Silk

You may! Any other takers for tomorrow?

“...D was not a standard A.” Oh, this line is so much more effective with the additional description. P3: “… when the conduit brushed his exposed left arm…” Pronoun slip here – both pronouns in this sentence. And another near the top of p4: “D laid his left palm…” Also p4 “Which saying wasn’t much” – “wasn’t saying much,” I suspect. “What about the Z? Did it get in?” If it’s that dangerous, surely they would have some way to visually or technologically monitor the environment for whatever contaminant was causing the concern? And, especially if the answer to the above is no, I still don’t know why D does not appear to be wearing any PPE whatsoever, against either the superchilled fluids they’re working with OR dangerous biological agents. There’s definitely a greater sense of urgency than there was in the previous draft, but it still doesn’t read as too far out of the ordinary, and definitely not the kind of immediate emergency that would suggest that it’s appropriate to disregard stuff like PPE. To be fair, I do get the sense that D maybe has some implants that protect them against the cold to some degree? Not so much the plague, though. Also, immediately following the above on the bottom of pg4, pronouns again: “D checked over his hands…” p5, “Protocol requires full hazard gear…” The time to be raising this would have been before D entered the facility. Also surprised that there doesn’t seem to be any decontamination process as D leaves the area. Overall: this draft was a big improvement over the last! It felt like it started at the right time this time, and I had a more solid footing in terms of the worldbuilding, the description of the various characters, and so forth. The encounter between D and F also felt much more like an altercation than straight setup (my current understanding is that the general needs D to action their plan, which is why the plan hasn’t, in fact, been actioned yet). We still haven’t seen what I’d call an inciting incident yet, since things still don’t seem to have changed (the general’s sabotage does not actually seem to be news to D or increase their sense of urgency) but this feels like a much stronger opening. I’m still shaky on the direction of the actual plot, especially on the connection between the A tanks and why PS is needed to lead the A out of this plague, why the general thinks sabotaging their way out of a plague is a feasible solution, why PS is being framed as a big bad. I think I understand some of D’s reticence in that the activation of the PS would wipe out independent thought among the A (D being a possible exception?) but it feels like there is more to it than that. Of course I don’t expect to know everything in the first chapter, but PS seems to be like the node that’s drawing the rest of these disparate threads (the plague, the cure, the A, the sabotage) together and it’s the plot thread I understand the least. As far as description of the space itself goes, the description of D’s immediate surroundings was much better, but the space as a whole is still mostly a blank slate. I have no idea what kind of facility we’re in or what the scale of it is. Finally: I’d also second the comments that we know basically nothing about D themselves, as far as goals/desires/what actually drives them, which if anything is even more important with a character who is not particularly likeable. Also, quick note for @ima willshaper: There was one reference where you forgot to edit out a full name in your post so I made a quick edit to abbreviate it.

This is going to be a hard balance to strike because the situation is serious, but D's nature is to be flippant about risk. Something to work on for sure. I wondered if this was the case. Is there a nervous twitch or thought D can have? Something they'd rather not think about? I don't think you actually need much - just a couple subtle hints to cue the reader that something is Up, rather than having D seem totally cavalier. I think having D kitted out properly to whatever job they're meant to be doing would also help. Yep, and I don't hate them or feel so far that it's necessarily a chore to spend time with them, so all good. I think I noted the switch happening around p3 and don't recall noticing many/any pronoun slips after that so hopefully that helps narrow it down!

Looks we have @sniperfrog, @ginger_reckoning and @Sarah B up for tomorrow. Quick reminder as we have a number of folks who've joined recently to keep your submissions to the upper limit of 5k. This will be especially important as it looks like we're heading into another busy period; critiques suffer when the volume becomes overwhelming!

Whoops. You're welcome.

Overall: Definitely some good stuff here! I certainly have the sense that the world is well fleshed out, although I don’t always feel like I quite have the information to follow along with the information that we’re getting, and I’m definitely intrigued by the potential hive mind thing and the way our friend in the tank is being floated as a potential solution to… something. I’m really not sure on what the something is, though, as I really don’t see how a hive mind solves a plague, so a little more information here might be warranted. I wasn’t quite clear on the sense of urgency I should be feeling. The information we’re getting about the situation the characters are in, especially TD, suggests that they’re facing some pretty immediate and implacable threats, but I didn’t get that sense from from the POV characters, both of whom seemed to treat everything that was happening as fairly matter-of-fact. I’m also curious as to why the narrative starts where it did. It’s certainly good setup with some sense of the stakes, but nothing in this chapter seems to have actually changed. As I go: Top of p2: “He backed away from…” having a hard time who is doing what here; it reads like the guard taking the actions, but I think it’s actually TD. If TD knew he was going to be fixing a system that would expose him to superchilled fluids, why didn’t he wear something that afforded him adequate protection? A couple pages in, I f eel like I’ve gotten a reasonably good sense of TD’s character, but I’m not particularly sympathetic towards him. “...spew liquid turned gas that was lethal…” and again I wonder, if it’s so lethal to the S, then why isn’t there some sort of containment system or protocol (not necessarily technological) to handle it? Having the guard in the room if this stuff is so deadly to them seems ill-advised. At some point on page 3, TD’s pronouns seem to have shifted from he/him to they/them. “If D had a spine…” Another paragraph where I’m having difficulty picturing what’s going on. What is D doing that they might have broken a spine? And if D doesn’t have a spine, I guess they aren’t human? “Well, we don’t die today.” So D was in danger from this malfunction as well? I hadn’t gotten a huge since of urgency from D so far. “...before any of that mess could fall on them.” Hah. Fair! P4 I think this is the first indication we’ve had of sabotage. Would be good to see this a little sooner, or to have the scene start closer to this revelation; the scene was starting to drag by the time I reached this point. P4 “...the one silicon based in the alliance?” Slicone-based species? Missing word here. “T was a political type.” At this point, I like the way you’re slipping in minor details about the world, but at this point, I’m starting to feel a little lost with it. The details are great but I don’t have enough to hang them on. Is “political type” a subspecies? An occupation? Bottom of pg 8: “There are more ways to die that from…” should be “than” P10 “there just wasn’t any president” …precedent?

Hmm. I actually think you've gone some way to address this in the newer version of the chapter by adding more description just in general; in this version, the fact that A was described as dark while the other characters didn't have much description at all in this version would make it easy to assume that the remaining characters are white (which unfortunately is going to be the default assumption of a lot of readers anyway). Aside from that, I think what makes this scene potentially problematic is that Al, the one character who clearly isn't white, is identified as such by the rest of the characters discussing that she's obviously Not From Around Here (which can be exoticizing/othering). I think the other thing I'd suggest is that when you get to the second chapter, make sure that D is as clearly described as the other characters so that it's as clear that she's white as it's clear the others are not.

I think this is mostly an artifact of the revisions, but there are a couple of things that are essentially said twice over the first few pages – that they were ambushed, that the dust storm means Teles. Minor but noticeable. So… we’re supposed to be shipping Am and F, right? P5 “If I didn’t…” Seems like the narrative is about to drop something important here before conveniently having Am notice something else. Not sure it’s a bad thing, per se, but it is noticeable. Bottom of p6: “his features were a sharper…” delete the “a” The revisions to chapter 1 are definitely an improvement: I was more engaged, I felt like I had a better handle on how serious the situation was, and the characters, especially Am, seemed less like kids. Ch2, p1 “...having grown up in the Iy desert… traditional desert garb.” Another example of information that gets repeated. Am thinks of his brother by name in the previous chapter, where it’s mentioned a couple of times that he’s from the Iy, and now it’s repeated here as well. “A large field of widely interspersed stones…” Ooh, I’m getting Western Australian Pinnacles vibes here. “...so what else could it be?” Clearly the answer is “dinosaur.” S has spent t he last couple of pages going on about how deadly these birds(/dinosaurs) are, but he seems remarkably unconcerned that this one is apparently on to him. P3 “They were chosen by the…” capital T at the start of this clause should be lower case. “…that would ruin the whole point, after all” Wait, what IS the whole point? I thought he was hunting, even if he’s using magic to throw rocks instead of his hands. P7 “What was up with her?” This reads like typical banter to me. If she’s acting differently than usual, it would be helpful, I think, to have S pick up on something like a difference in body language, or tone of voice, or something similar. It’s always helpful to have cues like that before we’re explicitly told that something is wrong or different, IMO. I’m not sure S has straight-up answered a single question during this interaction with D. She seems to let him get away with an awful lot. It’s not clear to me how upset she is with S, but she certainly seems to get over it and turn into the supportive girlfriend really quickly. Much like the previous chapters, I feel like there’s some good stuff here, but it takes too long to get to it. The hook here is really the reveal that D and S are preparing to run away, and the stuff that happens up to that point seems to be mostly incidental. I’d prefer to see the chapter start with them making their preparations and grounding us a little more in the stakes (even just the emotional stakes – we get some hint of this as S thinks of both his father’s sons leaving home, but t hat’s it). I’d also agree with those who have suggested that they’d like to see a continuation of previous chapters before starting with this one. Getting too many introductions at once can sometimes slow the narrative even when things are happening.

My username on the Nano site is Raethe, and anyone is welcome to add me, but no guarantees I'll participate.

I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the sense of urgency I should be feeling for these characters in this chapter. The actual information we’re getting seems to suggest they’re in bad shape, because they’re lost in the desert hauling an injured person (and seem to be really light on supplies?) but the tone suggests that they’re just taking a short jaunt through the desert on a particularly hot day. Similarly, it’s not all that clear from the tone that the injured party is in imminent danger. I wasn’t sure until halfway down p3, when Am mentions the need to find a doctor, what the extent of this person’s injury was. I’m also wondering how long they’ve been out here. If it’s been a while, they should probably be in much worse shape than they seem to be here; if it hasn’t been, I’m wondering how they got so lost. “Unit 304…” Oh, so they’re a military unit? I definitely did not have that impression – the only other hint of that so far was the earlier paragraph about uniforms. The way they interact with each other seems pretty loose, not what I would expect from a military unit, and they (Am in particular) read as fairly young. Honestly, until the comment about the uniforms I’d assumed they were wandering teenagers who’d gotten into a brawl or something. Having read the chapter through, I find myself wondering why this isn’t the prologue. This reads like it’s setting our protag up with the abilities he’ll need to face whatever the inciting incident is in the next chapter. I think @Mandamon is spot-on about cutting down some of the introductory stuff at the beginning – the banter between the group draws out how long it takes to get to the actual point of interest (the cave) significantly, and the humour isn’t strong enough to carry the narrative that far. All it really needs to do, I think, is to establish Am’s sense of humour. I’d also agree with most of the group that knowing who Al isn’t necessary. Really what this chapter is telling us is how Am gets the abilities that (I assume) he’ll manifest in later chapters. All of the other information that we’ve received from the prologue really doesn’t contribute to our understanding; all three POV characters are (as far as we know) dead, and the cultural context has clearly changed between now and then… which means we will need a greater understanding of the current cultural understanding and what lead up to it in future chapters anyway. I’d definitely second @Sarah B's comment that Am felt like a rehash of J from the prologue, as well as @kais's comments about needing more description of the people. Their comments re: skin colour and the way that’s presented are excellent to take into consideration too (i.e. try to avoid only describing skin colours, etc for characters that aren’t supposed to be read as white, as this makes those characters stick out as “different” solely due to the colour of their skin).

Seconded. This makes a huge difference. In related news, it looks like we have @ginger_reckoning and @Sarah B up for Monday.

Considering it, but it will depend on how quickly I can get some other projects done...

Looks like we have @Snakenaps and @ginger_reckoning for Monday. Three slots left if anyone wants one.

P1 minor, but “…ruin everything” seems a bit overly dramatic about a somewhat disheveled outfit, and A doesn’t strike me as someone generally prone to dramatics. P3… “[the protestors] took no violent action.” Saying it outright like this suggests to me that A was expecting violence, or at least prepared for the possibility. This reveal of info we didn’t have in the first draft is a good start. Still not totally sure I’m sympathetic to these characters; the description of attempting to “crush” protests, in particular, sounds violent. Which is fine if that’s the effect you want, of course, but if not, maybe a less aggressive word like “quash” would do as well? P4 did you mention J’s surname twice in the previous draft? I don’t remember it coming up more than once, but either way, you probably don’t need to have it said twice in the first few pages. I realize that J is young, but given that the protests have been going on for a while and are a fairly Big Deal, would he really have absolutely no idea what they were about? “He was already twenty-three—ancient” – snort. Gotta admit, I’m totally with G on this let’s-find-you-a-girlfriend thing. Tell the little brat to knock it off P6 “G gave him a very odd look.” Yeah, I’m still coming down on the side of probably not sympathizing with these characters very much. P7 “GP stood by with his hands behind his back.” He’s not even going to pretend to be surprised? “…as they were technically alive…” Not something I’d want to see in this chapter, certainly, but I’m curious as to what technical definition these characters are using of life, since neither “reanimated” nor “automaton” is particularly suggestive of “alive” to me. I still think there are opportunities to tighten up the writing where there’s a tendency to repeat the same information in a few different ways, often very close together. For example in the middle of P10, G says “A is struggling for some reason…” and then in the next paragraph J spends three sentences thinking about, effectively, how weird it is that she seems to be struggling. This is after we’ve already gotten the same information from A’s POV in a way that is much more explicit than what we saw in the previous draft. You could probably trim this from several sentences to just one or two. GP was inside, right? Why can J still see him if he’s now gone outside? Conversely, why do A and G not seem to see whatever GP is doing? “Without GP—who had secretly been the leader…” I would have assumed from his speech at the party (and lack of reaction from the crowd to what would have been a revelation) that this was well-known. This ending works better for me than ending on the explosion did. Overall: This draft is definitely much improved from the first! I had a better sense of the overall context in which things were happening and was a little more engaged. I still had some trouble buying all the way in, I think because I’m not totally sure that I should be, or that I want to as a reader, sympathize with the POV characters. The narrative seems to be presenting them as benevolent dictators who are legitimately doing their best, but the characters themselves say things that make me wonder if they’re really the good guys. The other thing that’s still pinging me a bit is J’s voice, which hasn’t quite settled for me. I think it’s because the narrative really relies on him asking questions to establish his POV as young/curious and it’s not quite enough to carry the character voice for me. Obviously, it’s going to be some time before we see him again and he might be much different by then, but he’s one of the first characters that we meet and he gets the lion’s share of the prologue so I do think it matters.

So we have @ginger_reckoning for tomorrow - any other takers?

It was very noticeable when I saw it written out, and then I promptly forgot about it so I'm going with "no." He definitely set off my spidey senses!

Overall: The prose is pretty solid (though once you’re ready I’d suggest a pass for some tightening as I think there’s some opportunity there) and we have a fairly solid sense of the characters. As for your questions: I had no problems with the POV switch. I do think that J’s voice, in particular, needs a little bit of finessing, which I touched on a bit below. It was clear that J was being controlled by some power beyond himself, but I wasn’t sure if that was Ch or the spell the general was casting. I would say that your concern about taking too long to get to the inciting incident is on the money, and by the time we do get there I still don’t really have a good sense of why it matters—they’re attempting to overthrow a government that I’m not really sure I’m supposed to sympathize with, for reasons that I don’t understand. For this fight to really matter, I think we need to know that the sides are and their stakes in it, other than that the POV characters are currently in charge and will maybe go to prison if they loose. Is this a divine right of magic users situation? Are they being tyrannical about it? Is there a reason other than personal gain they want to keep their positions? What about the other side: what do they hope to gain by ousting the current government? As I go: P1 JK’s name sounds way too much like “curmudgeon” and I’m trying really hard not to judge him for it, but I can’t help it! P1 The phrase “full-grown man” strikes me as a little odd. So… this world’s governing body of magic-users allows eleven-year old children voting and decision-making power? I think we’re taking a little too long to introduce the world and the characters as opposed to the conflict. At the top of page 3, the only real conflict we have so far that G doesn’t want to go to a party… but we still don’t know what this party is or why it’s important. We do have the information that A carries a lot of responsibility, but we don’t know what she’s using it for or what she’s struggling against. By this point I think we should be getting a better sense of the stakes. Okay, just after I made this comment I read the next couple paragraphs about something dangerous. That helps, but we still don’t know what it is. Random monster attack? Rioters? I’m also wondering how real this threat actually is. It could cause an evacuation, but A is willing to bring apprentices, one of whom is 11 years old, and not tell them about the threat, and worries more about polite words and politics. I think the section with J’s POV needs a little finessing to really establish the voice. Right now it’s leaning heavily on signifiers like “bounced” (which comes up several times) and italics and feels like it hasn’t quite settled yet. The conversation between G and J on p7 – so obviously there is some context that I’m missing here, and this early in the story I wouldn’t necessarily have it all, but my first thought is that “establishing a new government” doesn’t necessarily mean throwing the old government in prison. That this is the first place G’s mind goes makes me wonder what these characters have actually been doing with their positions of power. That, especially along with G’s comment about not knowing how to run a country properly, has kind of tanked the sympathy I felt for these characters. Also p7, the general’s speech – I’m coming back to the fact that our understanding of the stakes and the conflicts is still pretty bare, and this speech seems like a good opportunity for some exposition, but the POV character isn’t paying attention because he’s bored. It feels like the narrative is withholding information unnecessarily. P8, as J is thinking about the magic systems: This is the first time I’ve realized that “A...o” is not a person. “...the screaming, glowing child was better than nothing.” Hah. “Luckily, his connection to C gave him some protection…” what about all the people that he was supposed to be evacuating? Did they ever make it outside? We don’t actually see them leaving, we just see J leading them in the direction of the door before backtracking to confront the bad guys, and I’m assuming it would take some time for all those people to file out. And a little later you reference the crowd shying away from him, so it definitely seems to me that they’ve not all made it out. Bottom of pg 11 “where all adult parties” should be “were’ Back on page 12, J is trying to get people outside again – but now he’s trying to go through a grate. Are they still in the building? Did he follow them outside and if so why are they trapped by a grate? P12 – the dude in the white cape. This dude is totally thanking J because J somehow did things exactly according to the Evil Plan, right? Agree. Yeah, the outcome of the fight was not in doubt. When the evacuation bit started, I thought maybe there was going to be a bit describing how these characters' powers could easily be used for violence but not other things, but then the evacuation itself didn't seem very difficult either. Agree. It felt like a major purpose of the chapter was to showcase all the uses of the magic system, but as a reader I'm not really looking for a demo; I'm looking for characters and stakes to hang the magic on. I mean, it's fine to have figures whose pronouns are fluid, but as @kais has noted, using "fathers" or any other gendered word is not going to accurately be able to convey these beings as genderless. And if the pattern was that delicate, standing openly in the middle of a crowded, chaotic room to do it seems like a poor plan to actually accomplish your goal, since there's no telling whether the chaos will land on you even if it's supposed to be focused elsewhere. I mean, the society that we live in tends that way as a rule, but if you're building a world you can build it however you want. If their religious icons are genderless, then having an idea of how that shapes their language and their thinking could potentially be a powerful tool for grounding readers in the world of the story. Definitely. This was one of the things I was thinking of when I commented about tightening up.

Opening line works very well! Second line, not so much. I stumbled on it, I think due to all the ancillary verbs. Not normally something I would harp on but after the first line, I really wanted to just be dragged all the way into the story. P3 “a way’s away” just “a ways” I’m getting mixed messages about how dangerous it is to go off alone. The initial narrative makes it seem like this journey is incredibly dangerous, then D takes S and leaves O alone for an hour (I mean, bathing is important, but still), O yells at S when she gets more than 10 paces ahead but later nobody stops her when she wanders off into the woods by herself… p4 “...able to rile up D…” I mean, I get it, but this makes O seem like a bit of a jerk. p “...and it never saw fit to grow” nice description here. P 7/8 Was surprised to find D apparently standing outside the house during this encounter. I had thought that she had gone in with O and S. P10 “...less than a w eek to forget what D sounded like” well that’s properly horrifying, in a terribly mundane way. Nice detail here. Uhh why did the kid get the gun? P15: “two blink’s” should be “two blinks’ pass...” p16 “...lumber towards the gate.” Isn’t S already through the gate by this point? My assumption would be that this thing can’t pass through, since the implication is that S herself must be let through, and therefore no longer poses a threat to S on the other side, which unfortunately diminishes somewhat the major sacrifice O makes to, apparently, stop it from getting to her. Overall, I didn’t have much in the way of comments. The prose is really solid and the pacing appropriate. I’ll second that I didn’t feel a lot of sympathy for O or D, but I also didn’t feel like this was needed for the piece to work. No dialogue can be a pretty tricky proposition to sustain over (almost) an entire piece, but it was well-done here, and created a feeling of distance from the narrative that I thought worked really well. Nice work.

Unless this is indicative of more political meddling, or maybe N altering the message to suit his weirdo desires, I’m having a really hard time swallowing the idea of a government being lauded for blowing up a building. I thought “q...k” was an odd word to use in the context of this election polling update, so I’m glad Q picks up on it right away. And I like that we have a hint of what might be coming with N leaving coded messages. I’m not sure the political subplot is wrapped up quite satisfyingly, since I don’t think we ever quite understood the stakes beyond the fact that somebody wanted to win an election for Reasons, and now they have. P4 “convivial with a bullet” not sure why this is italicized? Does E have the background to work in law enforcement? I’m fuzzy around how the whole US deputizing process works, admittedly, but this is stretching credulity for me. It is most certainly not how things would go down in the current RCMP. Relatedly, and I know I’m harping on this, sorry, but it’s been what, less than a month since the events in Gen went down? That is an awfully quick investigation to clear Q and M of the rap sheets they’ve accumulated, and most likely police would press charges first and drop them later. Plus, what about the charges that weren’t cleared? “We’ll just buy her a new plane” probably satisfies the person making the complaint, but it doesn’t necessarily make the criminal charge go away. Unless law enforcement has shifted drastically towards restorative justice in the year of 2099. “After a short battle with deductive reasoning…” I love the line, but it seems more in keeping with Q’s voice than M’s. M would be likely to be much more direct, I would think. “Now, give our friend W a tinkle…” Oh M. Never change. P9 “it’s loud, gruff” should be “its” Oh yeah… Ei. This seems a little understated. In light of M’s (entirely reasonable) comments that getting a new android wouldn’t be the same, I do like that we’ve made this a new character and not another incarnation of Ei. But, this doesn’t seem to be a surprise meant for Q as much as M getting a gift for herself. Those last few lines. My heart. Yeah, I'd echo this too. The suggestion of having N hijack Ei's body could be a gut-punch and potentially a fun idea, but that's more for a future book than this one... I believe there was a line somewhere earlier in the narrative that suggested this, or at least this reader is convinced that I encountered it somewhere, so personally I had no trouble with this. Yes to both of these comments. I'm agnostic on the "why do they work" question. Q certainly seems like the type to want to keep working, but they have been through some really traumatic stuff. the thought of just retiring doesn't cross their minds? At all? I suppose that money is properly M's, but still. Would it be silly for me to congratulate you on finishing the draft months after the fact?

It looks like we have @ginger_reckoning and @JWerner up for this week.

I'm not late, you're late! Ahem. Really didn't have much in the way of "as you go" comments this time (and I'm guessing most everyone else has probably caught them and you've made those edits already), except that E seems to be doing awfully well for someone who has found a girlfriend in not-very-good shape and just watched a friend die. I thought the payoff was pretty good, but I'm a little conflicted about not seeing TOM appear at all. He, along with Mor, was a huge boogeyman at the beginning of the book so to not have him mentioned here at all seems a bit weird. I'm okay with not getting a final showdown with Mor, since we got a pretty good boogeyman in replacement, but not getting something with EITHER of them is maybe a bit off-putting. Similarly - and maybe this is something that is mentioned in the remaining chapters so I won't spend much time on it here - but the election plot has not been remotely resolved. The last few chapters have had a much narrower scope, understandably so, but it would be good to understand how those two things tie together. Also, to be honest... I know you hang a lantern on it here, but Q and M probably should have been arrested the moment somebody decided they didn't need to go to the hospital, or barring that, as soon as someone figures out who they are. Love final lines, though! Can't say I was expecting this per se, but if you wanted to make a bit more of N's death here, you could potentially show a little paranoia: Q half-expecting to get locked into the building, that kind of thing. That's kind of the opposite of "victory" and "punch the bad guy" though but we definitely need a little more emotional impact around this. Yes to both of these. Yeah kinda wondered about that too. I think T was in pretty rough shape at the time and can therefore kind of write this off, but I agree that it was emotionally pretty understated.

As I read: I like the opening. This is a very evocative description of M's mental distress. Wait, how did Mi manage to track M down? Okay, a few pages later Mi says he looked at her phone before she ran off, but maybe WRS, when would he have had the chance to actually do that? P7 I get that M is feeling pretty awful and why, and I think “slime” is an evocative description, but while the repetition was effective at first by p7 I’m definitely getting tired of seeing it. Bottom of p8, “told someone named Maxwekk…” those should probably be lls? I know spellheck is gonna catch this, I really just wanted an excuse to write MAXWEKK As I read, it occurs to me that M’s father came to her once before after she was hurt. I realise this isn’t a physical injury, but still, she’s in enough distress that I’m starting to wonder why he doesn’t again. Questions! I think it’s pretty clear that M is Not Okay. Not sure that I see this as pulling away from Mi though. For one thing she’s not really choosing Mi over A and T – he’s showed up to help her this time – and the chapter is still bookended with M's interactions with Mi. I do think that this is one of the chapters where M’s actual attraction is clearest, but the fact that this comes after a major trauma and while M is so messed up also detracts from that. Which doesn’t mean the scene is bad, but I think given the context it’s not enough to support her attraction to A and T on its own. If we got this feeling sooner and more often I think I would read this scene differently. Plus, it seems pretty normal to be worried about A & T after the last chapter. I didn't find the chapter difficult to understand, but it definitely felt like Mi (at the very least) appeared by magic. A and T a bit too but they were in a crowded setting already so it didn't stick out as much. M and Mi ARE pretty forthcoming with each other in this chapter and neither of them really question it (I know M's not thinking straight, but still). If they were a little more reluctant to share with each other, maybe that would create some tension between them that might also make the Love Rhombus (tm) a little more palatable? I was a bit miffed with Mi on this front as well, tbh. Like, if M freaked out when he suggested it, maayyybe. Asking nicely while also agreeing that she can hardly stand up? Not so much. It does, and I was a bit surprised to see it, never had the impression that T had much interaction or a particularly high opinion of Mi. Yes! I meant to mention this one! Yes, very much this. Edit: If you want it to feel a bit more like M is choosing A and T over Mi, you could have A and T and Mi both insisting they'll take her home, and M deciding to go with A & T instead of Mi?

Congratulations @killersquid!

As I go: “...She’d gone as far as blurting out the truth…” I really think we need to see this scene (as well as some of the exclusion M is experiencing from A and T before this, probably well before). It’s objectively a pretty dumb idea, and hard to swallow when we only get a single summary line. I could much more easily believe that M is making stupid, emotionally driven decisions if we actually see the scene and the emotion that drives her to do it. Plus, I wonder about the fallout of that scene. Surely it’s not just as simple as A and T thinking M is being “sarcastic” and not including M in the “cuddling”? If they’re angry enough to exclude her from that, are they angry enough to, say, leave the room when she walks in? Might they instead, or also, be worried that M is ill? That she is hiding something more serious from them that they should be concerned about? Etc. Also, it still feels like Mi is getting some of the most important moments, and M trusting A and T to reveal something intimate to them could be a good counterweight to all of the emphasis Mi is getting. Ahem. Moving on. So… is M still mad at Mi after storming out in a huff the other day? Because that little tiff doesn’t seem to have affected their relationship at all. P7: “So were some men.” Ha! The dinner with Mi is nice but I wonder if it would even out the love triangle/square thing a little more if we saw A and T interrupting some discussion that wasn’t just companionable silence. P7 “Taking the subway would take too long…” Maybe WRS but does M still have her car? Top of p12: “In the background, M noticed two other people approaching…” Are in the background of the livestream, or in the background in M’s actual location? P15: This scene of M “downloading” memories etc is cool, but how on earth does she have this much time? 200% Not gonna lie, I had the same reaction. I might be somewhat biased, though. I don't think you need to take out the sexy chapter. It might not be a bad idea to have them get mad at M for ditching in one of the earlier instances, though. They've been pretty forgiving of her so far. For sure. This was the only thing that deflated the tension of the chapter, for me. If the narrative needs A and T to be okay for a few more chapters, can we at least get some sort of plausible bluff out of the demon? Yes. Yeah and if we only saw the very beginning of that, it would still be pretty alarming, and then we see the demon acting and being thwarted, rather than just deciding not to for some reason.

As I go: P1: This may be because I didn’t read the prologue (sorry!) but I don’t understand what r-mail is. Later in the sub it becomes apparent that it’s a fantasy product, but at first I thought it was just a typo. “They were all peacocks…” I like this description. P2 It’s kind of interesting that Ata is apparently entirely willing to have this conversation in the open, in front of a bunch of people. I guess that it’s not very secret or controversial. But since we have those other people nominally in the scene, it might be interesting to see their reactions to give us a sense of how this mission, artifact, etc, fit into the context of the world. Why does H keep saying “ward”? P3: “Waitress” strikes me as something of an anachronistic word. I don’t think that’s necessarily a huge deal on general principle, but the style of the chapter so far seems to be leaning fairly heavily into the slightly older language that some fantasy stories use, so it is noticeable here. Why is Ata giving this young man a drink instead of the waitress doing it? P4: “He killed his mother…” this line of dialogue feels a little as-you-know-Bob. This might be a little too particular, but I think it’s often hard to get qualifying information into dialogue without invoking that feeling. I could see “his mother” OR “the king’s aunt” being believable, but squeezing both in there is harder. Also, I was getting “did something reasonably scandalous” level of contempt for Ata, not “matricide.” I think this comes back to not having a very good sense of what the other people in this scene are doing. Next scene. At coming onto the scene just as he happens to hear a scream feels a little coincidental, especially since At then happens to be rescued in more or less the same way as he was attempting to rescue E. I can buy Ath having followed Ata, though I’m not remotely clear on why, but having it happen twice in the same scene is a bit much for me. Since E apparently works for Ata, you could perhaps alter the scene to have him discover them in their place of work, or whatever, rather than hearing someone scream in the street that just happens to be someone he knows. P8 “… Ata moved to stand between him and E.” Why? Wasn’t that the whole point of getting someone to help? “…who grinned and nodded…” I’m confused as to why grinning, nodding, and whistling is appropriate here? For someone who was fairly insistent on talking to Ath, he now seems fairly intent on paying more attention to his transcription than the person he wants to question. Overall: Generally speaking, I wanted a little more sense of the emotional word of the POV characters. There are some instances where this comes across very well, but it’s usually in specific lines like a piece of dialogue; otherwise, even when discussing what seems like something that should colour the characters’ opinions of what they’re doing, the narrative feels very matter-of-fact. The other major thing I wanted was more of a sense of what the characters around the POV character were doing. Generally the narrative felt very focused in on the POV and whoever the POV happened to be talking to at the moment, and the world around the people “in focus” felt mostly non-existent.