Concrit for Athaia

[athaia]

I want to receive feedback by : comment on my DW post in this community

Here are the works I want feedback on (optional: and my safe works are...): anything that's on my AO3 profile. That includes extracts of the longer works - for example, do the first chapters work as hooks, would you read on (if this was your fandom)? Of course, you can pick something from the middle, too.

I'm not interested in feedback on The Heart of All Things, as it's in a very different style from what I usually write.

My works' fandoms and content notes are: Mostly I write Gen, and most of my works are rated T. There are some M-rated fics, but I strive to tag everything that could raise concern, and I do pretty thorough summaries.

I have these questions for readers:

I'm aware that most people don't know my main fandom, so please approach it as if it was an original work, and let me know if the plot makes sense to you, if the characters feel relatable and believable, if their motivations are clear to you, if the pacing is appropriate, etc. Basically, let me know if anything makes you go "huh?", "meh," or "yeah, right! (as if!)"

But if you want to go more granular, by all means - the most interesting feedback is on the things I'm not even aware of. And for the sake of my ego, if you enjoyed something, let me know, too!

The style of feedback I prefer to receive is: Please be as matter-of-factly as possible. While gushing praise is nice, I'm not sad if that's not your style, but I don't think that any of us is qualified to give 'brutal advice' and will react a bit miffed if I perceive your crit descending from a soap box.

Also, please note that my attitude towards adverbs and semicolons doesn't follow American orthodoxy ;-) and while I will note your opinion about either, I probably won't change a thing about their use (or frequency).

Comments to this post will be: screened until July 31

Comments

Marooned On The Planet Of The Apes Ch1

[farla]

Or ch2 as AO3 sees it.

[bureaucrats had decided to put him on mankind’s first deep space mission with an all male crew, because apparently they didn’t trust the crew to stay professional.
Professional, my ass! Just ask a nurse what’s going on in any county hospital, and they aren’t holed up in a tiny spaceship for years! Besides, didn’t they get the memo that men can screw each other, too? Not that that’d help me...]

This reflexive "but not me" thing sounds weird on a three-person ship. If it's that people can be gay, it'd require the other 2/3 to be gay to matter, and if we're talking situational homosexuality then him acknowledging that's a thing but saying definitely not him when it's a years-long trip is odd, especially when it should also be a factor that if either of his crewmates would, he's likely going to get propositioned. This really seems like it'd make more sense if it was he wouldn't resort to screwing either of his crewmate options but that's a coincidence so he doesn't think the bureaucrats deserve credit. As it is, it's almost a non sequitur chain of reasoning: they didn't want people screwing, so they made sure it was all men, even though men can fuck each other except for how he would never so it worked. Or maybe if his point just focused on complaining about the professionalism, maybe tried elaborating on the point that he thinks if it's good enough for medical professionals letting off steam, the professional option should be to be sure to have a mixed sex group so they can do the same.

[Burke grabbed the rail that was running along the wall to keep himself from hitting his skull on the deckhead. His trail of thoughts had made him put too much force into his step.]

This makes for a nice character detail - he says he's not wearing the boots because they're annoying and it's not like he really needs them, only to nearly get himself hurt in a way that presumably wouldn't have been a risk in magnetic boots.

[Tonight, he’d try the gym. Tire himself out on the press bank, battle muscle atrophy in one go. Maybe even get an hour of sleep before his shift began. He just hoped that Jones had already done all that and was busy two decks below him in the engine room. The two of them hadn’t exactly started off on the right foot, and the cramped space of the Icarus provided no opportunity to cool off and get some perspective. If Jones was in there, he’d immediately notify the ship’s commander that their pilot wasn’t taking his prescribed amount of rest.
Shit.
For a moment, Burke debated finding something else to get him tired; Virdon wouldn’t be happy if he learned that he’d been fighting a losing battle against his insomnia for a week now without telling him. The colonel was a pretty easygoing guy, but that’d stop if he thought the mission was in danger. Which was as it should be, only he wasn’t endangering the mission. He just couldn’t sleep.]

I found this confusing/jarring. In the first paragraph, it sounds like he's aware Jones might be there and report him when he's making the decision, then suddenly Shit, like something new's happened like noticing Jones is in there. But it seems like the issue is the final line of the paragraph is something he just realized - the paragraph is him working out that Jones might be there, and if he's there it'll be an issue, and that oh, it could be that much of an issue. But in that case, it doesn't convey a progression of just now working this out, and the exclamation would make more sense directly in front of the realization.

["Your pranks weren’t funny from the beginning, Major," Jones snapped, "and they aren’t getting any funnier!"]

The first bit about Jones needling him a lot is obviously a pretty bad personality flaw for a long-term mission but something that feels like it could plausibly develop over time and not be obvious when they were picked, and similarly Burke not being able to ignore needling and also insulting Jones. But prank-pulling? And multiple pranks in a dangerous environment on someone who's said they hate it? Animosity after spending so much time together works, but an obvious, enormous personality problem that's been there from the beginning just makes everyone involved in keeping Burke on look incompetent.

I don't know the canon of this one - I'm assuming Burke is probably starting off with more everyman/jock-ish traits, because TV shows like that sort of conflict. But it's hard for me to believe they'd even have someone like this on the astronaut track, let alone getting picked for anything.

[Burke slowly turned on his axis as he followed him with his eyes. "It’s Bridge of Stars, and stop evading the question. You’ve been skipping your training almost since we broke orbit. If Virdon learns about your little unannounced field trips, you’ll have an interesting interview session."
Jones froze for a moment; then his lips thinned. "And I’m sure you’ll explain to him why you were wandering all over the ship during your sleep cycle, Major? Or did you fail to mention your little unannounced field trips, too?"]

So when I saw this, it seemed like this is a mutually-assured-destruction situation. He doesn't want Virdon to find out what he's doing, so he threatens Burke with the same.

Only...

["I regret this, Colonel, but I have to report that the medical condition of a crew member is potentially endangering the success of the mission... and/or the safety of the ship... yes, of course I’m talking about Major Burke... yes... thank you, Colonel." He closed the comm and turned towards Burke with a triumphant smile.
"Col. Virdon will meet you in sickbay after his shift has ended, to make sure you get a thorough physical examination." He sniffed. "I guess it’s you who’ll have that interesting interview session, Major. Have fun." He pushed past him. "Don’t forget to switch off the lights in here." With a last grin over his shoulder, he vanished into the corridor.
Well, fuck you. Burke didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or smash something. He eyed the darkened workstation. That was beautifully deflected, I’ll grant you that, Jonesy. ]

How does this stop Burke from ratting him out?

Burke found logs saying where Jones hadn't been, and then found more logs stating exactly where he had been instead. And then Jones acted even weirder. Yeah, Jones accused him first, but he can at least get them both under scrutiny by reporting Jones back, he has better and longer-running evidence, and he can give his side of the story which involves Jones trying to bargain with him rather than going to report him, which is only weirder when Jones hates him and should've loved to get him in as much trouble as possible.

This seems like it'd make a lot more sense without Burke finding that evidence, so the only real piece in his favor is Jones' behavior here which isn't that weird and Burke could be lying about anyway. Like, if instead of exercise being just the last of a the series of things he's been doing to deal with insomnia, he's been going extra times to the gym for a while and noticed it's weird Jones was never in there at the same time when he should've been scheduled for it. Or if he was just a more chummy guy and had also been trying to go over to Jones' room and noticed he also never seemed to be in there at times you'd expect. Something like that is quite understandably dismissed as paranoia, especially if Jones as the computer person actually was falsifying the logs so it's Burke's word he hasn't seen him at the time.

Instead, as far as I can tell, Burke has proof but just doesn't mention any of it.

["I’m taking care of it, Pete, leave that to me." The last thing he needed was open warfare between his pilot and his engineer. They had been locking horns even during training, and Virdon wondered yet again why ANSA had insisted on keeping Jones in the team.
Well, actually it had been Hasslein who had insisted on Jones, and him who had insisted on Burke. And here they were. Virdon suppressed a sigh. He couldn’t let the men’s personal animosity get out of hand. They had a long journey ahead of them.]

This really, really doesn't explain it, it just moves it from "Why did the people back home pick Burke?" to "Why did Virdon not only pick but insist on Burke?" We've seen one thing from Jones, that he's doing some sort of complicated computer/math/something that Burke can't even recognize, let alone do, and we get that immediately upon seeing him. On Burke's end, claims of pilot reflexes that's already a stretch to think matters in space, and really does seem like there's got to be at least one other guy with fewer personality flaws you could get, and if it actually is so important than the insomnia is a really huge deal and yet another way he's a bad pick for this. And instead of Virdon giving any sign of why he insisted it had to be Burke, it doesn't even seem like he likes or trusts Burke from how he's acting here.

And then on top of that, Burke has logs proving he was right and yet doesn't mention that, which is just baffling.

["I’m taking over, Major."
...
"Told ya, it’s Burke." He wasn’t going to address Jones with ‘mission specialist’ every time he was forced to acknowledge his presence, either. Especially since Jones insisted on it - predictably, the man had refused to adapt to their more relaxed interaction.
...
"Not your business, Jones."
...
"That’s mister Jones]

It's a lot ruder to move things from formal to informal than the other way around.

It's possible that maybe Jones did something first, but right now, there's more bad behavior from Burke, it's all worse behavior than Jones', and it's Burke instigating it.

Like, yeah, obviously Jones is up to something bad. But that's fun. Burke is unpleasant and annoying, and in a job where that should disqualify you right out the gate. I'd say this would work a lot better if there weren't statements that Burke has been being a dick to him this whole time but that their current level of mutual loathing is recent, and also if Jones did more on his end to be a dick than being snippy at someone he hates and referring to the guy by title. Similarly, something to reconcile the discovery getting kicked off by seeing logs yet those logs not being evidence.

[and mom had to come to see the principal]

So any time you're replacing a person's name with a title of some kind, like mom or dad, it gets capitalized like their name would be.

[ Sally sighed a laugh. "It’s not that show. I saw Hasslein on livestream yesterday, giving yet another interview. The man’s a narcissist."
He agreed with her about Hasslein, but there was no point in fanning her fears. "He’s a brilliant scientist. He made this mission possible, so he has bragging rights. And whatever his personal flaws, his machines don’t have them. He’s the one who’s most invested in the Icarus’ success. Heck, they even named the field generators after him."
"And when mankind sends its first colony ship, I bet he’ll insist that it’d be named ‘Hasslein’s Ark’," Sally scoffed. Virdon snorted. She had a point there. ]

So, a part of what makes Burke unpleasant is that he seems to have taken it upon himself to hassle the crew's nerd, and now we have a scientist working on what you go on to say is a mission of life or death to find habitable worlds before Earth craps out on humans getting called a narcissist for giving interviews about what sounds like a pretty damn important thing between inventing new machines left and right. That's not a narcissist. A narcissist would not have looked at the world and gone, Wow, the best way to ensure everyone pays attention to me is putting in massive amounts of work other people will largely take for granted.

Also, while it's not impossible one guy invented everything, a more congruent reason would be that Hasslein is more of an Elon Musk type. Collecting the work of a lot of talented people and trying to get the credit for yourself lends itself to a narcissist explanation more than someone who just did invent piles of stuff, and it's also more plausible than any one person just being so talented they can do everything.

["The suboxic zone off of California has again expanded," Sally whispered. "It’s happening much faster than we thought - the entire West Coast will be dead in less than two years. I spoke with Dr. Adesina - she thinks in another five years, we’ll see the same thing happening with the entire subarctic Pacific. The only remnants of marine life will be found in the cooler arctic seas, and perhaps in some areas in the middle of the Pacific, if we’re lucky."]

This seems clunky to me.

When talking about expanding dead zones, it's usually anoxic, since suboxic is defined as being between anoxic and oxic zones - presumably the suboxic is expending as the anoxic zone is, but it's the anoxic zone that's the underlying issue. It's also wonky to say the problem is in the West Cast rather than Pacific when the coastline itself is going to still be getting oxygen.

[in two years' time we might be faced with the biggest global famine in the history of mankind." Sally’s voice was brittle. "And we won’t have a colony by then. We won’t even have a colony ship. You’ll be just returning..."
"It won’t be too late," Virdon said, as much for her sake as for his own. "We’ll find a new home, and give the old lady time to recover." If Burke didn’t fly the ship into an asteroid, drunk from sleep deprivation... if Jones didn’t fiddle with the machines until his obsession with efficiency took them a step too far... if he didn’t let himself get infected with Burke’s paranoia. Virdon tried to shake off the bout of sudden panic. He couldn’t let their precious time end on such an apocalyptic note.
"How’s my little girl doing?" he asked.
"Keeping me awake half the night," Sally took up his light tone. "I guess by now we’re both eager to get this whole birthing thing underway."
"I wish I could be there," Virdon murmured. "You shouldn’t be alone, when..."
"My mom will be there, and your mom, and your dad... don’t worry, Alan, we’ll be fine."]

This is a really weird pivot. "I know it's depressing how we've run out of time and in a few years you'll have starved to death or been murdered by cannibals. But hey, you're about to bring a new person into this nightmare! How's that going?"

It seems like it'd make more sense for Virdon to be the scared pessimist here, having taken this job because he sees it as his family's only chance of survival even as he's eaten up over not being there with them as a result, while his wife is more hopeful. That'd also match their split on Hasslein, where he thinks the mission they're on is worth putting up with the guy. Or if you want Virdon as the main character to start off more hopeful for contrast in dealing with the future, I'd expect to see a lot more tension here, like maybe Virdon talked her into it at the time and now she's regretting it.

Marooned On The Planet Of The Apes Ch2

[farla]

[The doors on the Icarus opened by fingerprint recognition, but had also an electronic lock with an override option, in case someone had a heart attack in their private quarters. Only the ship's commander had that override code, actually, but it hadn't been that hard to crack.]

But there's only three of them. If one of them has a heart attack, there's a 1/3 chance it was Virdon.

It really seems like it should just open for anyone but use the fingerprint to log it and have it understood if you enter everyone will know, or else have it be lockable only from the outside, so no one can get locked in with a heart attack, and the override for that is the one only the commander's normally supposed to have.

[Burke allowed himself a slight smile when he discovered a tablet in the desk's drawer. Someone didn't want to share the goods with the internal network? People were too intent on privacy nowadays... He switched it on, connected it with the password cracker he had brought along, and continued searching the desk while the program did its work.]

It seems like it might've made more sense to have Burke be the general tech guy and engineer. Have the logs be tampered with, so there's evidence something's going on, but as Burke's the best able to tamper with them, it's still a he said/he said situation between him and Jones. Or even if the logs do point to Jones, Jones can just retort Burke falsified that.

Also, just... It reads really weirdly to have anyone who's supposed to be the good guy sneer at the very idea of privacy in our own world of that getting shredded to bits over the last couple decades by decidedly quite evil people.

["Gentlemen!"
To his relief, the shouting stopped. "Let's clear this up as quickly as possible - and it'll be easier if only one of you shouts at a time." He frowned at Jones. "You're in the middle of your shift - I hope you have a very good reason to have left your station, Mr. Jones."
"I had reason to be worried about the integrity of my privacy," Jones snapped, "and I was right about that!]

Now, I'm on Virdon's side about not leaving your post - but this is once again something we can see Burke instigated, and it seems like the best way to get Jones back to his post would've been to say that Virdon's here to deal with what Burke just did and Jones should go back to his post and let him, then dress him down for it later, instead of opening by telling them to both shut up as if it's a fight they're both to blame for getting into, then dressing down Jones. Narratively, the bulk of evidence I see is Burke starts the fights, but Virdon just says they butt heads as if they're equally at fault, and we also know that, for whatever reason, Burke is hand-picked by him and he says he's not going to report Burke over hiding insomnia either, and now we see even when the emotions he's seeing here are Jones is incredibly upset (and not even because Jones is always upset, since he says [Jones, on the other hand, looked as if he'd have a heart attack any moment, his face red, hands clenched to fists. Virdon had never seen him so out of control.]) and Burke looks incredibly smug presumably at making Jones incredibly upset, he decides the first problem he should address is Jones' behavior. So if Jones worried Virdon wouldn't take his complaint seriously and would favor/cover for Burke, so he had to rush straight down - well, he's already being proven right, and this is probably not the first time it's gone like this because Virdon isn't acting like this is different than usual in how he's handling it. Similarly, of course he wouldn't agree to leave when he would know, and the scene demonstrates this, that he has to stay standing here asserting himself for Virdon to even possibly do anything about it.

Really, even assuming Jones reacted like this all the time over petty things rather than this being the first time, the very fact this leads to Jones arguing instead of going back to his post, because of course it would, just makes Virdon look like he can't do his job. Virdon should be able to smooth ruffled feathers even if the person's wrong. Instead, we see him escalating a situation where Jones is unambiguously right in his accusation.

If Virdon had shown signs of taking Jones' past complaints seriously, then it could be far more weird and suspicious for Jones to rush down anyway, just as if Virdon had actually handled this properly and tried to de-escalate things to get Jones to go back to his post only for Jones to keep arguing anyway, then this sudden spike in hostility would be noteworthy to him. Not only would this better sell Virdon as someone qualified to do his job, but I really think Jones acting increasingly suspicious would be a lot more interesting than the guy just having an Instigating Villain flag stapled to him and waiting for the plot to go off while the other two go in circles.

[ Virdon took a deep breath. This was looking more and more like a classical clusterfuck. And they weren't even out of the system yet. "Did you copy anything from Mr. Jones' computer, Major Burke?" ]

As you wrote at the start, it's apparently already a legal crime just for him to have broken into Jones' room, and also the fact he did so proves he's got access codes he wasn't supposed to have either. Virdon not only doesn't want to deal with it, and is both-sidesing it, but he's also clearly still on Burke's side even after treating this as a situation where both people are equally to blame. This is all playing out like he's investigating if Jones has any leg to stand on for his complaint instead of dealing with the actual things Burke totally did just do - if Burke said no, he didn't do that one specific thing, would Virdon just say well, that's it then, bye? If not, why is he asking questions like this instead of saying Burke fucked up and will face consequences first, then investigating just how much Burke did and how bad those consequences should be.

["Burke," Virdon said tiredly, "if you've taken anything from Mr. Jones, I'd advise you to return it now, and I won't take this to ANSA. I'd prefer to settle this matter off the record - we have a long journey still ahead of us, and we can't afford to wage war against each other out here." He glanced to Jones to include him in his appeal.
But both men shook their heads. "I insist on taking this to ANSA, " Jones said through clenched teeth. "I'm officially filing charges against the major for breaking and entering, theft, and... and threatening me with assault! He's unhinged! He hasn't been sleeping for a week now! "
And that was the rather unsettling context for this whole disaster, Virdon silently admitted. But first things first. "I believe I gave you an order a minute ago, Jones." He thought his voice was as light and calm as ever, but Jones didn't lose a second to comply this time.]

In the same way it's so hard to believe that Burke would get through the screening, it's so hard to believe this is the level of leadership skill they expected. And what happens as soon as Jones leaves? Burke says he'll share what he found, the stuff Jones was just raging over as a violation of privacy, and Virdon says of course. Burke didn't even have to offer a justification of why violating privacy is the lesser evil this one time, obviously it's just fine and the only issue is Jones is going to whine about it and that's a headache.

So yeah, if Jones is leaving to go overload the engines and blow them all up, you've certainly given him reason to hate everyone else here.

I wouldn't say it's totally unrealistic this is all possible, though I'd really hope actual space agencies wouldn't be this awful when selecting people, but even if it's possible it's not at all sympathetic to me.

Also, on a narrative level, there's the issue that Virdon and Burke being so lockstep means Virdon mostly comes off as a shadow of Burke. He's the less abrasive one, the one pointing out that there's problems, the one I could probably stand to be in a room with, but still overall agrees with him and enables him. They both have a girl back home they miss and talk to each other about. Burke even compares their two quarters to say they're both similar unlike weirdo Jones. It's Jones who's the one who's got different priorities, different behavior, etc. I'm assuming Jones is doomed, of course, but what then? It seems like Burke is going to turn out to be right for everything Virdon was calling a headache, and Virdon just seems to genuinely love Burke's behavior even without him being right, so it seems unlikely the dynamic would shift to Virdon and Burke not getting along.

[What the hell went into you to think that committing a criminal offense would be a good idea, Burke?"
Burke decided for the brutal truth. "I thought I'd be finished before he came back."
Virdon took a step back, visibly forcing himself to calm down. "I really want to help you to get out of this mess you made for yourself, Pete," he said in a controlled voice. "How about you help me to help you?" ]

This all feels like it's being written with the assumption that we know Jones is evil while Burke and Virdon are good, and good people should take potshots at evil people whenever they feel like it, cover for fellow good people, and know evil people don't have rights like real people. Maybe that'd be less obvious with context from the TV show where perhaps they spend a lot of time on how these two guys are super great and fuck that Jones dude who kicked puppies and ate kittens. But chronologically so far, this is one asshole bullying his coworker over and over while their superior blames the guy getting bullied for minding and covers for the asshole so he can keep doing it.

[But Jones just leaned slightly forward, hands clasped before his chest. "Our salvation, Burke." He smiled. "Instant travel to the farthest stars. The new protocol doesn't form a, a 'warp bubble', as you call it. It creates a wormhole!"]

...also, this is really not puppy-kicking. And is also a pretty big contrast to how the other two couldn't even imagine him possibly having non-selfish reasons. It's a revelation unlocking a lot of new possibilities rather than a resolution explaining why Jones retroactively deserved getting mistreated. There's tons to debate the ethics of how the other two people signed up for a regular space mission and not a let's-hope-wormholes-don't-kill-us mission, and also broadly the question of if it's right to decide on your own to take this risk at all if the majority of people didn't want to take the risk. But Jones is willing to jump in himself, and last chapter Virdon's wife is saying humans are staring down possible extinction and most animal life is completely doomed, and who exactly made the original choice anyway, and do those people speak for the majority of the people of Earth whose fates are at stake here? And the colony ship plan, even if they find something in time, isn't going to save many people if it needs the resources for a long trip. If they can do this wormhole trick, they'd be able to save far more people. Of course, the fact he's doing it in secret suggests this may be an extremely risky proposition - but then again, maybe it's not particularly risky, it's just the sort of people in charge of a super expensive space mission are the ones wealthy enough to know they'll be in the tiny fraction of people who'll be on that first and possibly only colony ship, and aren't willing to risk what is (or at least what they think) is a sure thing for them on saving people who aren't them.

Marooned On The Planet Of The Apes Ch3

[farla]

And yeah, not only does no one seem interested in a pretty complex situation, but he explains he's not doing it for any of the reasons they thought but from sincere self-sacrificing belief so let's murder him horrifically (scientists: evil narcissists if they get their names on things, also evil narcissists if they don't care about that, I guess?) and Virdon's reaction to seeing the wormhole went off properly is he'd rather kill them all just to spite Jones than even try it, because better certain failure and death than something Virdon didn't sign off on. Also, while everything's presumably going to go to hell given this is Marooned On The Planet Of The Apes and not Landed Just Fine On The Planet Of The Apes And Had A Lovely Time, right now the fact everything's going wrong seems tied to stuff being smashed up and the only guy who knew how to work it being murdered.

If it's supposed to be unambiguous supervilliany, then I'd say it'd work far better to be more, "This will only work for a fraction of the people the other way would've, but the couple people who do will be in great shape! And for my betrayal, I shall be one of them! Along with that other scientist guy we're also supposed to hate! Mwahahaha!" Since it's going to be time travel, maybe instead of that being a complete surprise it could've been that their secret evil plan was to jump into Earth's better-off past and live like kings with their superior technology, and it just turns out they were wrong about the direction. Or, if it's important that the focus revolve around science as inherently villainous, then having the motivation be science itself would work - maybe they don't expect the wormhole to help anything. Maybe they looked at the same timeline Sally did, decided the colony ship couldn't be finished faster than the human race would self-destruct, but they would have just enough time to do one last grand experiment and at least find out the outcome of it before they die with everyone else. Right now all of this seems to boil down to that we should just assume science people are always up to no good. I don't think that chunk of people would be put off by adding in a more detailed explanation about how the science people are up to no good, while I'm definitely pretty put off by the lack of it.

Marooned On The Planet Of The Apes Ch4

[farla]

[„Thanks to my superior piloting skills, of course,“ Virdon joked. Then he sobered. „And thanks to whoever insisted on her having wings for emergency maneuvers in atmosphere. I remember the fights they were having over this, the bureaucrats insisting that she’d never fly in an atmosphere anyway, because of the ring; and of course there were always budget cuts...“ He shook his head. „I’ll keep that unknown engineer in my prayers, that’s for sure.“]

It's weird that when the reason given Burke is that he's an awesome pilot, it's Virdon who ends up being the awesome pilot who saves them both when the chips are down. Particularly when it seems like that was probably the last chance anyone's going to have to use pilot skills in this. It seems like either the awesome pilot should somehow pull of the miracle flight without getting them killed, or it should've been intended that they'd fly into atmosphere all along and the crash that probably wrecked things beyond repair is because Virdon didn't have the skills to land any better.

I also realize that there's been a lot of complaints by them about decisions, but I actually have no idea what ANSA is and why those decision are actually getting made, most particularly no mention of funding I noticed. You get across right at the start that Earth's wrecked, which means that they should be pretty strapped for resources which means at least potentially there could be really good reasons not to waste money on stuff that's not absolutely necessary. 2/3 of them have military titles, is it a branch of the military or are they being shared by it? Is ANSA a government body that has to justify its funding against desalination plants to keep the farms running another year? Or it a corporate thing, and they absolutely could have done things like a larger crew or more stuff, but because they only cared about success and not protecting the actual people flying it in the event of a disaster, they cut things to the bone to make sure the number in their bank account was slightly larger? Is it semi-independent, but beholden to corporate donations and so they have a lot of sway and can do things like demand justification for why their money should go for wings? Why is the buck stopping at the people just trying to allocate the funds they're given?

[He glanced to his commander who looked pale and sweaty, and not too sure on his feet, either. „Look at us proud explorers, eh, Columbus?“]

I wish Burke had kept thinking about this a bit more. Their original goal was to find a livable planet, and here they have. But it's already inhabited. If they try to move as many people off Earth as they can, what happens to these people? Does he think they can coexist, or does he think it's a risk but a worthy one when if they don't take it people certainly die, does he think it's worth it because he'd rather his people survive than the people here?

[They looked like humans. The fact that they didn’t wear much except paint and loincloths made it easy to determine that they didn’t have extra limbs - or boobs - though of course their skin could still be green... it was hard to tell in this light. Burke felt at once slightly disappointed and intrigued, because what was the chance that some planet somewhere in the galaxy had developed life that looked exactly like them?
One of them turned their head to look at them, firelight catching in their eyes.
They glowed green like those of a cat.]

This is a really neat way of distinguishing them. It's the sort of thing that's at once incredibly weird but feels just minor and possible enough that you couldn't be sure what it means, and it also implies a lot about how their lives much have changed for this to have been such a successful adaptation.

[Virdon reached for a leaf package. „These people are nocturnal, Burke - that tapetum lucidum is a dead giveaway.]

Not really. Burke just compared them to cats, which are certainly about during the day too.

[And then there were the maggots. Jesus Christ, the maggots! They were as long as his index finger, fat like two of his fingers held together, with the typical lovely off-white color that maggot gourmets all over the world regarded as a sign of high quality... And I thought natto was bad. I swear, they just serve that stuff to screw with the tourists. ]

I can't quite make sense of this. The bit about natto makes it sounds like he's being sarcastic when he talks about maggot gourmets, but the bit about high quality color makes it sound like that's actual information he's learned - if it's supposed to be sarcastic I think that'd be better conveyed with something about how he imagined maggot gourmets saying something about high quality if they saw it, and if it's not supposed to be, then something like "Even natto was better than..." to make it clear he's been offered both back on Earth. And could you even tell for sure something was off-white from the light cast by a fire? Especially when they use a lot of small ones instead of a shared really big one that'd cast more light.

(Also...staring down the barrel of global famine in two years, I'd think people in his world would already be a lot more used to eating bugs, and much worse ones than huge grubs. Then Virdon compares them to shrimp, but shouldn't shrimp be near extinct?)

[Virdon scanned the sky. „These are constellations of the Northern hemisphere.“ He pointed. „Cassiopeia. There’s Polaris.“ He stretched out his arms and did some quick fist-over-fist calculation. „We’re roughly at 30 degrees latitude. That’d be... Georgia. Or Shanghai. Egypt.]

I really like that they're familiar enough with the moon and sky to recognize it and that it happens relatively fast, but it feels a little weird to come even this far after meeting "aliens" who look and act almost identical to humans, and especially after they eat the food expecting it to follow similar rules as food on Earth. I know it's all a common scifi trope, but I'd expect astronauts to be more aware of how unlikely it is, and they especially shouldn't be eating unknown plants and animals - nibbling and waiting to see if it's poison at the most. Plus they are astronauts - it makes perfect sense the first thing they'd do is look to the sky.

It also feels unbalanced that Virdon's doing the bulk of the realization. First he gets to fly them rather than Burke, then he recognizes Mare Imbrium to prove it's our moon, then he's the one to give the exact location.

[ Not in the tropical zone, in any case. Subtropical, yes. But there aren’t areas remote enough in that zone that such an unusual type of humans would stay undetected.“ He scratched his head. „It all doesn’t add up.“]

Actually...if the oceans are cooking enough that the only survivable bit left is the arctic ocean, then woudn't the tropics be a baked wasteland at this point? Even the subtropics should be deadly hot by now. (And if this world somehow halted global warming and you meant for the general disasters to just be the host of other stuff, you should probably be clear about that - maybe some reference to a project that blocked a lot of sunlight but had its own horrible side-effects, like the ocean going anoxic in part because it's so covered in reflective plastics that it's messing up oxygen flow.)

[By whatever consensus, the woman had been selected as their guide - or warden - and Burke had lost no time to hit on her. Virdon suppressed a sigh. This could go well, or horribly wrong, but at the moment, Burke hadn’t crossed any lines yet, so he decided to let it slide for now.]

...so again, tropes, but also again, what? It's possible flirting with Ehpah will help them. It is way, way more likely it will not, even before getting into that the last couple of chapters involved so many fuckups from Burke on the interpersonal front. Virdon being unable to stop Burke? Sure. Virdon thinking yeah sure, so far this is fine? I guess it's in line with his other terrible decisions, but it continues to be boggling why Virdon makes endless terrible decisions.

[Burke turned to him as soon as he felt the ground under his feet. He was livid. „Those bastards stole our uniforms!“]

The question of what's up with them is intriguing. But I'm getting confused about time. Virdon thinks the people were awake the whole night, and possible Ehpah is just staying up very late for her to try to be accommodating to them, but she also sees nothing wrong with encouraging them to move around during the day, or the kid hanging out to do the same, and now their stuff getting stolen sounds like a lot of the village is still awake and moving around now. If it's that Virdon's statements are just guesses, I think you could do more to signpost that, including just having Burke respond to something he says with something along the lines of "or maybe Other Possible Thing". And if they can move during the day without anything bad happening, how'd they end up with enough pressure to navigate by night to get an adaptation like that?

Also - once again, guessing you probably got this from canon, but it does seem like a weird choice to have the humans be able to talk. The original situation is humans are mute and that's a big part of why the apes think they're dumb, in the same way our apes can't make the sounds humans can and that makes humans less willing to believe they're intelligent. The people using sign language instead would've still allowed communication but made it plausible the apes didn't think that counted. If the future humans speak normally, then the apes are just being racist dicks for the sake of it, which is perfectly plausible but a really different situation.

Come to think of it, it'd also just've been nice to have sign language given this story so far is really...well, it's centered on one specific kind of person, and all deviation is bad. The crew is all male and at least for 2/3 and 100% of the good guys, a huge point is made that they totally bang chicks. The first bad guy is the weird and weird-looking nerd who goes for the balls in a life or death fight instead of manfully going for the head, and now the next bad guy is getting described as weaselly and again, not a proper man. The only female characters mentioned until now are a girlfriend and a wife. Having mute humans joining the cast would've been a departure from that overall feeling.

Marooned On The Planet Of The Apes Ch5

[farla]

[After a moment, Burke's eyes found the outlet of the creek that made up one of the many arms of the delta; several women were busy there, probably collecting water. The tribe wasn't as nocturnal as Virdon had predicted, which deepened Burke's suspicion that their glowing eyes weren't the result of natural evolution.]

Ah, so Virdon was meant to be just guessing. Good to know, but I still think it'd be better to be clear in the previous chapter - when dropped into a new setting and trying to figure stuff out, trying to also guess whether or not a character is meant to be explaining or speculating is an extra layer of difficulty. And that in turn means Burke may be wrong as well - so possibly humans were messing around altering their own DNA and thought enhanced night vision was a good idea, but it could also be that there's something weird about their environment here - maybe the real reason they can't swim is because there's big predators there normally, and also diurnal land ones.

[Virdon was lying in his hammock; Iro was nowhere to be seen, thank god. Burke dropped the bucket at their cooking fire and went to snack on a tuber in the meantime. They were hard like twigs when raw, but if you chewed on them long enough, they were manageable, and he was hungry. ]

...that's probably because he's wasting tons of calories trying to chew and digest raw food. I'm surprised no one's stopping him - it took energy to dig those up, and it's really inefficient to then not cook it and get the maximum calories back. Unless he's digging up and drying his own, and even then, it seems they should still be pretty possessive of someone wasting plants they could've used themselves. And the two seem pretty confident they got good survival training, and I'd think that'd mention not only to cook food for calories but that there's plenty of food that's outright poisonous until you cook it.

[ While Burke had gotten into some „friendly" fights with the younger men - although to his credit, he hadn't started them -,]

I really doubt this. Even aside from how the Jones thing and Virdon's handling of it reads to me, they don't understand these people. There is no way Virdon can know that Burke isn't accidentally provoking people. He probably can't even tell if Burke intentionally starts things and then lies about it, because the other person isn't going to be able to communicate their side easily.

[„They'll be waiting for us - so what now? We try our luck further upstream?"
Virdon inhaled deeply and shook his head. „We have no idea how far their territory extends, and from the shore, they can easily see where we're headed."
„But downstream is just the ocean…" Burke paused. „We'll have to go back. Damn."]

I don't follow. The ocean would mean coast on either side. It seems a lot easier to just float downstream and if you reach the ocean proper, go left or right, rather than the immense struggle of swimming upstream in the first place. Yeah, the tide's pretty dangerous, but swimming upstream is incredibly exhausting and the kind of thing you drown doing too.

Also, dramatic irony's good, but this is quite a lot of words for them having made this little progress toward figuring out it's a planet of apes. Heading downstream and hitting something like a modern-looking fence cutting across the water and hemming them in would mean progressing the plot and give them more information to work with, while just trying to leave and finding more of the same isn't really.

Marooned On The Planet Of The Apes Ch6

[farla]

Okay, you did tag "Every bad trope about The Natives because this is Pulp Adventure" so it's not like it's not warned for, but, is what's here really necessary? You've got strangers being dumped on people who are struggling to survive, and who seem to have given them good food and kept providing it to them. That's a perfectly fine setup for a situation where the people thought it was pretty obvious that accepting this much meant you would pay it back somehow. You could still treat them a bit more like real people without sacrificing the plot beat.

[That list struck Virdon as strangely familiar. It almost sounded like symptoms of radiation sickness. „And do you also get burns when you hold these stones?" he asked casually.]

I like the stories - the tribe's mostly been just confusing and refusing to explain things so far, but this is both a good way to establish they have information about the world but it's something you'd been to puzzle out, and that something's happened that's led to large amounts of radioactivity on the surface in at least one location, and that he describes it as something that happened to his group in particular instead of some group somewhere makes it sound like there's probably a lot of these around.

[„The Dreaming Man said that another star-bird fell out of the sky when I was a baby," Iro said absent-mindedly. „But the fur-men took the sky-men away then."]

Ah, and so not just time travel, but the next ship, in the future after Virdon's ship's accident, will arrive here before his does. That's neat.

[„You said you would show me magic," Iro complained. „This is just... work."
Virdon smiled. „Magic is in knowing things others don't, Iro, and having skills that others don't have. Things are only miraculous if you don't know that they were possible."]

Yeah, it's a bit weird that mysterious sky strangers constructing unknown things that do stuff none of them can do isn't counting as magic when that's so common in stories about gods gifting people new things.

[That weasely guy Ahta had put it into his head that Ehpah was destined to be his girlfriend. Didn't matter that Ehpah wouldn't touch him with a ten foot pole, the weasel was determined to drag her into his lair. And his chances hadn't been bad before Burke had turned up - apparently, he was the tribe's best hunter; Burke could abstractly understand a father's preference for a son-in-law who knew how to put food on the table. It didn't change his emotions regarding the guy one bit.
And yeah, ever since she had laid eyes on him, Ehpah had made it abundantly clear that she had chosen Burke. Sometimes he wondered if he wasn't just a tool to discourage Ahta as much as possible, but hey, so what if he was? As far as he was concerned, Ehpah was free to use him however she saw fit...]

Okay, so I do appreciate there's at least some sign of her having any internal life, but... This is still entirely revolving around the most flattering option for Burke. Not only is it with the guy he already hated for other reasons, but it's a simple matter of getting picked as definitely better. Ehpah could've been hanging out with him to discourage Ahta without actually wanting to be his girlfriend either, or she could even have been trying to get Ahta's attention because she felt Ahta was taking it for granted. Or she could've been trying to use him in the hopes she'd get access to some of the sky magic, especially given this is a deeply misogynstic society at every turn and she might be desperate to try to get additional power by any means. And even if she's "chosen" to be Burke's girlfriend, it's really not clear if that means she wants him or if she just hates the idea of being with him slightly less than the rest of her options, but Burke doesn't seem concerned with that.

[Burke studied the knife in his hand. The repeated knapping had eaten up most of the blade, and he couldn't hope to win another one from the hunters; he hadn't lost often enough at gambling for that and now they refused to let him participate.]

I guess without knowing what the game is it's hard to know, but it seems really weird Burke would be schooling people at whatever game they've played their whole lives, especially when he shouldn't have had the resources to gamble much in the first place and learn. (Plus if they play at night, he'd have trouble even following the details.) I'd think the problem would be the opposite - he's been playing but hasn't gotten lucky enough for another knife, and doesn't think he'll manage any time soon. Or they've just refused to let him participate after the escape attempt. Or it could've been a game he taught them, which would explain why he managed such a big win as a knife early on but why people won't keep playing it.

[„Move!" Goddammit, woman, „Don't talk, he not listen!" The finer points of the foreign language were leaving him.]

Burke really has not grown on me. I'm guessing he's like this in the original, but, if you're going this hard on pulp with all the problematicness, maybe warn for all the rest of it in the same way you did the native stuff?

Marooned On The Planet Of The Apes Ch7

[farla]

Ah, finally the apes!

[The horses were dark with sweat, snorting and throwing their heads up against their reins. One of them was limping; another was staggering along with stiff movements. Those two he'd have to send back. Two out of nine. Good horses, like so many other things, were hard to come by.]

Uh - not sure what exactly he was trying to do, and I'm not a horse expert, but, I'm pretty sure a lamed horse is a doomed horse, which seems pretty wasteful and not really a situation where you return them, unless it's to their previous place in the glue factory line. And if he is the sort of person to push a horse until it's going to die to test them, I'd say he should probably be saying that directly and maybe explaining more why he's got this philosophy.

[The sky people. Zaius had been convinced they were dead, killed by the flesh-eating savages on the other side of the fence. Urko had defied him, holing up in this lost and forgotten outpost for months, waiting for them to swim up to the surface like bloated corpses in the spring floods.
But he had to be sure. „You have them? They're alive?"
He could see the beast's teeth gleam in the shadow as it pulled back its lips in a silent snarl. „Yes."
Urko hid a smile. So not everyone was happy with that state of affairs there. Well, they could work on that, together.
„Why are you telling me this now? Don't you want them anymore?"
The human shook its head. „You take them away, like the others."]

Ah. So the apes did indeed find humans last time, not just some wreckage, which also pretty strongly suggests they already know about the whole apes inheriting the earth from humans business. But then, they also apparently speak the same language, so there's a lot different about the starting conditions.

[A human stood under the trees on the other side of the road and for a moment, Urko believed his men that it could pop in and out of thin air. He could have sworn that nothing had been there a moment ago, and he hadn't seen any movement, although he had been looking in that direction. It was as if the background had peeled away to reveal its shape.]

So the apes don't have as good vision, maybe? Burke and Virdon seem to only get ambushed because they can't see well in the dark, and I don't think they mentioned the tribe also having amazing camouflage skills, so maybe the apes aren't great at distance and similarly colored shapes.

[The next moment, Burke grabbed Ehpah, whirled her around and bent her backwards at a dangerous angle, the perfect recreation of the homecoming sailor at the New York victory parade after World War Two. The kiss wasn't a demonstration of love, or even lust, Virdon thought grimly, but one of triumph over a spectacular catch - and not just regarding the fish.]

That's...kind of a loaded comparison, considering the history of the picture, and how uncomfortable the woman is recounting it.

[Their body language made it abundantly clear to everyone that they had been close even before Burke's demonstration of ownership.]

And okay - there are guys who think of women as men's property. Okay, it's realistic. But it's not great of them, and it doesn't seem like it's going to be examined - how flawed characters should be, that's complicated, but this really feels like the narration doesn't consider either of them flawed for it, and that's a lot more of an issue.

[He swallowed, his hands shaking with rage now. He carefully untangled her from the seine net, felt for injuries. Had Ahta knocked her out with a stone and then drowned her? But he didn't find a lump on her head. Only when he lifted her chin did he see the strangulation marks on her throat in the bright silvery light.]

...so yeah, I think if you're including all the worst stuff of pulp fiction, you should probably tag for all of it.

This wasn't the only way to resolve it. She could've just not wanted to leave with them. She had a whole life and family before they showed up, even if none of that was shown. If you wanted a death, Burke could've gotten into another fight with Ahta - perhaps even that she's fine staying precisely because Ahta was removed from the picture. Instead, she dies so Burke can be upset for a minute and Virdon declares it'd be wrong to do anything to her murderer while everyone's asleep.

And, okay, maybe anything but a perfect fridging would compromise the pulp feel for you. But I think it should at least be clearly warned if when you say pulpy adventure fanfic, you really do mean every bit of what someone should be braced for if they were reading a period pulp piece should be braced for here too.

[ancslove]

Hi! I'm reviewing Rapport.

I don't know the fandom, but I really enjoyed this! The opening is both nicely intriguing and quickly lets me understand what's happening here. The contrast of Elizabeth to everyone else is nicely vivid, and I enjoyed the jokes of her colleagues (I got the octopus reference!) and the brusque focus of the Admiral. I liked following allowing with Elizabeth's realization that they were basically torturing Mark, and the way she went from viewing him the way she would an animal, to seeing emotion in him and empathizing with him.

Elizabeth's internal self-doubts about what she's doing and her continued realizations as she starts seeing Mark more and more as a human, helped really bring her to life as a fully-realized character. It's clear as the reader that Elizabeth has reached a major turning point, but her step by step realizations and adjustments in her own self-assessment aren't overdone or heavy-handed.

I liked the scene as Elizabeth lets Mark go for his swim. It would've been nice to have a bit more tension there, to underscore everything that Elizabeth is risking here, or any specific thoughts of what might happen if Mark never returns. OTOH, the scene as is has a nice, peaceful vibe that parallels what Mark is surely feeling in the ocean. Mark's return is sweetly emotional and has a nice fairytale quality. Elizabeth seeing him with new eyes and a new emotional openness is believable, and not over-sold. I liked Elizabeth's realization that Mark understood what she was telling him. I would've liked something from her about what that might mean for them, going back to the lab, either at this moment or at the end as they're driving back.

Overall, the ending from Mark's swim onward has a beautiful dreamlike vibe. But I think I'd like a bit more of a hint of where they go from here? Or some acknowledgement of the uncertainty they face going forward. Elizabeth thought that if Mark never comes back, the aquarium would stay empty. And that it would be a good thing. But when Mark reappears, she goes straight to taking both of them back there. You get the sense that the personal relationship between Elizabeth and Mark has irrevocably changed, but I'm less sure about her feelings for her job and her worldview and sense of self. She knows now that he can understand her. And that he chose to return because of her. She also has already been warned not to let his "shape" affect her "professional distance". How much is she thinking about the potential ramifications as she decides to take them both back?

Stylistically, I like the prose and choice phrasings. It's clear and fairly sparse, but with well-chosen moments of beauty - "turquoise desert devoid of all live" (minor typo there, only pointing it out because I'm quoting it), "perfect screen for her projections", "turned the thought in her mind like an interesting seashell".

I might have added a scene break between leaving the lab and arriving at the beach. I realize that's purely personal preference, but it might give a bit of breathing space for what's to come. There's a shift after they arrive at the beach, where paragraphs get shorter. I think a scene break would draw attention to that change in prose.

The story was really sweet and beautiful, with a strong sense of character and atmosphere. It leaves me eager for more!