@kisupure said in Petrichor - a novel in "open beta" - [M/f, minigiant, post-apocalyptic dystopia, slavery, military setting]:
What was he doing? His words were plain, but they were slippery, muddy, hiding things. Is this how he talked to Finch for a whole week? He made this seem so strangely urgent, like she was running out of time.
Like the pheromone, she can detect the foreboding but she cannot see the cause.
What a fucking bastard.
I really like how you hint at the (pre-shrinking) history between Andrew and Nia without giving us more than we need to know. Similarly, we get to imagine for ourselves the range of tortures and humiliations he inflicted upon her, which of course makes them worse.
“Before you always looked down on everyone…so we made it so you could never do it again…"
That “we” is highly intriguing…
On a technical note, I wonder if the narrative might flow better if all the action was in the past tense rather than the present. This could easily be just a matter of taste, but to me it would feel more organic and less like, say, the transcript of a roleplaying session. YMMV.
Also, “you’re” instead of “your.”
But yeah, he really played her desperation like a fiddle, and it was delicious.
Oh, that was nice. His hands on her spine and the back of her head were the best. And of course dialogue is the best way to explore characters. I’m pretty sure no human ever gets used to a Nak’s voice.
“W-we’ve got forty minutes,” was the first thing she said. Gray could have smacked herself for how unsexy of an opener that was.
Honey, he’s here. You don’t need to close the sale.
“Spoken like a true corpsman.”
How would you know, Traitor?
Booker rumbled deep in his chest
Um, I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.
something told her that he hadn’t risked life and limb just to get her off
You never know.
gentle and mealy
Such a nasty thing to say.
She glanced up, suddenly sheepish and feeling very, very small now.
Aaand now you have your next illustration.
Gray was still busy swallowing the last of his cum as she went to sit beside him.
I guess now she can afford to swap her daily protein ration for a friday.
“Let’s do that again,” he said.
[Moonstruck Cher:] “Snap out of it!”
They are so doomed.
Fingering is underrated. It always scales up in my head.
“I’ve been thinking about you a lot,” she murmured, the words coming out between little moans. Unfortunately, she realized too late that this made her sound hopelessly sentimental. He cocked a brow at her but didn’t even slow down.
“You can’t?” There seemed to be a little enjoyment there at her expense.
“You know what I meant.”
I’m guessing there’s a draft where Gray’s first line is “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“You really are fuckin’ dense.”
Someone oughta tell Rice that negging isn’t cool.
I have some guesses about why Rice rucked her out on that little field trip, but the bottom line is that he wanted to show her why he hates fighting for the Algo.
@mrgoblinging7 It’s so weird when tiny ladies pretend to be dolls, when you know they abused their dolls when they were kids. 
The priority lesson scene was marvelously well-done. The foreshadowing of the arrival of the dreaded brass effectively illustrated how the officer class is a vastly different tier of Corps society. Sipping tea while corporal punishment was administered was like something out of the Belgian Congo. Wesson was the true subject of the demonstration, as the transition from slave to overseer cannot be easy or painless. That dude must be really messed up. Mandatory transfer seems like it would be a mercy.
As complete as the officers’ control over the corpsmen is, Wesson grabbing Gray and sniffing her undershirt still seemed like an excessive liberty. Couching the whole exchange amongst Gray’s fears that her treason would be discovered was a deft misdirect. If she’s clever, Gray can throw Wesson off the scent by masking the greater betrayal with the lesser.
Gray imagining Rice observing the priority lesson was another good feint, as we didn’t know until the last moment who from Brown Toon was getting punished, and the reader was free to suspect it was Gray. If it was Gray up there with the chopping block, would Rice try to save her? Gray probably doesn’t think she deserves to hope for such a deliverance, but she obviously would anyway. Like I said, doomed.
Finch is a puzzle. The standard trope is that she should be possessive of her special relationship with Wesson, but here she seems to want Gray to join her in trading favors, possibly so it won’t feel so dirty to her. Or maybe she’s just trying to earn the position of Most Cynical Bitch in the Toon.
“Rice, what’s a pairing?”
“You don’t wanna know.”
Like hell we don’t.
@jitensha You know what we need around here? A custom “mouthplay” emoji that’s a mouth with a tiny woman’s head and torso sticking out.
This was great social scenery in Alpine. Wesson keeps running hot and cold, and I think you do an excellent job keeping Gray—someone we’ve come to know is worldly and competent—plausibly mired in self-doubt.
I’m a little uncertain what was going on with Wesson, his cup, and the bond inspection. I get that it was an opportunity for Gray to observe Wesson and make internal commentary, but why did Wesson want her there? By the end he had lost interest in her. Why did Wesson make a point of having Gray return his cup to the mess tent, and why did the mess corpsman not want to touch it? Was Wesson just trying to show everyone that Gray was his to command?
Missus? What rank was that? Was it a specialty?
Warrant officer, natch.
The whole exploration of the ethics of trading favors with officers makes me curious if female officers similarly extract favors from corpsmen. Clark and Harper sound like they might be grateful for such an opportunity.
I was drunk when you posted this, and I’m hungover now, so the attempts at describing the flavor of whiskey were extra special.
On that note, I’m somewhat dissatisfied by the poker game being so blurry to Gray (and therefore to us). You write dialogue so well, and the Gray-Wesson-Finch triangle is so integral to this story that I think we deserve to hear all the quips and backpedaling. Particularly since the ultimate consequence is Wesson pulling a Cosby.
“It’s amazing that whoever made the Algo—all those governments, those business people—didn’t see this coming,” Gray mumbled. “It’s like they got tired of managing their own shit and gave up."
I’m gonna think of this every time I read about how our society refuses to save itself from Covid-19.
@technomage No higher praise; thank you!
