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(+1)

I'm really enjoying this WIP so far and I'm excited to follow the development!! The world and stakes you've created feel realistic and engaging, and I'm looking forward to learning more about the background and circumstances of the Community!! So far, I'm getting sketchy vibes from Oliver and Sabine, but Ezra is a treasure (and so is Elise. mom goals). I really like the vibe of the community and the theme you're setting up of communal healing :)  Below I've left some (rather long, sorry) feedback and personal opinions; you're not obligated to slog through it, of course -- I really admire this project and your work ethic regardless of suggestions you take. Thank you so much for sharing your art with us <3

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In terms of critique, I did notice typos throughout -- e.g. "signficant," "physcial", and "unfortuntely" -- as well as a few grammatical/phrasing issues but I assume since this is a WIP, that will all get taken care of. I just wanted to point them out :)

Also, I didn't understand the scene in Ch1 in which Ezra and MC are...dancing? I'm unsure what you mean by "the miming in a mirror thing" and I feel that the actions described are hard to follow, especially with all the changing lefts and rights.

Something that I find a bit disorienting is the speed at which the relationships in the game move -- as a reader, I've just met these people, and within a few minutes of playing, your character is already, for example, engaged in a seductive tobacco rolling scene with this guy we know little-to-nothing about. It just feels a bit...too much too soon to me. I wish that we could have more time to become familiar with these characters before the game puts you into romantic scenes, since they're still practically strangers to me. I wanted to talk to Oliver more in that scene to see if we could get more information on the ruling or plans, but your character just immediately forgives him and it goes into this romantically-charged scene, which felt really jarring to me. I feel like that tone makes some sense with Ezra, since reading it, I believe that they have a long-term relationship, but I don't get that sense with the other characters. It feels unnatural to me.

Similarly to the previous point, this is a more structural concern -- I mentioned the theme of communal healing earlier. I feel like, while tackling this theme is a valiant goal for the story, at the moment it feels a bit spoon-fed to the reader, in my opinion. You mention or state outright that a character of the community is traumatized or healing multiple times throughout the first 2 chapters -- as a reader, I would much rather be shown this through characters' or the community's actions, facial expressions, behaviors, routines, etc than have it told outright to me after a scene via the omniscient narrator's version of the MC's internal monologue. There are so many interesting behaviors and struggles that could come from situations like this and i think it would be really interesting to have that explored more subtly and deeply. Again, this is a wonderful theme to be tackling, and I'm incredibly excited to see how you handle it. :)

Lastly, I played the Historian path, and I wanted to point out that, to me, the profession you're describing sounds much more like an anthropologist than a historian. I'm studying anthropology, and the processes you describe (visiting events, taking objective notes, etc) are pretty much exactly what anthropology is, whereas history is less of researching current events that will become history and more researching events that already are history. At least, that's my understanding -- it's a super minor point, but I figured it's worth at least bringing up!

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I hope none of this comes across as harsh! I really do love this WIP -- your worldbuilding is intriguing, I find the format interesting, and overall I'm hyped to see where the story goes!! I'm just hoping to give some impressions that I got on my read-through for the sake of constructive criticism.

(1 edit) (+3)

Hi - thank you so much for your thorough comment!! It definitely does not come off as harsh – this is a one woman project, so I find feedback like this really valuable.

Not going to address everything in here, but for one, yes typos will definitely be fixed! I'm really chewing over your comment on the speed of relationships, as my original intention was to make it clear that MC and Oliver have known each other for some time, and so the assumption is that they've had little moments similar to this in the past and it's just now ramping up. It's helpful to me to know that that's either not coming across, or it isn't laid out well enough. 

Your point on spoon-fed healing/trauma processing is well-taken. It's definitely more explicit than I would probably portray in something like a visual medium, but it's more of a background theme than I would say a "goal" of the writing. The healing from trauma is intended to provide justification for some of the actions that the characters take and to further color their personalities, but I'm not sure they'll be explored much beyond that in terms of "healing." I hope this doesn't make the game less interesting for you! I just don't feel particularly strong about attempting to really heal them from that trauma in the bounds of this story (or if it would even be possible). 

I also hope this doesn't sound like a harsh reply - it's given me so much to think about moving forward, and I'm so grateful for the time you spent to think through and write up this response. 💚💚💚

(+2)

You're not harsh at all either!! Massive kudos to you for being so open to constructive criticism <3 (also, kudos for the best profile picture on this website)

My only further response to your response is to bring up what you said about using healing from trauma as justification for characters' actions. As a complex trauma survivor, I think that this is bit of a shaky line to walk -- trauma is not ever an excuse or justification for negative/antisocial/abusive behavior. Abuse, manipulation, aggression, et cetera -- while they are common responses to trauma -- are never justified responses. I think that it's completely reasonable and even admirable to want to display realistic (i.e. sometimes maladaptive) responses to struggle, it's important to also not put forth a narrative in which those maladaptive responses are portrayed as healthy to readers and characters. Of course, I'm not sure what your intentions are, but your wording stuck out to me and, just in case, I wanted to provide my perspective as someone who has dealt with these issues.  Even if psychological trauma isn't a major theme of your work (which, btw, I'm hyped either way; you're in no way obligated to make your art any darker or grittier or more psychological than you want to!!), it is a sensitive topic that I think it worth putting additional thought into while writing. Sensitivity readers are also a great resource!

Again, thanks for much for your kind and thoughtful response! I'm really excited to follow Scout's progress -- you're a very talented writer!! :)