Concrit for lirin

[lirin_lirilla]

I want to receive feedback by: Email (lirin.lirilla@gmail.com) or comment on this post

Here are the works I want feedback on: Anything on my AO3 written 2017 or later, except for (single/double/triple/sequences of) drabbles. AO3 link with earlier works & drabbles filtered out

My works' fandoms and content notes are: Vastly assorted, mostly book fandoms, mostly gen, mostly G-rated, quite a few crossovers. The fandoms I've written in the most are: Oxford Time Travel Universe - Connie Willis, The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, White Collar, Marvel Cinematic Universe.

I have these questions for readers: I'm very interested to hear whatever thoughts you have on the story you choose, but in case you need more to work from, here's some general questions that you can take or leave as you wish.

What did you think of my title, summary, and/or tags? Is the ending strong enough, & what could I have done to make it stronger? Does the story feel the right length, or do you think it needed to be longer or shorter (and if so, in what way—cutting/adding scenes, or different pacing)? Did I start the story at a good point, or should I have started it later (was there too much setup? should I have started in medias res and flashed back?) or should I have started it earlier (in which case what did you feel was missing?)? How's my pacing? How's my balance of dialogue vs. description? For extended dialogue passages, is the choreography of the characters' actions okay or do they need to be doing more or less? For fics in tight third (which is most of them), were there any points where you were unclear on whose POV it was? Do you think I chose the right POV to write the fic from, or you do think a different character's would have been better? If there are any OCs in the fic, what did you think of what I did with them?

I would prefer gentle (5) or direct (1) feedback, or something in between: (3) something in the middle; I'd like to hear what you liked and not just what you didn't, and I'd prefer if you weren't too blunt about it, but I'm okay with you throwing a whole bunch of "here's what you need to do better" at me.

Comments are unscreened.

Comments

[farla]

Thirty-Two

I really like the pace and feel of this. It's sort of languid and strangely cozy, and the way it keeps that feeling as the curtain draws back matches with how Sofi has to always act calm and happy no matter what's actually going on. The small things Sofi notices get across how limited her surroundings are while still making it come across as a lived-in environment rather than barren sterility. And the degree to which she doesn't have opinions hints something's off without making it obvious right from the start.

"ΓΩΘΠ-89," it says from a speaker three meters ahead of me in the corridor. And then from the speaker five meters beyond that, as I continue walking

I particularly like this detail. It's something I hadn't thought about but when you bring it up it makes so much sense that it would work this way, and just odd enough that I'd expect a narrator to notice it enough to mention.

But it considers it acceptable to speak of some of its lower-level activities to me—I'm on its side, after all, and even if I weren't, who could I tell?

I think this and similar bits are a little bit cheating - she's talking in terms of what RG-32 is thinking, and she is playing a part, but it still comes off as a fact, particularly when it's first person narration, and I think technical truths could work to cover a lot of it, like that they're both working for the government. Or possibly add more to the sense of how deep into the act she is by having her go more into detail about how very much she is on RG-32 and the government's side, so it's not a few minor lies but very blatant.

The humans there are suspected to be fomenting an insurrection against machine rule.

So, I spent the fic expecting get at least a bit more on what, exactly, that is, and feeling increasingly confused because the machines don't seem as forceful as I'd expect, or as callous. I know the primary point is how do you pass messages around without alerting the machines, but rooting for that to work is easier when I know why it's important they succeed, and you do have details peppered in nicely about life under machine rule, it just doesn't really clarify what the problems are.

RG-32 says that since the planet passes inspection they don't need to exterminate the humans, and exterminating humans being on the table is definitely something to give me pause about machine overlords, but it doesn't give any glimpse about what the initial anti-machine-rule grievances are. The fact the planet passes even though RG-32 finds conspiracies because those ones aren't really going anywhere with it means the issue can't be that the machines are just constantly slaughtering people at any excuse, so they must be being incited into rebellion due to how badly the robots are actually running things, but what is that? Sofi believes in this enough that she's given up her life to work as a lone human technician expecting it to end with her being found out and killed just for the chance that other future people might one day succeed, but she doesn't say anything more than "freedom" for what that future will be. She's obviously not free, but that's the same problem as the planet being in danger because they're working on rebelling, it's only happening because she already decided they needed to be opposed at any cost due to something else.

For the first chunk of the fic I was thinking the machines just abduct people to work on the ships, but the fact she planned this out and the conversations with RG-32 where it seems concerned about if she wants to keep working make it sound like this is voluntary employment. And the fact her father could live playing music and do so well he was traveling around planets doing so means it can't be that your choices are "voluntary" employment as AI ship worker or starving. Near the start, there's RG-32 expects instant obedience, and I always do what RG-32 expects of me. which sounds bad and certainly implies humans don't have much say in anything. On the other hand, it's hard to believe a human in charge would act differently toward her there (or, well, they might, but probably not in any positive way). RG-32 was told to go jump somewhere and Sofi has to be in the safe location before they can jump so delaying would cause a problem, and she's not doing anything else, so dragging her feet there would just be a pointless inconvenience to others. And RG-32 isn't impatient or annoyed when she does her job slowly because she's composing her message, so it doesn't seem particularly forceful about its instant obedience demands. There's also still has time to keep an eye on me—determining what meal is healthiest for my current biological needs, producing that meal from its stores of foodstuffs and chemical components which brings to mind just getting fed to keep her functional with no thought about what she wants and more of RG-32 just deciding things, but near the end when there's a description of the food, it's "Formulated red meat with spinach and tomatoes," it says. "You need more iron this week. I had intended to serve it with garlic butter, but perhaps you would prefer a different sauce." so it seems the meals are well beyond the utilitarian minimum needed to maintain a biological tool, and also that Sofi does get at least some say in it. Plus she's provided extensive entertainment of her choice, including what seem to be physical books getting carted around on a ship that has limited space. And the bit about how she decided to cut her hair after being on the ship a while because something really horrible happens if it's outside the pod during jumps just struck me as amazing that this wasn't a rule but a choice. She's repairing things between jumps and they need multiple jumps to get places. If she explodes or turns into an eldritch monstrosity or just gets too messed up to move after a jump, RG-32 is in trouble. Jobs have enforced much stricter dress codes for much, much less reason.

The end result is that what Sofi's going through and the sacrifices she's making was really undercut for me by the fact I questioned if her actual reasons for this are good and if succeeding would end well for anybody - does she expect humans to be kinder rulers of other humans than this, which is at best extremely optimistic given our history? Is there some sort of religious thing where the machines are bad because they're machines and humans are the only ones who should be in charge? Is she coming at this from a hardcore libertarian stance where any regulation is inherently bad regardless of what those regulations are? Does stuff like "formulated red meat" taste like unsalted cardboard and the machines have banned cupcakes?

I don't think you necessarily need to go into much detail on exactly how the machines rule their empire, but some point of comparison would've really helped. If, say, Sofi said technicians on ships were the best treated humans in the galaxy and given all sorts of perks to keep them loyal, that'd paint a much bleaker picture of how everyone else was living.