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Beautiful prose in this story. Excellent work. I love the jumping back and forth from the past and the present was done well with the italics. This and A Destiny of War by Galilad feel like companion pieces that flesh out the Eternal Dynasty from different angles in unique, compelling ways.

Incredible take on the theme. Readers could very easily tell the different cultural backgrounds in how they perceived each other. I was a bit confused who was speaking during my first read but I think that was the point--they're not so different actually. Well done!

There were strong moments here that really lent to the action and tone of the story. The choice to frame Takai's reflection to be part of a mission report may feel weird to some readers but I think it was done well enough in a believable way.  I really like how you also fleshed out other factions by perceiving them through the lens of an Eternal Dynasty captain. 

I also appreciate that there's a certain level of self-awareness to Takai in the line "Learn of the threats to their oppressive benevolence." It could've been just a throwaway line but it adds another layer of nuance to the character. Nicely done!

There's a lot of nuance to Slink and Viktoria that I must commend. They make for great characters that even if you take just the dialogue and interactions sans the reflection part, you can sense as a reader the history these two had.

The pacing of the story also helped in enforcing the atmosphere you were going for. I got confused as well in some parts on who was speaking in the story but other than that it was a great read!

Ditto with the other comments about the theme.  However, I do commend how the end can be read as hilarious or as very grimdark and bleak. The atmosphere of the story as a whole was strong especially with the choice of language  and formatting of the piece itself.

Your execution of the theme was great! Your literal take on the "reflection" was done in an interesting way. The prose flowed well and contributed to the eerie the piece could get at times. There's a longing in the way the story was told when he had that I thought was done excellently, or at least that's how I read it. 

Well done and thanks for the good story!

Thank you! I'm glad you liked my story. Now that you say it, it kind of does sound like a cautionary fairy tale. I didn't see it that way, thanks for pointing it out :))

Thank you! I agree with you that my description of the house could've been improved, but I decided to push the plot forward given the word limit. I'm glad that the story was at least a little scary hehe. 

Thanks for taking the time to read the story! I made this piece in a rush so it's not the most polished but thank you for pointing out where I could've improved the piece, I plan on uploading a more polished version of it when the jam is over. I'm glad that you liked the pacing as I thought I struggled a bit there given the word limit. 

There's a lot of strong, evocative imagery here. A lot of the prose flows like it would in poetry which may dissuade some from this work but I personally enjoy. Additionally, it was an interesting take on the theme which I believe could've used a bit more buildup to the payoff at the end. 

A lot of the strengths of this piece are hindered by the technical aspects of the work. It would benefit from having more apparent structure to the journal/black box storytelling aspect as in most places it became difficult to follow. Near the end it became somewhat confusing who was telling the story at that point but that may have just been me. It also would not hurt the piece to break up the paragraphs into more sentences. 

Overall, with the distinct imagery and beautiful prose to prop it up, the story would've been a more solid piece if it had more time to bake in the oven. Good job though!

It was  interesting to see that what may have been a stalemate between the Battle Brothers and Havoc inevitably became stagnation as time kept passing for the two factions. Some sentences could've been broken up for ease of reading. 

It was a very atmospheric read and a good execution of the theme.

The way you portrayed Machine Cults with their unique naming conventions made them incredibly distinct from say a regular human. Additionally, it was really nice these characters felt respectable considering that they are from two factions that can very easily lean into camp.

It was a nice execution of the theme as well, showing both factions utterly confused, maybe even appalled by what the other does when it came to machines. It was a nice reflection of how both values machines in different ways.

Overall, a nice story with decent pacing and an interesting take on the theme.