industrialistDragon

Hello and welcome! I am doggedly trudging through my backlog. I see most of my issues have already been covered here, and also that this version has been superseded by another one, so I'll leave my comments there.

Clearing out backlog, slowly gaining stamina... If I could tolerate caffeine, I'd definitely be using it this week, but I can't so please forgive the increased lack of coherence. I don't have very much to add to this, other than to note I read it, and I still love it. It's more refined, and while it's missing a tad bit of the energy of the original, the smoother nature of the story over all makes up for it. I never had a problem with the vampires thing, it seemed clear in v1 and it feels very well telegraphed here in v2. My as-I-go comments: I like the added info in the beginning, but the "who's your daddy" line is still a bit odd to me. I think that might just be how much more I assume guys like that would be using (american) football chants than anything else, though. With the added description above, it's more understandable as a morale boost chant thing so i don't think it really needs changing, maybe? The disabled toilet is upstairs? Wait, then how do the people who can't use stairs use it... or wait, is that the joke? It's clean because it's unused? Is this an old-building thing that my "no building I live near is old enough to rent cars" suburban surroundings have left me unprepared to parse? "(or is that just me)" -- hah, love it! Superb lampshade.

Honestly, neither do I. I just use Google's or Opera's built-in viewer.

Hello! I'm still working on my backlog, so I don't have a crit yet, but I'm just dropping in here to note that PDF as a file format is 100% acceptable in this critique group! It's in our welcome rules post, in fact. We like it because of how easy it is to view on just about any device, operating system, program or app. You'll see several professional submissions calling for pdfs as well, at least as often as a doc. Speaking of, we specifically don't allow the newer docx as a filetype, as it (still) has some compatibility issues with some combinations of devices, apps and operating systems. @Alderant, you shouldn't be having so many problems copying from a pdf, unless it's specifically had copying disabled. I found this guide on Adobe's website -- do those steps not work for you?

Yay playing catch-up. I'm still not 100% here, so please forgive if I'm less coherent than usual. All right. Re is... Well, I still don't like him, and would still rather have O's POV, but he's better in this section. I keep having trouble with Re's folksy idiosyncratic expressions. They're not really uniformly-sourced (like, some are analogs of common phrases ported to his culture, some are just straight up modern slang, some are loan words or phrases from other real world languages and dialects), and occasionally they throw me out of the story. "Schlep" is one I'm thinking of specifically here (much as I enjoy and like the word on my own), since it's a Yiddish loanword and comes with a bunch of baggage due to that. This phrase, "Made a guy not want to put in the effort," also threw me off, but for two reasons. One, is the one @Robinski noted, but the second is the lack of emotion. Re's been reading, at least to me, to be totes gay for In. Like, as in, he has much more depth of feeling than just a put-upon "why do I even bother <sigh>" phrase for when In dumps him with nary a backwards glance. Did he, Re, not just save In from torture worse than death? And in return, In would rather follow S like some lost puppy into a heretofore unknown land full of disgusting aliens than give Re the time of day? Shouldn't that hurt a little more than "why do i bother?" Like, it just feels really inconsistent to me. Then he turns around and compares his feelings to a student-teacher relationship and I'm kind of confused here, because Re isn't teaching In anything and I don't think he'd really put himself in the student role there, would he? "An aura of blue and dark purple" -- yes I agree, a list of the houses and their colors would be great back-matter for this book! I do like that Re is the one to finally make the portal -- it goes nicely with a "this is really the apprentices story" theme, but I felt like the end line is weak. His reasons for going seem a little strained. "I just want to talk" is the sort of prevaricating that in my experience doesn't usually get paired with an assault team (Ri has been angling for an assault from the beginning and I can't believe Re is surprised she's talking about it here), or an unauthorized portal trespassing on a private enclave of a people known to highly value privacy for that matter. This also feels a bit inconsistent for me. And since it's Re making these connections, I'm slightly more interested in what's going on with the Eff than I am with him figuring out this plot point that I'd kind of relegated to a secondary position, since Ri didn't seem like a primary player in this story and the portal's been Ri's baby in most of these POVs. With so many different POVs here, I am definitely having trouble figuring out what's the focus of the book. I don't know which story is the main, and which are supplemental. In an unknown author, it would be frustrating. With a known author it does kill tension sometimes but I have a bit more trust. It's frustrating, but I trust, so I keep going. I am getting very fatigued, though. I don't mind numerous POVs, but I like them to stop at points that seem to be good endpoints for the story, not an artificially-set-feeling end like every chapter. If I am constantly being forced to "pause" what I'm reading to take up another mental thread, at some point my mental hands get too full and I drop the "boring" or "unimportant" threads in favor of the ones I'm actually enjoying, or the ones that seem like they're the primary POVs. And if nothing gets any kind of resolution, just more and more "pauses," at the end of every chapter, then I put the book down (looking at you "Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden," grumble).

Hello and welcome! I'm playing catch-up after quite a while gone, and Life kicking me when I'm down means I'm not quite up to regulation yet, but I did read this sub. I see most of my issues have been covered already. Like the others, I found this to be very heavy into generic-seeming tropes. And while Tropes Are Not Inherently Bad. They're also not inherently GOOD, either. They're tools, and shorthand, and some are far more problematic than others. Tropes can be deliciously subverted, or comfortingly met. They can be horrifically overused and terribly written, too. Any way they are used, though, the author should be aware of them and their implications in the work. I did catch a few worrisome implications here, but since I'm so late and since I think this sub has been supplanted by a rewrite, I'll leave it there. This has good bones on it though, so I am interested to read more.

It's like me and sports metaphors -- you're so used to it, it's hard to see. A worthy endeavor to try, though.

This pretty much exactly. I know I'm not firing on all cylinders yet so it's encouraging to know it's not just me. Mostly, I agree with the others; I could use more emotion from P, and more of an ending. I was left really wondering what this story was actually about. It's interesting, the characters are well-drawn, the action is involving, but I kept wondering why I was reading it as I went. Where is it going? What's it trying to say? Why do I care about this P-guy? Does this story have a goal? I would also have to say I didn't care for opening with with the villains. It got tied up nicely at the end and I understood why the beginning was there, but... I just didn't feel like the POV did much to actually help the story along. Do I need to know why there's a girl in the laundry basket, when the focus of the rest of the story is so nice and tight on the M-and-P interactions? It doesn't add much to the end, for the reader to know why the bad guys have the bodies, heck, I think some police person even states that the "why" of it doesn't matter, since there's a major shootout going on, and M is MIA. It's good for you-as-the-author to know why, but I'm not convinced I-as-a-reader gained from it. Also (sorry this is less organized than usual. I misplaced my training montage to get back into fighting form) from a technical standpoint, this is also another one of the top stories I've seen from you! It held together well, the sex had a reason, M wasn't fridged, all around good job. (though @Alderant is right, totes needed a sex tag. I sort of expect it even when you don't tag by now, but it's good to warn people anyway. )

I used to post a lot of links too, for a while. I always recommend Medieval POC (Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook) for epic fantasy research, because it highlights the diversity and interconnectivity that abounded in the medieval world. Speaking of interconnectivity, ORBIS is an interactive travel map of the Roman empire, and can give a great idea of how fast travel was in the days before cars and airplanes (it was faster than you think!). For an introduction to historical figures and a really good source for character ideas, I like Rejected Princesses. He's an amusing writer and always cites his sources. If you are planning to write people with different skin tones, even in a fantasy setting, Writing With Color is a great technical resource. Additionally, there are several well-researched essays by Kate Elliot, such as "Writing Women Characters into Epic Fantasy Without Quotas" and "The Status Quo Does Not Need Worldbuilding," which are great reads for thinking critically about what and how to use the sources you find. Writing the Other is an amazing website, for the courses it offers, and for the free resources it hosts. It's Cultural Appropriation Primer is a great list of essays about this topic. And of course, Kameon Hurley's essay "We Have Always Fought" is good food for thought when writing fantasy, as well (it's also great for harvesting more links from, plus it won a Hugo in 2014). The Neopronouns thread that's stickied in this forum has a bunch of great links to resources on using new and different pronouns in your writing, which is good to know not just for science fiction, but also for all those fantasy creatures, too. and lastly, Power Searching With Google is a great short course put out by Google on how to make the best use if its search engine. It's good general knowledge, but especially for writers who do a lot of online research. I'm still not firing on all cylinders yet, so I can't find my link archive at the moment. @kais what am I forgetting? I know I had a list of sources on digital literacy and evaluating and determining biases in online source materials....

Oh, good. It's aggravating I can't be more articulate, but it sounds like you've got everything under control.

Check! I will probably read, because I'm a completionist and I need to clear my inbox, but I won't comment. o7

Definitely not right now, lol! Maybe in another couple months, and after I sign up for some lessons....

I actually read this before Stuff Happened! But I had a hard time articulating what I felt so I didn't post. I remember enjoying what happened, and the tension was good and that last scene was INTENSE, but having finished it, I was left feeling disappointed and unhappy. I think, maybe, it was that this felt like the middle of a book for me, but from what you'd said, it was near the end? Like, I felt unhappy I had to sit through all of the Book of Meetings to get to this point, when this sort of intensity should have been happening earlier? If this is nearing the end, then I'm worried-disappointed that all this great stuff is going to be crammed into not enough space? Like, I should have more than just the back third of the book that was at this level? If that's a feeling? I'm sorry, it's tough to articulate even now.

Well, life kicked me in the teeth but good the last couple weeks, but I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. I'll be playing catchup until the next millennium, probably, but at least I'm trying? Anyway, not dead yet and [Monty Python voice] I'm getting better!

AVEN is one of the first asexuality sites and has been around at least 10 years. It's a great place to start, and the forums (while a little hard to find initially) are a supportive and friendly place to help figure yourself out. If the convo moves away from marriage and the implied succession issues, then it needs not be brought up.

This is mostly a RAEBNC from me this week. I agree I could use a lot more description, especially of the other new species, and of course I always want more S and In relationship interaction on screen. I got hung up on the "leg braiding" thing, too. I feel like there should be more interest from S but especially from In in the Ari and doubly if there are any walking around in the open. That's kind of a mega-big deal and they're both just kind of bland like "oh. isn't that nice? what about this building over here?"

This is much improved over the last one, for sure. I like it much better with the tighter focus on E and U. However, the Mindless 9 are still a point of confusion. It's unclear why they're doing what they're doing. I also agree that there's still a lot of telling going on. As I go I like this tighter focus on the party. I'm already way more invested in E and U. I could use a little more description of the party itself, though. I have a sense of the people, but I don't really get the feeling like they're anchored to anything in the setting. I'm a little unclear what E is doing at the party. Are they under cover? But not really? But yes really? I also don't understand why the kill mark is still a secret. I can understand why it was at first, that makes sense. But now that E has been working as a soldier/bodyguard for several years, in a world where assassins and spies and insurrections seem to be common, why is it still a secret? Seems to me that a CSO who's never made a kill would be more suspect than one who has the mark, in this kind of world setup... ""never ending psychical activity." -- Is this a misspelling of "physical," or is there some kind of mental powers training going on here? I'm all here for mental powers psychic-al activity. I'm becoming more skeptical of E's abilities in general. So far, they've run into things, tripped and fallen three times, nearly exposed their deep secret, blabbed about a possible undercover mission, and fired into a crowd (missing twice!). This doesn't show a very competent CSO, I feel like, despite what's been said about them. ace/aro -- okay, so I had an absolute TON of stuff written here, about this really common misconception about asexual people, and the conflation of marriage, childbirth, and sexual identity, but I see that you're already taking the line out, so I'll cut most of it. Being asexual or aromantic (or gay or straight or any other orientation) has no bearing on the ability or willingness to get married or bear children. If you want more information on all of the different identities that get grouped under the asexual umbrella, or just more information about asexuality in general, the Asexuality Visibility Network is a very good place to start. Its FAQ page is well organized and answers a lot of common questions and misconceptions about asexuality in a friendly and accessible way. But besides that, I'm a little confused why U's orientation or personal desire to wed is being considered at all in the setup I've seen so far. U is the last/only royal heir, since E has opted out of all of their royal heritage in its entirety. U is now pretty much required to have a child of her body in order for the royalty to continue to exist at all, isn't she? I mean, there's no one else left to do it... I like the lack of emphasis on the mindless 9 better in this version, but the lack does make their appearance and apparent importance more jarring when they do show up. The attack on the village still feels very random to me. If they're assassins, why are they not just killing the person they're required to kill and then leaving? A distraction at a high-power public event could be just about anything -- a misplaced backpack, a cat, a flock of birds, a computer virus, an unmarked letter, two very loud people in a frivolous argument who won't simmer down, some kids egging a car or trying to gate crash, a flash mob of fake security people giving out free hugs and terrible advice -- like, literally anything. I'm also confused by the door/arm scene and what happens after. It's better than it was, by a long shot, but I still don't understand where everyone is in relation to each other and once E starts using random protocol names for things I know nothing about, I'm just completely lost. Also, E panicking and being unable to get themself together just makes me more convinced that they are not very competent and a terrible CSO. I lost a little bit of interest once the action started, to be honest. I lost track of the people I was invested in, and was getting information for things and people I either didn't know or didn't care about. The ending seems good, but I wasn't paying a lot of attention by then, sorry.

So like, in the dude's restroom, our most common complaint is a urinal that never stops running and gets the floor all wet. The ladies' room? Probably the most common is that all 3 stalls are completely out of toilet paper for various reasons including that 2/3 of the toilets are stuffed to the top with wadded up paper (thankfully clean paper, but this is a not-rare occurrence). The bathroom that had the sink pulled off the wall? Pretty sure it was the ladies' room. When the handicap stall door "fell" off? The ladies' room. Hairspray fug so thick you can feel it freeze your nosehairs in place with "all-day hold" as you breathe? Well, it's not the guy's restroom... And yet, that myth persists. A convention I attend regularly turns one set of gendered bathrooms into all-gender bathrooms for the duration of the con, and like, it's ALL GUYS suddenly crowding the former ladies' room. As if it's any different from theirs? But they're like ooh-ing and ahh-ing and it's pretty funny. So yeah, different grossness maybe, but still. People of any gender can just be gross. Maybe hang a lampshade on it? Like, "I wish blah-dee-blah sisterhood, but blah blah grossness knows no gender blah blah people are dumb?" I like this much better! Maybe make it more like a sports chant? I feel like these bro-guys would also be big on the sports metaphors, but that might just be a US thing. Either sports, or I could see something in super-business speak like a call-and-response?

So, this was really good! I enjoyed it from the beginning all the way through to the end. It's tightly written, to the point, with great voice and personality. The present tense didn't bother me, and even though I had an idea of what was going to happen, it was still enjoyable and I liked the double-twist at the end.I got hung up on the caffeine thing as well, and one or two other parts, but they're not super big things. I was actually expecting a little more gore and sex with all those warnings. The blackmail thing didn't bother me at all, though i suppose now that i'm thinking back on it, it's a little bit out of nowhere... but the internal monologue -- I've definitely had days where I've been thinking angry thoughts like that, if not ones quite as sex-themed. But all-in-all, this was pretty great! As I go: "Yayyyy!! Who’s the daddy? Who’s your daddy?” -- Is this someone talking to a pet? That's what it sounds like to me in my head. I think it's the repetition, maybe? "that we are mindful to respect those who come after us" -- Sooo ladies restrooms... yeah. This is a fun couple of sentences, but it's absolutely not a thing. Ladies are just as gross as guys in the bathroom, there're just more doors to hide the grossness behind in the ladies' room. So, decaf still has caffeine, just less of it. And lapsang souchong (is not capitalized and) is a black tea, and black teas have some of the highest amounts of caffeine of all the types of teas. A decaffeinated tea generally has slightly less caffeine than decaffeinated coffee (depending on methods and types of course) but it's still there. Caffeine-free teas are all herbals. "Coffee replacement" herbs like rooibos, honeybush, and chicory are all caffeine-free but taste like butt (at least in my opinion). Caffeine and I are not friends, and so I do not have any resistances to it. I've gotten buzzed off decaf tea, and really high quality dark chocolate. If you want "no caffeine," you're not drinking anything with actual tea leaves in it (or yerba mate, for that matter)

Oh, and believe me, I used them! And I disclosed my intentional insanity. Hopefully they just want my balloon animals panel, but I keep having visions of all the ways they could misinterpret what I wrote and put me into nightmare scenarios....

Just got my participation survey, so I guess they want me for SOMEthing. This might change once they read I'm intending to fly standby...

Ah finals week, when everyone goes crazy. No one's pooped in the study rooms this year, so overall it's an improvement. But it's been busy around here! I think this is the first M chapter I didn't really care for. It just doesn't seem to go anywhere, and after all the revelations of the S parts, it really puts the brakes on things for me. I feel like the whole first half of this chapter could be cut, everything before the old house with the secret basement. It doesn't seem to be doing much, to me. M mentions the Diss, then is cagey. People we've already met get described again. M mentions he's old a bunch while thinking about being more cagey. Everyone is told, basically, this meeting is just to give out the coords for the NEXT meeting, and I'm honestly wondering why more people didn't just walk out then and there. M gives a mission statement, which G had the right of to my mind: it doesn't seem very useful or descriptive or informative to me. I'm left wondering if a missions statement was really worth calling an entire meeting just to announce... The main thing that stood out for me was M's Three House speech -- M's trolling these people, right? Because this seems way out of character from him. Way, WAY out of character. Use a thinking human like a piece of equipment just because they exist and have mental problems? Yikes. Is M maybe accidentally channeling a bit of the ol' ultraviolence from grimdark Fruits? I really didn't think he was into the whole "People with mental issues aren't really people so it's okay if we mess with them" mindset, y'know? Even for the FATE OF HUMANITY IN THE BALANCE or whatever. Isn't stuff like that what he was criticizing Moor for in the short this section is referencing so heavily? Lampshade or no, I feel instantly against whatever M's trying to do here with this. It really doesn't feel like him. And... I don't think it's doing what M intends it to? There's a line at the bottom of this scene about watching how the newbies work together, but the slavery problem doesn't actually get anyone working together. A couple people raise individual objections, which M quashes with rhetoric and then it's just dropped immediately after. I feel like any test of teamwork would be better examined in the junk basement, where the newbies could actually work together on something -- like putting a device back together or figuring out how a mysterious one works, or doing some multihouse magic to investigate why the LC hasn't come back for the place or safeguarding the collection against a possible LC return, or something. Was he trying to test for dissenters so he could throw them out? Not too much happens in the secret basement right now, but I like it as a setting better. I feel like there's a lot more potential there to have character interactions and reveal things, than there is in the first part at Yet Another Meeting in an Undisclosed Location (I should have been counting. This feels like the Book of Meetings to me.)

I'm sorry for your loss. More context would be beneficial, I think. Tropes and stereotypes sneak in when readers have to fill in the gaps in a story with their own interpretations. It's fine sometimes, but I feel like this story really needs the specificity of author-supplied context. That could really be interesting! But also, as kais mentioned, having the two spouses interact with each other as equals and full partners will help combat any negative tropes that are in the work. Right now, it seems to me that the woman does little more than nag, cry, and provide an opening for the husband to explain things to the reader. Swapping the genders, but leaving the interactions the same will still end up with the similar issues. I did not pick up on this at all, unfortunately. I thought it was one person talking the whole time.

It's nerd prom. Wear the kilt! Kilts are awesome.

Like @kais, this story made me feel things -- but they were not particularly good things, unfortunately. I definitely had all of the issues with the protagonist that @kais had -- I found both him and the wife to be significantly problematic. From a technical standpoint, the work is solid. The only part that threw me was the change to past tense, and that only because it felt to me to be haphazardly applied. I couldn't figure out the logic behind it. Otherwise, I was able to follow all of the time jumps with relative ease. That's no small feat! I wish I could have enjoyed this piece more than I did. Here are my "as I go" comments: "but I have to be strong" -- this trope is so old, so done-to-death that I see it being parodied when I watch classic shows from the '40s and '50s. It makes me feel immediately bored with the piece and unwilling to keep reading. Suppressing emotions is not strong, it's avoidance. In some situations it can be necessary temporarily, but here it just seems like he's hiding from his wife. Plus, I feel like it limits the amount of depth the character "being strong" can show to the reader. This early in the piece, that doesn't bode well to me. The wife herself seems to be a stereotype of the hysterical woman, and once again, this idea that women are less emotionally stable, and prone to "useless" bouts of emotion or hysterics is a harmful trope that has both real world consequences and very unfortunate implications. This is not a character to me, it's a strawman fallacy to show that only the man has the "strength" to do what is "necessary" (neither of which are strong, nor necessary to me). Her characterization once again makes me feel bored and uninterested in what is happening to either one of them. "gibberish" -- and now she's the trope of women who are incapable of understanding science, too? I had to put the story down for a moment at this point, to be perfectly honest. The number of overused, outdated, frankly harmful stereotypes going on here made me feel too disgusted to keep reading. So, after this point, I was just trying to finish and I don't have any more as-I-go notes. The protagonist does not come off as the least bit sympathetic to me. I feel like he is a narcissist, and despite saying over and over how much he is doing things "for his girls," all he really cares about is himself. "His girls" aren't even really human to him. They're his possessions: no different from his house or his television. He was denied something he thought he deserved and that appears to me to be his only motivation. I also feel like this piece does a disservice to couples who have lost a child to stillbirth or miscarriage. I have friends who have suffered through this, and I couldn't help thinking about them as I read. This story appears to me to play into broad, flat, hurtful stereotypes about grief and losing a child that are so far removed from what I've seen of the actual experience to almost be talking about something else entirely. There is a wealth of support and information out on the internet about stillbirth, miscarriage, and grief, and I definitely second the call to add some research to this for any subsequent drafts.