Silk

Thank you! I have an accepted offer, but early stages in the process so could still fall through If it doesn't work out, I'm quite comfortable where I am, but I'd regret not trying so here we are.

Go for it! That's two for today. Thanks! I'm all good. There's been some family medical stuff in the background that's been keeping me busy, but all seems to be going well. Also I uhh might be buying a house?!

Please do! I know I keep saying this, but I'm really hoping to get caught up soon. There has been so much going on!

Sounds good!

Sorry both! I've been fending off a nasty cold and lost all sense of what day it was. I know it's a bit late, that's on me, please go ahead!

Good to go!

Go ahead!

Sorry, just seeing this now! If you can still get it out today please go ahead. And welcome back!

Sounds good @Ace of Hearts and @ginger_reckoning!

Welcome back! Tomorrow's fine. With K. Preston, @ginger_reckoning and @Ace of Hearts that's three for tomorrow.

Sounds good!

For sure, go ahead!

@Ace of Hearts and @ginger_reckoning for March 3!

No apology needed! I'm guessing we're not going to have a sudden influx of people wanting to submit next Monday, so you should be good to go.

Please go ahead!

Haha, noted! It comes with a slew of content warnings and is easily the most bizarre thing I've written to date... I'll send it out once I've had a chance to breathe lol.

@Ace of Hearts @ginger_reckoning you're both good to go! I recently drafted what's easily the most bizarre story I've ever written, maybe I'll toss it this way eventually, once I'm caught up.

Sorry for the late reply! Please go ahead.

Sorry, only just saw this, but go for it!

Go ahead! Hopefully I will get caught up this week.

Sorry, just seeing this. Go ahead!

Sounds good!

Lol at the chapter title P2 “I can only grow up when I’m away from the city” - first reaction: “Ooh, I like this!” Second reaction: “Um, how do they deal with babies?” P3 I assumed from J’s first line of dialogue that he was from the city and probably even who A was here to see, but his questions about curses suggest that’s not the case after all… P5 “…have experience hunting S.” Speaking of which, where did it get to during this conversation? “I’m sure they’ll be willing to tell us at length” lol P6 “…but to save on time” Not sure why F has changed their mind on this? They made the remark about this being time-sensitive, which to be fair I don’t think we the audience knew, but presumably F did? P8 “It’s nauseating” lol S’s immunity to spells being a potential giveaway is interesting, but that thread seems to have been dropped. P10 “…and barely doing anything to help” having trouble suspending my disbelief on this one, since S has basically been a remorseless monster through this whole narrative P12 “if you were S, where would you go?” Okay, this is a fun conversation. I also enjoy the last line of the sub. Overall: I was most engaged in the second scene of this submission, after getting into the room where the chorus makes its appearance. I especially enjoyed the conversation between S and WB, although S isn’t feeling very monstrous in this section. This comes back to my previous comments about not fully understanding who is being threatened by whom over the course of the story, but I do feel like I’m getting mixed messages about S—I get the impression that it feels helpless, but not necessarily that it feels threatened.

“charge back into the psychology room” I know he woke up there, but does he know for sure that that’s how he got to the labyrinth in the first place? In the first chapter he notes that he doesn’t remember. Reading through the date with K, I feel like there is a lot of “telling” that K is acting different/J had been acting different rather than “showing.” Which isn’t always a problem, but I feel rather distanced from the narrative as it plays out right here. I’m not really discovering anything, just being told how things are by the narrator. I’m also wondering why this supernatural labyrinth and doppleganger that can take over peoples’ minds is spending this much time trying to manipulate these two characters’ romance. Unless this is less an adventure story (my first thought) and more an introspective story? The plot so far has geared me to think of it more as a science fantasy adventure, but thematically it seems like you might be setting up something more introspective/metaphorical. P4 I do like that the narrator makes the decision to go to V right away! P5 “I was going to comfort her, but she didn’t seem hurt at all” this almost seems to imply that thre’s more than one doppleganger or that it can possess multiple people at once (but sometimes chooses not to?) Edit: the “so it was only after I escaped the labyrinth” on p6 seems to indicate pretty definitively that was not the case after all. I think it was the comments on p5 about her not being upset that J stood her up/still interested that made it sound like “supernatural personality change” stuff to me. P8 “What? I say.” Lol “I don’t know where this false confidence of mine came from…” hmm, interesting. P9 “They leap into the air and circle…” at first I thought that they’d actually been released intentionally by V or J. “This world seems to be shaped by our thoughts” – I’m startled that the characters seem to be learning this so quickly/easily Overall: I found the bits with V to be much more engaging than the bits with K, pretty much for the reasons I already mentioned. As mentioned, it also felt like V and J were learning the “rules” of the labyrinth very quickly—partially it just feels a little too easy, but structurally it makes me suspect that the bulk of the story is not about escaping/defeating/what have you the labyrinth but about what comes after that. This is definitely a lower learning curve than some of your other projects, I'd say! (Nothing wrong with either, of course.)

Please go ahead!