Thank you for responding! I’m glad you found no offense in my feedback; I went to art school and had my soul pile driven into the Abyss with the harshness of criticism, so I do value constructive critiques. I know this your baby, but it truly is a compliment I said anything at all!
That makes sense re: MC’s emotional intelligence/maturity given their profession. I actually like that! Perhaps I was confused since I thought Builders, etc. worked in groups as well - only Burners being the most ‘solitary’ in their work. But they also don’t talk, right? So even then, the human interaction is very remedial in my understanding. Maybe there’s an idea of ‘care’ for not wanting patients to get hurt, but love as a concept, for example, would still be difficult (it’s difficult for us now and we have so much more freedom than them!). I more so just wanted to see more of a struggle to coming to terms with a new range of emotions when their default seems to be primarily numb, anger, fear; or having the choice for it to be a struggle for your MC. The yellow heart/red heart could maybe be expanded for that?
Fair enough for the chamber. I guess that’s just additional choice I’d like to have. My MC seems they can hardly talk about it/want to think of it (and they’re also a woman) so that equated trauma for me - heavy or otherwise is interpretation because what do we consider ‘traumatic’ — it’s different for all of us. Numb could be an option, but given MC is more emotionally mature, I’d think that incite something. Could we decide that?
Also - sorry, I more so didn’t want to assume: a lot of IF writers do a first draft and then further flesh out later. That’s great if you’re almost finished! Thank you for considering what I said! Looking forward to Ferret chapter!