Posted by bigboy1992 4 years ago Report

I very much like this universe you have set up. Also did Becky change her size to wander around the HUB. That's cool.

Posted by 4ofSwords 4 years ago Report

Thank you! I appreciate that. And ~maybe~! ;)

Posted by XDDX 4 years ago Report

Hihi. So ominous. Loved it!

Posted by 4ofSwords 4 years ago Report

Rawr!

Posted by jgzman 4 years ago Report

So, I'm not at all convinced this is porn, or erotica or anything of the sort.

It is, on the other hand, some damn fine writing. Well done, mate.

Posted by 4ofSwords 4 years ago Report

Can't win them all, I guess! ;)

Thank you!

Posted by jgzman 4 years ago Report

I think you definitely won this one.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

And it's finished! Bravo! What a dazzling pocket dimension you have wrought!

The generational and philosophical clash between the Director and June was slow, steady and spectacularly relevant to the current climate of rampant boomer-bashing. The details of June's (freshly learned) modernized approach and how it slowly enveloped and overwhelmed the Director's endearingly old-fashioned bag of of tricks were so very true, going by my experiences working in an office that's trapped in that pre-Millennial bubble of patchy tech savvy, and the paper stickers still hold sway (not that they don't have their utility and appeal, unless they are the only externalized memory bank one relies on) -- the "writing bending around the edges" was a particularly sweet touch!
The gradual encroachment of June's enthusiastic capability on the Director's prerogatives might be considered an act of vore in itself.

And it was even more of a John Henry fable because it about more than simply the efficiency of planning BeckyProgramme, it was Santa Claus being gently elbowed aside by the CEO of X-Mas Corp, the defeat of the proud old institutions by the material and emotional supply-and-demand imperatives of the human world. I'm not sure if Queen Becky was siding with June's sacrilegious designs because as she knew it would get to the Director, or because she genuinely found them interesting -- a bit of both, perhaps. There was definitely a sense of sorrow seeing the old master of the Reserve losing his grip on the tiller as well as on his philosophical foundations for his policies and ideas.

On the other hand, from a feminist perspective it was a tale of how the Director had kept Queen Becky in a box of his own sophomoric, patronizing preconceptions, and refused to acknowledge her as a person instead of an incarnated ideal, and it took another woman's involvement to make him see his error, and ultimately replace him, confronting a lot of the Reserve's systematic issues in the process.

I loved seeing June after she's absorbed the last of the dark behind-the-curtains know-how of managing the Reserve, and finally assume that position of top-tier decision-making, complemented by her personal connection to Queen Becky, and a good idea for how to manage *her*. This chapter felt the least physically-involved, and have this light and heady atmosphere of standing on a mountain top in a chilly breeze, appropriately enough, but the parting gift of Queen Becky's formalizing June's rite of passage, with the added novel caveats courtesy of her political science nerd of a brother.

The crisis of Queenly absence was very nicely portrayed, in suspense and in technical detail, and it served as a perfect curveball to break the streak of (welcome and cherished in their way!) steady realizations of the inevitable trailing from the last chapter.

And the unsettling train scene did the same for the mounting hubris of the modernity-bolstered confining nature the Reserve. It was the chilling high point of the chapter, came out of nowhere and felt right at home nonetheless.

Utterly in envious love with the depth of the psychological inner goings on of the characters, their perceptions of each others' motives and their body language! I could only read Queen Becky's lines in a suitably booming tone, or the slightly dampened version of the same for the conversations taking place through the reinforced glass! The early-established inexplicable lightness of Queen Becky's footfalls, and her way of sneaking up on those inside the Tower's top office was also a stroke of genius that kept on giving!

Thank you for the story, the conversation, and the opportunity to shake the dust from my literary-adjacent skills!

* * *

"He had me to help now" -- probably a deliberately portentous wording on your part? Not sure if it's incorrect at all, but could be made less ambiguous with making it "had me to help him out how"; the intended meaning is clear in the context, of course, I just stumbled over this bit while reading.

"he wasn’t he wasn’t"

"You’d might"

"if we knew she’d show up on infrared" -- "'how' we knew", maybe? Or "if we knew for certain"? I can see it working this way, with the emphasis on "knew", just feels a bit odd to me.

"He’d thought about what he was going to say to me, more than he had (about) the minimal input during the meeting" -- the verb-preposition pairs and phrasalies call for the preposition part in such situations to be duplicated for the dangling auxiliary, don't they? Like, it would have been okay for the "naked" verb, like "he had prepared this proposal, more than he had his input". But "he had worked out the details on this, more than he had for his input" also sounds right, so I guess it's fine for the phrasal verbs, but not for verbs plus prepositions? Again, no certainty here.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Oh, and lovely bookends with the signature displacement activity and the verbal waltz!

Posted by 4ofSwords 4 years ago Report

> "He’d thought about what he was going to say to me, more than he had (about) the minimal input during the meeting" -- the verb-preposition pairs and phrasalies call for the preposition part in such situations to be duplicated for the dangling auxiliary, don't they? Like, it would have been okay for the "naked" verb, like "he had prepared this proposal, more than he had his input". But "he had worked out the details on this, more than he had for his input" also sounds right, so I guess it's fine for the phrasal verbs, but not for verbs plus prepositions? Again, no certainty here.

To this particular note (and you are right, and I corrected that in the update), I have noticed that as I get to the end of long stories, sometimes I struggle with assembling words into a relatively straightforward and obvious way and make thoughts much more of a complex snarl than they need to be. I'm guessing it's not all that uncommon - mental fatigue and all - but it feels like, say, building a piece of furniture and finding out you didn't purchase enough wood, and instead of just going back to the store for more, glancing around and noticing a bundle of painter's stirring sticks and an old bottle of woodglue and a box of nails and saying, "FINE! Let's just do this."

And then, of course, because it's the end of the story in editing, too, when noticing that a section is weak and clunky, instead of ripping it out and putting in the right wood, I just reach for more stirring sticks and nails to shore it up.

It's very helpful to have someone who is willing to call out the clunky bits so I go back and look at them after I've gotten some sleep.

Thank you!

I definitely appreciate the John Henry nod, and the Boomer-Millennial allusion. If I remember correctly, I'm an X'er, but I'm not sure if that means I sit back munching on popcorn and smiling, or if I'm the one throwing the folding chair into the ring for whoever grabs it first.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Thank you in turn for writing tiny allegorical vignette to explain your situation! That metaphor sounds more like extolling resourcefulness than lamenting complacency to me, however!

And your own proofreading has been golden, what are you even talking about? I remember finding more typos in printed hard covers than in your DIY-edited story!

Heck, each of my comments had more grammar crimes than they pointed out in their respective chapters!

It's possible that, like we sometimes yell at a chair we've just stumbled over, or give some life-savingly useful tool a big dramatic smooch, a mostly finished story can evoke the kind of frustration usually reserved for one-sided relationships or difficult children: you still love them, but you also sort of can't wait for them to start pulling their weight around, so those final touch-ups may feel like undeserved pampering.

Anyway, I hope you get your well-deserved spell of respite after this marathon of uploading, editing, doing those fifteen other involved things you mentioned elsewhere, and mostly fending off my self-absorbed ramblings! May your next NaNoWriMo project match this one in ambition and aesthetic impact, if not the size!

And I don't care much about the battle of the age cohorts, myself: most of the legendary rock stars were Boomers, some of the vilest modern demagogues in the media are Millennials, it's really just a reductionist stereotype masquerade, although admittedly knowing one's way around it is very useful for writing colorful fiction. Like the Zodiac sign psychological profiles are fantastic for designing characters, even though that stuff isn't very helpful for predictions in real life.

But for what it's worth, I think you are very fine figure of a X'er, and your coffee-and-cigarettes office space story backdrops have housed a huge variety of scenarios and people! (just kidding -- your environmental choices have always been respectably diverse)

Posted by 4ofSwords 4 years ago Report

Thanks again! I'll probably take a bit of a break of sorts over the next week, but that second story is written and just needs an edit, so I can't stay away too long. ;)

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Counting the hours until then!

But also -- somehow -- take your time and take it easy!

Posted by XDDX 4 years ago Report

I've enjoyed reading your comments. That's all :D

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Thank you, for being so kind and for Queen Becky!

It's good to be enjoyed!

Posted by Henlo 4 years ago Report

This story should go in the vore hall of fame. Truly one for the ages.

Posted by 4ofSwords 4 years ago Report

Thank you!