Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

This one is magnificently ambitious, and bursting at the seams with specific lore of the TV studio world, appropriately meticulously described dresses, a masterful intergration of the audience and the pre-arranged expectations for the show, and of course the usual sinking solar eclipse of a reveal of the show host's ulterior motives! The braving of the conventially unshakable barrier between the mundane and the magical catalyst is also worth of sizable accolades!

I will move on straight to the corrections, however, leaving the expanded gushing section for later.

* * *

Given the chapter's huge complexity, I don't see the relatively high content of questionables as surprising, even given my usual astronomical level expectations for your works.

"So far, everything was just to the plan as we’d practiced it earlier in the day, " -- a minor niggle, just a bit awkward -- perhaps "So far, everything was going just as we'd planned/pracitced/rehearsed earlier today" might go down smoother

"I don’t think Kathi or her producers mind(ed) that"

"Those kind" -- a bit of a battleground issue in grammar, apparently, the proper way is supposed to be matching plural with plural, but "those kinds" sounds a violation of semantics, as well, because 'kind' should mean a singular category for multiple qualifying items, shrugs abound

"If the live show was proceeding like (the) rehearsal"

"talked to me (for) an hour this morning"

"As stiff as the suit was (at) my size" -- unsure about this one, or else "As stiff as a suit my size unavoidably was" would be fine

"can we get a camera up her(e) on him"

"Kathi had been through makeup since I saw her (at the) rehearsals"

(maybe fifties? People preserve especially well these days) -- clustering sentences inside a parenthesized remark is my kind of extravagance, but that midway capital "P" sticks out a bit

"frames with equally-brilliant fuchsia lips" -- this part is too far removed from the original mention of Kathi's brilliant adormnent, so the "equally" hangs in the air a little

"So you don’t understand the science(,) you said, Four, but"

"She'd strode" -- another whirlpool in the grammar's primordial soup, apparently: the proper past participle is the weird, obsolete and probably cursed "stridden", but I don't know if actually using it in a sentence is worth the risk

"I didn’t know ‘There, what’, but I was only half-looking" -- it's not a correction, because I don't understand, neither: is 'There, what' a kind of knock-knock joke routine, or was it Foursi's line?

"No. I made a sound, shook my head, and shook my head." -- again, I am stumped, unless the idea behind it is the same as in the timeless "I'm the locksmith. And I'm the locksmith." bit, as in he shook his head as a resonse, then shook his head to clear his head

"She let her eyes drooped"

Posted by 4ofSwords 4 years ago Report

I'd had my fingers crossed that this would be the cleanest chapter - I went over it three times! But I think each time I go over it and tweak wording beside just to make corrections, I open the window to more errors driving in.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

I'm sorry about serving as the conduit for this unpleasantness! I admit that when I can't find any rough edges in a fresh story, it makes me doubt my detective abilities, and at the same time worship the artist's dedication to neatness, but it never gives me any joy to find faults in someone's paintstakingly crafted work, if only as a way of helping to refine the final product.

If it helps, the only time I've uploaded a story, it took me several consecutive inquisitional crusades against the text to cut away the most jarring of errors, and even after that I got complaints about the multitude of remaining faults. It's not the at the same level as your case, naturally, and after three cleanup runs, it must have stung to see my list unfurl.

Sometimes you just need a fresh set of eyes, as wounding as it may be to one's professional pride.

And I really terrible at the whole written word thing, myself, for instance it was supposed to be a double "I'm *a* locksmith", now that I've checked, although the symmetry of that joke raises some questions.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Revisited this chapter, and got knocked about by how big and loud it is!

Moving the story so very far outside of its cozy comfort zone was plenty brave and admirable, but repeating that deliberate evocation of discomfort in the audience to set up both the second part of the chapter, and the end of the overall story is just peak storycrafting sneakiness! The protagonist duet get their fill of limelight in their Big Apple outing, but also a taste of the pressure and carnivorous attitudes that come with the promise of fame. More importantly, of course, Becca's supremacy has been challenged in the most irreverent way possible, prompting the downshifting detachment down the line.

The insights into the stage manipulations, the script and the engagement of the audience for the show interview were plausible and fully furnished with technical nuance. The physical odyssey of Foursi's surfing the armchairs and lapels, and his inner anguish at being separated was both heartbreaking and captivating to follow.

There was a masterful segue from the detailed exchange of the interview into the blur of Foursi's overwhelmed perspective!

Kathi, on stage and off the cuff, was a powerful presence, wielding her soft power like a velvet-cushioned sledgehammer, and a lesser woman might have buckled and traded her little helper for a shot at the big career, but Becca's composure and grip on her heart's desire remained steady throughout. The tension of her response to Kathi's bossy behavior was sending out electric shivers across the story's fabric and atmosphere since after that commercial break incident.

For the second part, the jealous and possessive reassertion of Becca's power in her little friend's world, melded and wove together a dizzying amount of conflicting emotional threads, a true exploration of sexuality as promised by the taglines! It was a magnificent paradox for Becca to be essentially demanding Foursi to acknowledge her as the only possible alternative, veering into an almost plaintive tone and drowning the tiny thing in rough pleasure, laced with mortal menace as always, and the latter holding the power to give her his assurance, at least for as long as he could still claim coherent thought or feeling. There was a properly unique power dynamic there.

"Poe's pendulum" was a lovely image and reference!

And as mentioned before, it takes some creative backbone to simply thrust a magical element under the spotlights of public scrutiny, and make it come out as unbound by the cited concerns for the science lab cages, and leave the media and the culture bemused, entertained, but ultimately apathetic to the phenomenon.

Oh, and the legal question of someone being a one-of-a-kind type of person, and being willing to identify as a different category, was a powerful concept, as well. I tread similar grounds whenever I think of uplifting animals in the future, what the human society would deem qualifying to be called human for legal purposes, and how differently said animal would view themselves.

Apologies for how I handled my unsolicited editorial assistance, again! I used a lot of bland, ass-covering language in my earlier apology message, but the truth is I did do a lot of the conversational showboating when picking out and presenting my corrections, and that wasn't appropriate or decent. I will either use Private Messages, or temporary separate comments if I get to do a similar typo hunt for you in the future, and watch my tone on commission and personal works like this story.

* * *

The last two lingering corrections for this one:

"sitting their"

"lathe of her tongue" -- intuitively, I too would have thought there were a short verb/noun cousin to lather/slather, but according to several dictionaries lathe is just a piece of machinery.

Posted by 4ofSwords 4 years ago Report

"Lathe", as it turns out, is an intentional neologism. There are far too few words in English to describe the subtleties of 'licking' and that bears correcting. So far, 'lathe' seems like a word that has born its meaning relatively well even if it's a word people haven't heard in that context before. I fully encourage its widespread use. One might, for example lathe a soft-serve ice-cream cone, or a finger covered in brownie batter.

> Apologies for how I handled my unsolicited editorial assistance, again!

There is really nothing to apologize for. It was appreciated!

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Ah, so both the dictionaries and myself were woefully out of step with the modern language -- but no longer, thanks to you! And the new word definitely fills the howling void.

And thank you for the reassurance!