concrit_x | Concrit for Athaia

athaia posting in

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

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.