Posted by Ty975 4 years ago Report

Shit! He's onto us! Bail, BAIL

Posted by 4ofSwords 4 years ago Report

=D

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Ah, the timeskip into the semi-settled honeymoon!

But more importantly... The marked themed costume zipbags! That's such purely distilled perfection!

Claire's choice for the way of easing Adam into the revelation, her theatrics and presentation of her costume were entrancing to behold, thank you for the amazing textualized performance! Blackened sclera lenses are phenomenally striking, but I've heard they're also a huge pain to wear.

This chapter and the next one feel like parts of one those larger chapters, but the break-off point could have been placed better than this! Same lively pace as one of the Claire & Friends scenes, except intimate and intimidating! Adam's out-of-breath guessing maintains that feverish pace, and it would have been one of the highlights of the story even if it didn't reach so near the characters' sensual cores; this part examines Claire more, the other looks inside Adam.

A dishwasher that actually lives up to its name, and is capacious enough to comfortably fit pots and skillets sounds dreamy, alright; and it's amazing how tall sink ziggurats can get even if someone is cooking for one! Still, wouldn't trust a soulless machine to be able to grind down those melted cheese bumps.

Posted by 4ofSwords 4 years ago Report

> This chapter and the next one feel like parts of one those larger chapters

You have discovered me! I'm curious to know what the tell was - the otherwise unlikely cliffhanger ending, rather than a completed mini-arc? Something else? (My curiosity is exponentially greater if this: 'but the break-off point could have been placed better than this!' isn't a typo. In that case, I would be very open to suggestions on how to improve.)

> but the break-off point could have been placed better than this!

I watched a youtube video on this recently! Apparently dishwashers are quite capable with such things as baked on cheese and grease - *if* you follow the proper soap-and-water protocol. I've been trying it out at home lately to mostly positive results. Then again, I'm still not a maniac - I don't trust my manager's special with the pots and pans just yet.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Oh, no! That was a typo, of course -- easily identifiable by how surreally audacious that jab was, and how it didn't have two or three paragraphs of preliminary buttering up! It was a moment of mutual discovery!

I'm sorry both for making that typo, and for disappointing with the lack of intent to deliver a more aggressive kind of feedback!

As for the tells -- I probably wouldn't have seen it coming having read just the first one, but upon reading the two chapters back-to-back, the smooth continuity and the symmetry of both leads having their pasts exposed in each part became apparent. And Claire's costumed persona felt like it hadn't been used to its fullest potential. And for all its astoundingly meaning-rich writing, this part is a little short.

But, like I'd intended to have said, the separation point is placed optimally -- right on the emphatic mark of the long awaited connection being made, a natural before-and-after divide; the scare-erotic tension had reached its peak there, as well, and a continuous chapter would have made that conversational valley appear on the path to the real climax.

Thank you for illuminating me about the hidden talents of the dishwashers! I'd only had direct experience with two of those; I operated them, but never owned one; I would still keep my hopes up about their capabilities if one falls into my lap at some point!

Posted by 4ofSwords 4 years ago Report

No worries at all - just like my typo of quoting the same text twice instead of the intended: "Still, wouldn't trust a soulless machine to be able to grind down those melted cheese bumps."

Good deal on the 'tells'. Those are all the sorts of things I was thinking it might be. There will be at least a couple more such fragmented chapters, but hopefully they won't end up disruptive. nd if you're reading a day or two behind, it's always an excuse to jump to the next chapter in a case like that! ;)

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

I love jumping ahead to the finale in fully published works if the anxiety about the characters' fate gets the best of me, if I suspect reading the whole thing might be too much of an investment without a guarantee of a decent payoff, but more often than that -- to wrest control of my expectations and emotional shifts from the artist's grubby mitts.

So far, I've been content to imagine the unread chapters showing up further up ahead in the little duck row scrolling window as only accessible in a proper sequence.

The twin chapters have been the greatest of the bunch so far, I don't think that approach is a source of hazard at all!