Concrit for Plutonianshores

[plutonianshores]

I want to receive feedback by: Dreamwidth comment on this post, Dreamwidth PM, or email (plutonianshores27@gmail.com)

Here are the works I want feedback on: Anything on my AO3 page, although I'd like to highlight (Leave You All) Severed if you're interested in reading medium-length Critical Role noncon/whump

My works' fandoms and content notes are: I write mostly explicit fic and a good deal of noncon, although I have a few G-T rated fics as well. Fandoms:
Critical Role (Web Series) (12)
Les Misérables - All Media Types (8)
The Magnus Archives (Podcast) (5)
Original Work (3)
The Terror (TV 2018) (3)
The Alienist (TV) (2)
Wooden Overcoats (Podcast) (2)
The Magnificent Seven (2016) (2)
Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater (2)
Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo (1)
IT (Movies - Muschietti) (1)
Les Misérables - Victor Hugo (1)
The Haunting of Hill House (TV 2018) (1)
Goblin Market - Christina Rossetti (1)
1917 (Movie 2019) (1)
Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies) (1)
Dublin Murders (TV) (1)
The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner (1)

I have these questions for readers: Do the fics feel fleshed out enough, or too short? Are there any weak spots you notice? Do they end too abruptly? But really any feedback would be great

The style of feedback I prefer to receive is: blunt, but I'm flexible

Comments to this post will be: Unscreened

Comments

[yelp]

Hello! I just read and enjoyed (Leave You All) Severed! Because this is a concrit exchange, I have tried to find a few suggestions to give you. Caveat: I'm not very knowledgeable about the canon (I don't remember if I ever finished the Briarwoods arc, and if I did, it was a long while ago), but the characters seemed relatively familiar to me.

First of all, going into the story, I expected we'd have to go through some grim torture scenes to get to the rescue, and was pleasantly surprised that we jumped straight to the rescue, as it seemed like a good place to start, narratively. I thought the story did a nice job conveying the extent of what had been done to Percy by having us find out at the same time as his friends. Percy's attitude was believable (frustrated, fearful, but "Don't you dare pity me"), as were those of the rest of the group, and Cassandra. It was interesting to see him grapple with his new state, as well as his anger at having missed out on killing the Briarwoods himself. The scene with the finger-setting was very grim and painful, both for the physical aspect and for how his friends had to decide who would take the gruesome task. It was almost difficult to read!

I was a little surprised that Percy was well enough to storm around the castle immediately upon being freed from his chains, beat corpses, etc. I think it was admirable that his first thought was to rescue Cassandra, but it surprised me to see so much energy in him! I'm not saying it's unrealistic, it just went against the mental picture I was building up to that point, of his current state. I wonder if it would be helpful to mention e.g. the pain/stiffness of his injuries, fatigue, stumbling into walls, etc. Or it might have been interesting to hear that he was operating on a burst of adrenaline, and see it fade at some point. 

Percy made it out of the dungeon and ran straight into someone waiting at the top of the stairs. After a moment of panic, he recognized them – Cassandra. He wrapped her into a hug, and after a moment of hesitation, she laughed and hugged him back.
I have a few small and subjective suggestions about this paragraph. Since it follows right after Percy thinking about finding Cassandra, it wasn't a huge surprise to find out that it was, after all, her. For that reason, I wonder if the sentences leading up to her identity feel a bit roundabout. Also, I couldn't tell much from this exchange how he felt on seeing her, beyond relief. It may be something that would be clear if I was more recent on the canon, but I wondered if this was his first time seeing her since childhood? Or if they'd seen each other during his captivity? Did he know she was well and free, or did he fear she was being tortured too? I think those would affect his reaction on seeing her, and could have added more flavor to the scene if described.

He spun his gun around and slid it against his hip, aiming for the holster the Briarwoods had taken from him soon after they took the gun itself. It left a smear of gore across his trousers, but they were ruined anyway. Then he caught sight of a similar smear of red on Vex’s armor. He gestured to it, doing his best to look apologetic.

Vex looked down and laughed. "Oh, don’t feel bad about that, darling. We’ve both had worse than a bit of Sylas on us after a battle."
I loved this exchange! I loved the detail of being used to having a holster there, and the detail of the blood, and Vex's little quip. 

The limits of his communication closed in on him, and he felt like he was suffocating on everything he couldn’t say.
I also really loved him waking from the nightmare only to find he can't even explain to his party that there wasn't a physical threat. The sudden reality of what's been done to him, how it's going to mar the rest of his life, is heart-wrenching, understandable, and also a nice insight that we're getting into how he's feeling. I think these two bits were my favorite details of the whole fic! Such a nice look into his psyche, details both unexpected and totally believable.

He talked the kitchen into sending him up meals, and after the first few awkward silences, the servants learned not to talk to him.
The first "talked" here - I'm sure he communicated through notes, but I found it a little jarring, given... well...

Holding up a slate that said boo at Scanlan’s bad jokes was even more satisfying than reproaching him verbally, and everyone worked out a system of reading his replies to Grog when relevant.
Ha! I loved this, and I also love the idea that he's going to learn sign language! 

Percy climbed onto the bed at her prompting, careful to keep his hands from touching anything. He waited until he heard the click of a key in the lock and footsteps down the hallway before he laid down and started to cry.
Oh my goodness, watching Percy walk into what we know to be a trap, seeing his fingers get broken, that was so devastating! 

I felt a little disconnected from Percy here. I know that having your fingers broken must hurt!! and be terrifying, especially to a craftsman/gunslinger! but there's no mention of this. We only know how he's feeling in the fact that he started to cry (and what we imagine ourselves). It's a valid narrative distance to choose, setting us outside his head and not giving us access to his emotions. But since we earlier got such a close look at his anger at losing out on the kill, I felt a bit adrift here, almost like I watched someone get his fingers broken and he didn't react at all.

Cassandra's flat reaction to seeing him is so chilling. I really like how you've written her in this story, she seems like she's doing the best she can after a horrific captivity, and she still shows a strength of character that I appreciate. 

Percy picked up his fork, forcing a smile as he did so. Damned if he’d let them see him cry.
I think this part was meant to show how painfully torturous it was to do so with broken fingers, especially when the narration later mentioned stifled screams, but similar to earlier, I was surprised that the narration didn't mention it at all. I actually found myself wondering if it was even possible to pick up a fork with your fingers broken, and was a little distracted by that line of questioning.

The moments with Cassandra and Percy talking through the walls were so sweet and sad! And made even more unsettling when it became clear the Briarwoods had full awareness, and even MORE terrible when later on it meant that Percy could hear what was being done to Cassandra.

OMG the scene when they cut off Percy's tongue!!!!! AHHHH!!! Even knowing he's missing a tongue in present day, I was shocked and stunned at the casual cruelty and escalation. The physical fact of it was well described. Not to keep belaboring the point, but once again, I was surprised not to get more pain and terror in the narration. Cassandra's reaction, shooting Percy an "apologetic glance", also felt surprisingly mild for what she had just witnessed. I understand that she's been inured to the Briarwoods after all this time, but I'd still imagine she'd be horrified to witness her brother's tongue being cut off! If you want to show her unable to react, it could also be directly called out in the narrative, like "Throughout it all, Cassandra was chillingly impassive..."

Percy couldn’t breathe. He heard the click of the gun over and over, and pictured dying naked with his hand on his prick and his brains spread across the Briarwoods’ bed.
Holy crap!!! This whole scene was so dark, and I felt these lines were especially well-written. I thought the use of Percy's gun was a genius touch, as was that cruel game they played here. I didn't feel the disconnect here that I mentioned earlier, I felt like I had a good sense of Percy's frustrations and anger and fear throughout the scene. 

As he tried to calm his breathing, he had the absurd thought that Delilah ought to have cleaned his gun. If she put it away covered with spunk, it would rust, and it would be a bitch to polish.
I liked this too, this inappropriate worry about the detail about his gun upkeep felt like a great character detail and even a little humorous after such a grim scene. I now finally understand Percy's idle thought on finding the gun earlier in the bedroom. 

I thought the reactions of Vox Machina also felt believable, both helpless and outraged. 

Overall, I thought the story was well-written, creative, and heartbreaking. I really loved a few of the insights you gave us into Percy's emotional state, such as waking up from a nightmare and feeling helpless and frustrated to not be able to explain to his party. I would have loved to see more like that, especially during the most horrific moments, when it felt most surprisingly not to hear a reaction from him. I appreciated how far you were willing to go to portray the Briarwoods' cruelty, it felt totally realistic to what I remember of them in the podcast. I think you've done a wonderful job writing the other characters as well, and their supportiveness helped to give the whole thing an optimistic ending. Thanks for sharing the story, and hope some of my feedback is helpful to you!

[kanadka]

(nb: I read your three Original Works fics, this Guardians of the Galaxy historical/serial killer AU, and (Leave You All) Severed!)

Speaking generally, what I noticed over this small subset of your works is that you have an excellent handle on the optimisation of the salient point behind a fic versus word length in that fic - what I mean is, the exchange fics are not significantly above the min word length (also just to be clear this would never be a problem either way!!) and yet they're very satisfying and deliver exactly what they're intended to promise, wrt the exchange in question or the freeform tag (e.g., the GOTG fic solidly delivers on the chilling feel and that horror twist; the Original Works match the requested tag and lean into the kink they imply). This shows you have a real talent for bulls-eyeing exactly what was asked for, and building around that as a theme, and being uncannily precise about it. This is a fantastic talent, to be so efficient and streamlined - it might also be that I noticed it because speaking personally I find this so difficult to do myself. I see this with the Original Works fics best of all, where you make optimum use of the hook and the intro paragraph to set enough of the stage to then progress, as in 'Passion and Propriety':

Meg had never been so frightened in her life as the day her carriage dropped her off at Beckwith Manor. She knew that she’d have to marry well (her father’s gambling had created that necessity long ago), and that her chances of finding an eligible man while living at her parents’ country estate were next to nothing. But she’d never met Aunt Clara in her life, and as a young lady, Meg was certain she’d prove rather disappointing. Even her best dresses were patched and mended, and she knew nothing of societal mores. She could barely dance the simplest of waltzes, much less the complicated steps that she knew were all the rage in the capital these days. Her aunt would most likely take one look at her and send her back home.

This is extremely efficient exposition. You've already told us enough of Meg and her personality, as well as her immediate goals, her anxieties, and why they're justified. This paragraph, plus the tag, tells a reader exactly how it's going to go. There are also some excellent details in this fic I really loved that help lean into the tag, like Clara's boisterous insistence to help dress Meg (even though Clara is wealthy enough to afford a maid just for Meg, Clara argues You’ll be so much more comfortable with your own aunt than a maidservant you’ve never met before - even though Meg has also never met Clara before this, and you take this opportunity to reinforce that, oh yeah, Clara is her aunt, which again, this is the point of the tag and the exchange!), or the fact that she just - straight up cops a feel :'D That was a great detail. Again, this piece isn't very long, but there's so much of both Meg and Clara's personalities that manage to show through.

Similarly, we get to know the two main characters immediately within the first few paragraphs of 'After A Prize To-Night' (especially Tom... and I wonder whether that's the same Meg as Passion and Propriety :'D) as well as 'A Prince and his Hound'. The scenarios you select here are more straightforward (a one-and-done scene) but you give enough establishing background to show the relevance and build some background as a foundation. There's not an effusive amount of details here in that background, but there also doesn't need to be, and you consistently strike the right amount of balance.

--

Some things I think you could stand to improve, should you wish, which could help make your fic really stand out (but would add some words here and there, so there is that frugality tradeoff):

• pacing, for use of drama and also action sequences. This would help flesh out the fic and add more detail where it's needed - there is the additional benefit of making a paragraph that describes a longer time period, in-fic, seem more drawn out (which helps to match it better when reading)
  
• the details are a little thin in places you might expand them a little more. This kind of goes hand-in-hand with the pacing, and I suspect attention to detail on one will help build the other so it's a two-fer, solution-wise; but perhaps it might be more helpful to look at this problem from the other angle, so I bring it up here. Another concritter above has mentioned a disconnect with certain actions - I think this could help ward against that, and really ground the moment using a bit of creative paragraph and sentence spacing.

I alas had to read (Leave You All) Severed canon-blind, but despite not being at all familiar with Critical Role, there were still elements of it I absolutely adored. (I'm such a huge fan of iibb as an event and I'm always so, so delighted to see people really get that chance to lean into what they want without the added criteria of matching an exchange recip's freeforms or likes, or avoiding their DNWs.)

There are moments here where I feel the pacing really works:

"Percy!" Vex shouted. "He’s dead."

Percy didn’t stop, couldn’t stop. This was his vengeance, stolen from him. This was the man who had done unspeakable things to his family, and to him, and he needed something to let out the anger that was threatening to tear him apart.

Vex grabbed at his arm. Percy whirled around, the gun’s grip smashing into her side in the process.

Here, you (correctly!) have chosen shorter sentences, which help for action sequences and to convey Percy's sudden and abrupt segue into rage.

The paragraph that immediately precedes this passage, however, I might argue has elements that are too long and could be spaced out to show the storm Percy becomes - less of a slow build, more of a sudden rush of anger and emotion he can't properly tamp down on:

The gun clicked. No ammunition – it was unloaded, he’d known it was unloaded. Percy grabbed hold of the barrel and drove the grip into Sylas’s head, again and again, until he heard the crack of bone and Sylas began to turn to jelly under his blows.

Instead, I might offer as one possible suggestion:

The gun clicked. No ammunition – it was unloaded, he’d known it was unloaded. Percy grabbed hold of the barrel and drove the grip into Sylas’s head.

And, because it felt good, he did it again. And again.

And again, until he heard the crack of bone and Sylas began to turn to jelly under his blows.

Spacing it out with a paragraph helps show the turn from 'I'm just going to get one hit in for my own vengeance' to 'I'm in rage mode now'. Each of those 'and again' now punctuates his actions a little better and gives the sense of the reader 'hearing' the blows as Percy follows through, where reading it as a single sentence seems to create more distance and disconnect - action happens as Percy slips into violence, but we're further away from it, and it takes a closer read to engage with it, imagine the separate blows. (Ofc that distance and disconnect has its own value too; for example, if Percy is not the violent type and committing an act of violence might cause him to want to put that mental distance there in the first place. But from the way the passage goes, and from the events described in the next chapter, he seems as though he's hotheaded enough to remain mindful during an attack, and allow his rage to really properly storm out a bit.) Just one example of how you might pace it out a little more, there's ofc many different possible ways!!

More detail could also help in this bit:

Percy scrambled for the List, only for Delilah to slam her foot down on his fingers. The sole of her shoe bit into his skin (she must have been expecting him, if she’d worn shoes to bed.) Percy tried to pull away and she ground down. He could feel the bones of his fingers snap.

He tried to reach out with his left hand, but Delilah caught his wrist with her other foot, then deliberately stomped on that hand as well. Percy screamed. When she lifted her foot, he scrambled away, hands drawn up to his chest.

Here, Percy appears to have felt his fingers breaking but there's no mention of pain until 'Percy screamed' all the way into next paragraph. And that isn't technically Percy in pain but rather an indirect measure of it. In fact, we don't have much information on Percy's anguish, whether physical or emotional, about this interaction. Pacing out the action better might help leave room to bring in those thoughts and reactions and internal narration, instead of just the external reactions; for one thing, the previous chapter gives us the context that this is a flashback so we're in Percy's head. So we already might expect some more detail on exactly how overwhelming the pain is, and that might feed forward into why his attempts to fight back are unsuccessful.

I also think Percy screamed is a bit too blunt here, I would have appreciated more detail; perhaps, e.g., 'Percy screamed, and out of some reflex he cringed in his agony, trying to tug his hand back. To no avail. Delilah's foot held fast.' Dragging this out with a little more detail gives you a chance too to space out the action a little more, as the reader needs a tidge more time to read it (but with short sentences, the eye will still dance through the text at a breakneck pace). Now, Delilah seems to present slightly more of a threat, so Percy's ultimate failure makes some sense. It also makes it look a little less like he's just going along with it and giving up too easily - she really has to intimidate him into submission.

Percy wanted to scream, but the sound was trapped in his throat. He wanted to fight, but his arms were locked in place. Sylas pressed the knife down, and Percy’s mouth filled with blood.

Delilah’s spell released its grip, and Percy fell to the ground, choking on blood.

Again, there is not a lot of information about the sensation. (I grant that it may not be part of the particular iddy mood you were going for, though!) Still, it seems so mechanical that I wonder how present Percy really is in the moment. There's some information about how helpless he is, but not about how helpless he feels, so we have to deduce or speculate his emotions indirectly, based on this evidence. Now, that might sound obvious - I mean you literally just wrote how he was imprisoned, so why the need to write about how he feels as a person who is imprisoned :'D - but in my reading experience, what never fails to grab me are the sentences that establish what's happening in the characters' heads, especially when that's peppered through sentences of what's happening to the characters. Anything that's too focused on what's happening in terms of action and not enough of emotion, or vice versa too much on the emotion and not enough of the action, feels unbalanced.

"Now," said Delilah, "we’re going to play a game. You need to bring yourself to orgasm before I can, or I’ll pull the trigger. Sylas?"

This whole gunplay scene though?! Damn. DAMN!! Everything about this was SO well-done!! There's much less distance here, and a lot more visceral, awful, emotion. Percy's very much there and more mindful now - no doubt to his horror:

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to drift away into fantasy, and could have cried with joy when he felt pleasure build up in his gut.

Now we have some more clear textual clues to Percy's state and emotions, and it's really perfect.

To further improve this scene, you could also pace out the details of the actual trigger-pull and aftermath, though tbh Percy's distance here might also be well-used as its own tactic, as this false execution would be harrowing enough to emotionally detach him just out of self-preservation alone. In fact, that's how I wound up interpreting it in the context of sentences like these:

Percy couldn’t breathe. He heard the click of the gun over and over, and pictured dying naked with his hand on his prick and his brains spread across the Briarwoods’ bed.

and these:

As he tried to calm his breathing, he had the absurd thought that Delilah ought to have cleaned his gun. If she put it away covered with spunk, it would rust, and it would be a bitch to polish.

Genius. Just genius. Perfect humiliation and distress in the first. And in the second, omg buddy what a thing to worry about!! It really is absurd, but its absurdity is its own clue - these almost darkly comic out-of-wack priorities tell me he's really in a messed up space right now. A brilliant scene in a great darkfic.

[kanadka]

I, er, wrote too much and had to put this bit in a separate comment /o\

I also read and enjoyed your Guardians of the Galaxy work les belles dames sans merci, but thought that I'd put this one separate since it's a different category (non-original, but it's an AU, so sort of straddling both worlds). AUs generally make me want to see how the characters we know might change under this different set of circumstances, but because of that, one thing (at least for me anyway) that really helps to keep constant, if at all possible, is their voices. I would expect, therefore, that Nebula's mostly herself-sounding wrt the movies: pragmatic, matter-of-fact, unemotional, not really humourous, stiff and almost formal, with very little slang. It was a bit jarring to find her using the Western-esque slang: "Our father’s here too, but he’s real sick. Like as not you won’t see him." This is totally appropriate for Jesse, but I would probably want Gamora and Nebula to feel closer to their canon voices in order to make this sound less like it's any two characters (or, alternatively, have some reason why Nebula has to speak like this - keeping under cover, maybe?). Similarly, I think use of 'Father' instead of 'Daddy' might've been more accurate.

That said, I loved the reveal that actually, Thanos is dead, and these two have been Bates Motel'ing it up all along :'D That was a nicely done reveal, and there's information seeded throughout that explains it nicely but is red herringed away. (e.g., His nose wrinkled, but he hid his reaction well. Nebula knew full well that the odor of their house wasn’t the most pleasant. Farming was dirty work, pig farming even more so., and also, “And we take good care of our pigs,” Gamora added. “Make sure they have a good diet.” oh, I'm sure!)

Also, I genuinely love the vibes of competition between Gamora and Nebula, which is preserved from their characterisation in the films and helps to keep that connection to them. Thanos doesn't even appear as a character but he's still between them in so many ways and Nebula deeply resents it, both in that competitive sibling way, and also in that possessive of a lover way.

--

Anyway, that was a lot of blather - I'm not as economical as you are D: but I hope that some of this feedback has been useful to you. I realise some of it was mostly just my two cents as a reader here, and I'm also not sure what the original exchange prompts were, or what iddy mood you were trying to strike in the first place, so you may want to take this concrit for what it's worth - failing to have that context, it may not be worth much :'D

But I also want to say, thanks so much for the great reads - I really enjoyed them!! Especially the CR fic - even though I didn't have any context for that one, I thought it was overall really well done, and many of those lines will haunt me :D (in a great way, of course!)

[pendrecarc]

Hi! I read Che l'uomo il suo destin fugge di raro, your Gertrude/Agnes fic.

I really loved this! Gertrude is my favorite to begin with, and Agnes is so interesting with so much story suggested but not actually on tape. This was such a great exploration of their not-quite-relationship. You’ve done really fantastic things thematically.

In the first letter, that idea that Agnes would be able to experience fire as a human would for the first time only through that connection to Gertrude—that’s so cool, and it hints ahead at other things she can only feel through that connection. Really well observed. The phrase “I’m not human, not in the ways that matter” was also great and very evocative.

I hadn’t considered that connection between Gertrude’s propensity for blowing things up and Agnes’ affinity for fire. Regardless of whether Agnes is actually the source of that, it makes such perfect sense that she would think she is and that she would respond to it with excitement, even suggestingg it might be a gift from the power she serves. Yet I love, love that she goes on immediately after to say “do whatever you can to keep your independence”. She’s so torn between the power she serves and the things she has given up—or rather had taken from her—in that service.

That idea of the two of them as foils to one another, both in service to a power and both with a destiny, but Gertrude having chosen hers (mostly) clear-eyed every step of the way, and Agnes having hers foisted upon her, is really keenly observed! Again, I’m not sure canon calls that out, but you’ve done such a great job illustrating it. And it makes that “As much as my destiny chafes, it is mine” hit really hard. That whole paragraph, actually—“I know you wouldn’t do the same for me”, ouch!

And the whole concept of sex through dreams is so hot, with Agnes’ conviction that Gertrude knows she’s being watched and is performing as a result, and, again, that idea that there are sensations she can only experience through her connection to Gertrude.

In terms of things that could be improved, I think an eagle eye to remove even a single unnecessary word from some sentences might make this punch even harder. For example:

“There’s a loss of something indescribable that comes along when proximity to a power becomes service to that power, a loss I wouldn’t see you endure.”

Might be even stronger as this, or something similar:

“There’s an indescribable loss when proximity to a power becomes service to that power, a loss I wouldn’t see you endure.”

And there are some places where a little more variety in sentence rhythm might read better. For example, the paragraph beginning “You have a destiny, like me” is almost entirely made up of sentences with two fairly short phrases separated by a comma. Even removing the comma in a few places—for example, “What was it like to choose?”—might make the rhythm more interesting.

A few typo/grammar things:

In the first full paragraph, “I didn’t know it at the tie” should be “time”.

“So cautiously, as they always were” doesn’t quite work, since you wouldn’t say “they were cautiously”.

“Gertrude Robinson I wanted to find you” should have a vocative comma after Gertrude Robinson.

But in terms of the specific questions you asked, I think the length of this is perfect for the concepts you were working with. As a character exploration, this worked really well for me! Beautifully done.