Mandamon

I can see that. There are a few other Anglo-Saxon names included, but they're certainly not as common: At the end of the first book, there's a character named "Beth" (which was a KS name) and then there's "meg-n" with MF's crew (who is now "Emma"). Also, Fer. Vet. is the first book has a fairly Spanish first name. (Behind the scenes: I purposefully skewed the names toward Mid-East/Indian, which meshes with the information MF discovers Re. carbon dating in the second book. "Meth" itself is actually derived from an Old Testament word.)

Thanks @Sarah B! Good point. This was a late addition, so I probably need to flesh it out a bit. I'll work on that.

Thanks @Robinski and @Sarah B! I think most of my coworkers would be horrified with 10% as being within tolerance, but then we're working with hydraulics and metal construction... ;-) Yeah, I think I was sort of winging it with definite scale. I'll make those numbers harder when editing. Check. Can do this. Good catch. I'll make this clearer. It's something that will take cycles to get over, but I take your point. I'll look through these tags and see if I can adjust them. Ah, yes. Emotions, my nemesis! He injured the Eff, but the Elg finished him off. I think I need to make this section clearer, but I'll wait until you go through next week's submission and see what you think. This is him seeing the lines of cause and effect. Will clarify. In the other universe. Will clarify. Yep. I think I'm missing a few connections through here. I'll clean it up. Good comments. I think I may be skipping thought processes, so this doesn't seem justified. I'll probably need to add in a little more explanation and emotion. So to your biggest rant here... These two were actually introduced back in chapter twelve (in edits after you read), so it won't be as glaring when the reader comes across them again here. But yes, they are Kickstarter names. It was a reward tier. I wonder if these two stand out particularly more than others? I've had about five-six other KS names in other books, some of which I've changed slightly to blend in. I'll see if I can play around with these a little to make them more seamless, but they're also both Meth., which does have a selection of names similar to ours. Anyway, good to know they particularly stood out, so I can try to adjust. Thanks!

Thanks @kais! I had this same issue. It didn't make enough sense to land for me Weird. It's completely clear to me, but then I wrote it. I'll look into how to rewrite it. Perfect! Hmm...Probably need to pop this out more and have more reaction from M on why it is/isn't ok. Lol. There's some more explanation of this in the next two chapters, but everyone's getting better at it, I guess. Let me know if it makes sense going forward.

Alright, since this is such a hot topic: Pickles: love them (and make my own during the summer) Feta: love it. (Also most forms of cheese except blue and stinky) But you can have all the meat. I'm vegetarian.

Well, I enjoy reading about T again! And I also really like R's character. She seems to know what she's doing. As to your questions. 1) I want first impressions of all the material, and I also want to know what themes you picked up in the story. --I don't have much of an impression of the story yet because not a lot of plot has happened. There's a lot of worldbuilding for a short story, if that's what this is, and it tends to drag down the pace. I do pick up the "us vs. them" that the others did, and I think this was a pretty big part of the other story as well. 2) there are some minor mystery elements. --I guess the people committing suicide? It comes in on the last page, so it's not really a big element in the story. I'm not sure the whole song in the middle really adds anything, and there are a lot of places where things are explained multiple times when once will do. I felt like I was waiting for something to happen for the whole submission, so I'm wondering if the next part has a lot more plot in it and this is mostly setup. There isn't really a mystery so far that I can see. Notes while reading: pg 1: "cross" -> "crossed" --also several other missing words and grammar problems in the first paragraph... pg 1: A lot of the description could be cut down considerably to make it flow better. e.g: "“Hhh.” T, his W creature companion, made a slight vocalization that was neither a comment nor a question, but at times served the creature as either. The W was flying around the forest, alternating between being behind him or flitting ahead of him." To "“Hhh.” T's slight vocalization was something between a comment and a question, though Z sensed it was in agreement. his W companion flitted both ahead and behind as they walked through the forest." pg 1: "can you sense any emotions right now?" --he's asked this three times in one paragraph. pg 2: "his eyes were nocturnal" --there's a lot of this too. The wrong word or action. His eyes are not active only at night...it's that his sight is adjusted for the dark. pg 2: "even in the middle of night during full moon" --wouldn't this be the brightest time they are active, if these people are nocturnal? pg 3: "thirty more minutes of walking to get to S.F., but he made it in ten." --Why is he running at three times his walking speed? I thought he deduced there wasn't any immediate danger? pg 3: "I’m seeking sanctuary.” --from? pg 4: "I called you because I’d hate for you to be left behind.” --Which makes me think it wasn't the reason, but I don't know what it is. Showing off the creature? pg 5: "silently bemoaning the turn of events" --is T bemoaning, or Z? Unclear. pg 5: "who was making no moves against R" --yes, I'm confused by all the hubbub about T landing on her shoulder. He seemed to have no ill intention. pg 6: "“Seekers don’t use moon’s light. Every set of hands helps, except for his.” --confused on this. Can he not move objects? Build walls or clean? pg 7: "but this Seeker is offering to add fresh ones" --yeah, I'm unsure why the guards can't come to this same conclusion. pg 8: "Most of the able-bodied men who should be helping repair the town" --again, so why aren't the guards letting in anyone who can help rebuild? pg 8: "You can have the capacity of reading emotions a three-year-old could notice.” --lol pg 9: “Even to save people’s lives, there are wrong ways to go about it." --I feel like all this is in response to the last story? In any case, there are a lot of words devoted to telling exactly what R does--to the point of it being strange so much time is devoted to it. pg 11: "her power of song flooded into the pair of them." --So...why do you need a song here? This whole section seems inserted into Z and R's walk to the hospital. K practially forces it on them. I'm not yet sure why this is here. pg 12: "The powers of a..." --and then a half-page infodump. Do we need to know this information now? What does it have to do with the story? Can the information on the Gr. be spread out so we learn it a piece at a time, if it's necessary to the plot? pg 14: "because he had that fanatical belief" --does anyone call themselves a fanatic? pg 14: "The soldier flinched at first..." --I don't think we need nearly this much explanation of how emotions are transferred. We can gather how it works, and I'm willing to accept that Z has a greater tolerance against them, as he's trained as a religious figure of sorts. pg 17: “My faith is strong enough to let me withstand pain.” --and then there's another explanation. At this point, I'm waiting for story to happen. pg 19: "be satisfied in what you accomplished.” --he...hasn't really done anything yet. pg 20: "T can transfer emotions to other people..." --this feels like the fifth time this has been explained. pg 21: "You think there’s something here in Seventh Ford that’s making people want to take their own life?” --okay, I think this might actually be the start of some plot. I'm judging by the first story that this one is a similar length? If so, we're already about halfway through and nothing has really happened yet. pg 21: "Shadowlings don’t use moon’s light...A memory surfaced, unbidden" --I feel like we should be able to figure out what he's remembering, but I have no idea what it is.

I wonder if you getting the feeling of "wrong" because M's motivations are all over the place for this chapter. I think @kais picked up on some of the same things, but it seems like M is switching from not interested, to yes interested, to tech talk, to friendzone, to interested again...I honestly can't keep straight what she's going for and if I were Mi, I'd be incredibly confused by all the mixed signals. I think the plot progression is fine here, but the emotions going along with it don't track. You can see in my, er, extensive and confused notes... ;-) Notes while reading: pg 1: "It’s not an invitation..." --This reads as one of those awkward spots to me. I looked back at the end of the last chapter to see if Mi had given any indication of not respecting her boundaries, but couldn't find any. So for this to be the first thing she says upon taking Mi to her room for recouperation after he's almost killed sounds like she's afraid of him, for some reason. I would assume whatever boundaries would be set closer to determining if there is going to be any canoodling at all. pg 1: "Are there ways in which I have permission..." --also very awkward. This exchanging of permissions is very stilted and if I was suspecting this might lead to sexytimes, I am throughly disabused of that notion. pg 1: "she needed to know she could trust him" --I think this is the crux of it. I definitely agree they need to set boundaries, but M is assuming she can't trust him, to start. Yes, he's involved in some shady demon-y things, but I don't think he's given indication that he's not trustworthy in terms of personal boundaries. pg 1: "but he didn’t want any more than that" --this reads as Mi trying to set thoughts in his mind because he knows M will be reading it. pg 1: "something far too personal for her to know without him telling her" --And this is even more hypocritical. She's asking for his agreement in refraining from touching her, but just dives right into his mind. Yes, she feels guilty, but she's still done it. pg 1: "She fully let go of Mi for the first time since everyone had left them and snatched up the cookies." --Not sure what this means. pg 2: “I have a t-shirt under it. You won’t see anything exciting.” --Okay...was she expecting him to wolf-whistle or something? He seems genuinely concerned for her health. pg 2: “You said I wouldn't see anything exciting, but your shirt has a cross section of the Millenium Falcon on it.” --Mi, making a valiant effort to rescue the mood... pg 2: “Is that really the most exciting thing about my chest?” --Except she shot down any chance of making this interaction flirty several times. M is feeling very inconsistent in this chapter. pg 3: "The rules and balance that prevented that war" --this is a LOT to drop into an aside after Mi makes an offhand joke. pg 3: "She didn't risk a headache..." --run on sentence. pg 3: "shoulder brushed against..." --All these little skin touches make me think the story is heading toward sexytimes, but M seemed very unsure if Mi just a few pages ago. pg 4: “A few minutes you ago..." --okay, glad it's not just me that's confused. pg 4: "not caring if he thought it was suggestive. How people reacted to her enjoying food was their problem, not hers." --Aaaand we're back to not sexytimes at all. I am confused by this whole exchange. pg 5: "She scooted closer" --is flirting on or off? I'm confused. pg 5: "reached forward and wiped a drop of melted ice cream off of her chin and slowly licked it off of his finger" --what now?? What about permission? What about not wanting skin contact? M just grins. From what came before, I'd expect her to scold his ear off. pg 5: "major panic attack" --I did not get this from him at all. pg 6: "M pulled their hands to her face and brushed his knuckles against unscraped parts of her face." --very raised eyebrow... pg 6: "She’d asked him once, and he said the former names of his species were deadnames." --1) I assume she's talking about her father, though it's not stated, and 2) deadnames seems a bit far from what I'm reading. They adopted human names, but they didn't throw away what the names meant before. They would still be a valid description, even if no one knows them. pg 6: "her heart raced" --more very mixed signals here. They're practically making out, so I would assume her heart rate is elevated because of that. But it seems like this is in reaction to Mi getting out his invention, which makes it seem like M is seducing him to get to his secrets, which I know is not the case. pg 7: "If her light ever went completely out, she was dead." --would this apply to everyone, then? Except most humans can't spend their aura to heal others? pg 7: "What did the things it recorded this weekend looked like" --M is pressing very hard for information. It still reads more as seduction to get Mi's secrets, but I don't think that's what is intended. pg 8: "part of her wanted to run to T who she’d never dream of telling" --hmm...nope. I don't think she'd think of T when she's in this situation. pg 8: "Would I have seen you?" --Really? I didn't get the feeling he was this close to figuring it out. pg 9: "She cupped his jaw with her hand" --Did he ever set any personal boundaries? In any case, M seems to have trampled over what she laid out at the beginning of the chapter. pg 10: "hadn’t been sure why her dad had decided to throw this particular game console in her bag...The boxing gloves...she realized he hadn’t picked a side." --Was all this in a previous chapter? Probably WRS, but I don't remember. pg 11: "she might have kicked him out right away and gone down to T’s" --but...why? She's having a nice night with...at least from what I can tell. What would make her run off? All M's motivations seem to go in the opposite direction to her actions.

Also cheating as I've read ahead... I have similar concerns to @Robinski on this one. I think the first couple pages are all getting ready to go to work and explaining specifics, but not really anything the reader needs to know. "If you can’t keep the magic charged" - Also had an issue with this. We haven't heard anything about charging magic before now, or even that it's capable of running out. A few sentences of worldbuilding in an earlier chapter could shore this up. "Every moment in the palace added guilt to her shoulders." - Isn't this the same palace as the last regime? I'd argue that just being in the palace wouldn't trigger those thoughts, but associating with the people there. "King T had surrendered without a fight..." - I know you've said you're changing this, but the whole paragraph here really turns the motivations on their head. Not only have we heard part of this story before, it also makes the previous king sound so bad that I start wondering if the citizens wouldn't be relieved to have a new one. "The cowardly, greedy king had been hated, to be sure, but nothing compared to the imperialistic, haughty B.K." - especially this part. We aren't given any reason why an imperialistic king (not technically a negative connotation...) is worse than a cowardly, greedy one (definitely negative connotation). I'm also still confused about how animals are treated vs. sentient beings, and even how it's possible to tell. Are there animals that are never sentient? Is this something everyone knows? Are there cases of mistaken identity? I think this is one of those things that starts digging a hole in the worldbuilding the more questions are asked. Either hard lines need to be defined early on, or the topic avoided so the reader doesn't start wondering about these things. However, my biggest problem with this chapter is that we are shown what I's new job entails and how she's seeking out spies, but nothing ever comes of it (for several chapters, again, reading ahead...). She's been on this for four days, and the only difference is nicknames. I can think of multiple reasons why someone might have a different name than they list, from fleeing a bad family, to being a reformed criminal, to having an identity/gender change, to having an actual false name with intent to cheat the system, even if they aren't intending to be a spy. I'd think surely they find someone while checking so many people. Agree. Also with her very reasonable guess at the B.K.'s eye color. Hoping to read (farther) ahead soon!

Thanks @Robinski! Yep, several times in book 2 and at least in one chapter in this book, maybe two. Probably WRS since it was spread out over so long. The last fight between the Elg and LC, in the last Re chapter. I'll clarify. Of changing shape. Also can clarify. Yep--good catch. Wrong word. Yep. It was the big reveal at the beginning of book 2, so a while ago. Yeah, this was added in recently. I'll adjust this. The only ones he knows of are the ones he's been living with while with the LC, and E/I, so I'd say probably yes. Wasn't ever sure about this part. This was mostly from stories of friends who had a bone badly broken and passed out. I thought it was probably realistic, but not sure if it works in the narrative. Or might be able to keep it in but take out the section break. (In fact, I think I might have been intending to switch to E/I POV here and didn't, in which case I can definitely take it out.) Heh...that's what happens when I try to be clever... As in, not as something to attack. Can clarify. Hmm...what particularly is unclear? N is deciding to work with the others... Noted. Will try to ramp things up. Thanks for the LBLs!

We're into the end of things now! The first chapter is right about 4120 words, and the second is 7100...Of course this week I didn't take anything out. SUB 35 Chapter 24. Everyone is here to take down the Elg. Everything will be fine. Let me know if it works (And sorry for the length on this one.) Previously: S/E/I arrive in the other facet with their news of the Elg. The Eff and court are there, E has problems with trust, and E/I learn about their folks. The Eff faints shortly thereafter. E battles the voices inside her as they travel to the Ari, and attacks S. In the Ari enclave, I struggles with his image, we learn of the Ari, and E and I use each other's houses for the first time. M arrives with the society to the Imp and is attacked by Elg. People die and M finds himself with more and more responsibility as they attempt to figure out what's going on. They learn the Eff is also killed, and M makes clever use of a portal to save his life. Ri and co arrive on HD's homeworld, gather themselves, then engage the Elg in the Imp. They barely escape, and find out where other refugees have gone. S/E/I learn more about the Ari and find there's only one hammock in the bedroom. They all attempt to pass through the wall, but are stopped by the Elg. S devises a new plan and they try again, with disastrous results. M leads his posse on a hunt, without success, and meets up with R and her posse. Many connections are made. E lives as an Elg for a few days and learns how they work. She also wins over the voices inside. I, meanwhile, dons the diadem and learns the history of the Eff. E/I appear in front of the rest of the cast and fill them in on everything. O gets some long overdue recognition and the whole crew starts planning to fight back. Back with S, he learns about the HoT and what comes next. Then it's off to Re to see how he's working with/against the Ari. M works with E/I on their connection, Talks to O, and E/I figure out their next steps. Then O talks with the hive and R with the Gr. E/I visit Vae, still in her coma, and speak with the Ari leaders. S works out how the HoT works.

We're into the end of things now! The first chapter is right about 4120 words, and the second is 7100...Of course this week I didn't take anything out. SUB 34 Chapter 23. How is Re getting on with N? Let me know what you think. Previously: S/E/I arrive in the other facet with their news of the Elg. The Eff and court are there, E has problems with trust, and E/I learn about their folks. The Eff faints shortly thereafter. E battles the voices inside her as they travel to the Ari, and attacks S. In the Ari enclave, I struggles with his image, we learn of the Ari, and E and I use each other's houses for the first time. M arrives with the society to the Imp and is attacked by Elg. People die and M finds himself with more and more responsibility as they attempt to figure out what's going on. They learn the Eff is also killed, and M makes clever use of a portal to save his life. Ri and co arrive on HD's homeworld, gather themselves, then engage the Elg in the Imp. They barely escape, and find out where other refugees have gone. S/E/I learn more about the Ari and find there's only one hammock in the bedroom. They all attempt to pass through the wall, but are stopped by the Elg. S devises a new plan and they try again, with disastrous results. M leads his posse on a hunt, without success, and meets up with R and her posse. Many connections are made. E lives as an Elg for a few days and learns how they work. She also wins over the voices inside. I, meanwhile, dons the diadem and learns the history of the Eff. E/I appear in front of the rest of the cast and fill them in on everything. O gets some long overdue recognition and the whole crew starts planning to fight back. Back with S, he learns about the HoT and what comes next. Then it's off to Re to see how he's working with/against the Ari. M works with E/I on their connection, Talks to O, and E/I figure out their next steps. Then O talks with the hive and R with the Gr. E/I visit Vae, still in her coma, and speak with the Ari leaders. S works out how the HoT works.

Watching now. Hey! I know the words to one of those songs very well! As if they were written down or something. ;-)

Thanks @Robinski! Cool! Yep two for tomorrow and then the big finish the week after that! A lot of this got adjusted in the last chapter. The ring is not in the artifact control box they found, and he played around with HoT. I may run the revised versions by you offline just to make sure everything makes sense... Ha! Yeah, I think this section needs some fiddling. Cool! Playing the long game... Interesting. I'll go back and look at this. Glad this works! Some others were as well. I was trying to use more creative license than actual terms, but go back to tighten it up. The other two WW didn't know about. I'll adjust. Yeah, I don't think this fits, looking back. Yep--that's all next week! Thanks again!

Can do. I edited my comment too. I'm not overly concerned about people finding this, but probably for the best.

Thanks @Robinski! I don't read the comments before I read the submission, but I do read all of them before I post what I wrote, in case others have concerns I didn't see the first time around. You got it, so I think this is WRS Yep. Can bump this up. I was hoping this showed that E had some control over them now. However with the other comments on her for this chapter I think I need to go over her relationship with them at the end of the book and tweak. Hmm. Good point, and you do also mention that this takes two days. I was trying to give the impression more of difficulty in length to find the memories, rather than actually finding them. After all, they were stored in the diadem, so I would think just accessing them is not that difficult with respect to finding the right one. I'll take another look at this. I'll also look at this and see if I can add a hesitation, but I'm also more in the "wrap things up" phase than "it doesn't work" phase. I do think you're right that there can be a little more in the way of stakes, but I don't want to drag this up either. I'll see if I can add some small moments of hesitation, rather than large ones. Thanks!

Heh, well, as long as you're enjoying it! I haven't, but that's an interesting idea. Although that might be something to explore in later books, too. I think this came from some Star Trek episode where the doctor says they still haven't cured headaches. Cool. I thought this was a good wrap up for getting to the end of the trilogy. Cool! Let me get the changes in for next week and I can send it to you. That's good! I'm glad people seem to be enjoying the ending.

Thanks @shatteredsmooth! Okay, might need to dial the voices back a bit here, or give E a more satisfying control over them.

I got it--thank you! I'll be looking at your comments as I revise for next week!

Thanks!

Looks like @shatteredsmooth, @Snakenaps, and @aeromancer all wanted to go on June 8? If I submit the next two chapters, that would round out the roster, so let me know of any problems. Ch 23 is currently 4020 words and Ch 24 is 6990, which comes up to about 11000. However, I've been consistently cutting words from each chapter, so here's hoping I'll get that under 10k and not add more... After this, just the last chapter which is about 9100 words, and an epilogue of 3650 words. Thanks so much for everyone helping out with speed reading/feedback on this!

Thanks @CherishLarain. Hopefully it's since there's been a few weeks since you last read that. I'll get feedback from the last set of beta readers, just to make sure.

Thanks @Snakenaps! Something I don't think I've show well this book is that S keeps making permanent changes... I'm assuming the Nether knows what to provide... Huh. Cool (says my writer brain). Also, sorry! Lol. I'm liking this line more and more. Glad this got a good reaction! Nice...glad I can help! Hm. Yes. Will reiterate the objective. Ha! One of my friends used that as a plot device in an RPG we were playing once! Maybe that's where the idea came from. Definitely. I'll look back at this to clear it up. Lol. Everyone poops! I figured this was a good time for a callback to the first book, since things are wrapping up... Cool. Glad this one is working. Your comments are a delight as always. Thanks!

Thanks @Snakenaps! Hm. I'll go back and take a look at this. Lol. I'l adjust. Yep,because of the diadem. Glad this came across! Yeah, this was...hard to write. Questions for a later book! Lol Also lol

Thanks, @Sarah B, @kais, and @CherishLarain! Arg. Thanks for catching these. Glad this worked! Lol. I guess I'll take that as a win! Most of the 1000 words I chopped out of this was MORE theory and pondering, so...yeah. Cool. Glad I can finally hit some emotions on the first time through! Usually this is stuff I have to add on the next pass, but I think this close to the end, even I can see the emotions enough to add them in ;-) Yeah, I went back to this a couple times and almost changed it to something less harsh, but ended up keeping it. I think it fits well with WW. So it sounds like this works. I was trying to avoid overload with all the new stuff and focus on that parts that mattered more.

Thanks to @kais, @Sarah B, and @CherishLarain! Yay emotion! Heh...things have been going so fast there wasn't a lot of chance before now. Lol. I've found, writing these two books, that I seem to be reasonable at writing body horror. Not sure if that's a good thing or what... Good catch. I'll look back at that and see if I can add more emphasis. I'll look back at this. I meant more like imperfections in ice. No problem! Thanks for taking the time! So, I'm wondering how much I've addressed this and if I need to add some more on it. I was sort of regarding the "voices" arc as, maybe not concluded, but at a standstill after E took control before leaving the Imp. They're still there and still cause problems, but E has a handle on them, and has I to lean on. Are you all expecting more resolution for this? More conflict?