Hello and congrats on posting your first story to crit! I usually love Star Trek, and all things Trek-adjacent, so I was really excited to read this. However, I, too, was confused. I couldn't figure out what sort of story this was, so I wasn't able to form a cogent criticism of it. For me, what I view as too stereotypical, or too generic, or not realistic enough depends on what type story I'm reading. If this is intended as a parody, for example, I would have different criteria for it than if it was intended as a homage. If this started as a fanfic and evolved, I would view it differently than if this is intended to be a wholly original world. Additionally, I'm seeing elements of multiple Trek series being referenced here, though it seems to mostly be the original it's pulling from, and I found this to be confusing as well. So for instance, if this was intended to solely comment on TOS, then I would find the references to other series to be a problem, but if this is an homage or pastiche, those other references would be more acceptable to me. Because this hews so closely to the source material I was unable to figure out just what exactly I was reading, and so I don't know how to parse what happens in it.