FortySixtyFour
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Renfaire Fantasy: Harem Life pt 2
🕑 Added 2024-11-25 17:22:32 +0000 UTC/// Sorry for the huge delay! Should be longer than normal section posts today, tomorrow, and the day after.
Christine was quick to slip back off of the bar stool as the door opened, making sure to stand at attention as she prepared to greet Brian. She didn’t rise up like that to acknowledge the girls when they were coming or going—but, it felt right to do so for Brian. He had saved her, really saved her, and more than once. Now she always found she was winding herself up and tense around Brian, and treating him with respect and illustrating his importance to her, exploring that side of the hierarchical behaviors she had been so opposed to like that helped a lot. Any action that contradicted her time as Chloe helped create a sense of distance from who she had been back then.
“Welcome home,” Christine with her head bowed only managed to greet Brian’s feet in a placid voice as his running shoes stepped into her view. Are those new? They look nice. Maybe I just never noticed. Need to pay more attention.
“Morning,” Brian said.
His voice was sexy. Rich and powerful, low, somehow deep masculine tones that vibrated across her inner surfaces in a way that was pleasant and satisfying. Christine suspected she could draw enjoyment simply out of hearing Brian speak, no, not even just enjoyment—deep inner contentment. She thought that if she could sit in quiet fascination while he spoke, everything would feel okay. It became maddening to think upon how Chloe had never realized this, how as Chloe she had never really listened to him.
Without looking up, Christine could tell that his attention was bathing across her. Bathing, there was no other way to describe it; often she could sense him when his eyes were upon her, because of some magic interaction that came with the manifestation of her charm power. Because whenever he was close and his thoughts washed her way, Christine felt her inner self surrender to a luxuriant sweep of silver. It was as if whenever he was near, the grime of gloom and self-loathing that speckled dark across the edges of her inner mirror were wiped pristine again. The stoic tension she worked so hard to brace into place throughout the day always seemed to then flounder instead into the raw, giddy fear of a young girl fidgeting beneath the attention of her crush.
As always she found herself turned on, but Christine would hesitate to call the effect sexual, because it was more than that. It was a deeper, more encompassing form of love and intimacy, spiritual in an almost religious sense. For now she was absolutely dependent on it, and she couldn’t even fathom survival or any kind of way forward in her life without these occasional thoughtless and probably trivial expressions of affection Brian gave to her.
“Hey, handsome,” Kelly leaned back from the counter and smacked her lips in open invitation for a kiss. “Good run? Gimme kiss.”
“It was… pretty alrightish,” Brian answered, closing the door.
What? What’s wrong? Did something happen? Is there anything I can do? Anything WE can do? Christine wanted to take a peek up at his expression at hearing that it was only ‘pretty alright,’ but she didn’t dare to.
Because, her eyes were still down and her head was lowered—today she was again unable to face him. He was difficult to look at, because doing so made everything inside of her so… complicated. The domestic play of being their live-in ‘personal assistant’ was easy enough to breeze through on auto-pilot and without worrying too much or feeling pressured… until it came to Brian. Working through chores, and putting on the performance of being obedient, feminine, and servile to the point where she felt she was acting out some kind of caricature was easy, simple.
Until it came to Brian.
Or rather, her conflicting feelings for Brian. Whenever he was near her, feelings she couldn’t control rose up—both good and bad—and her emotional state juddered between extremes. They had not had actual sex yet since coming back from Tionnetta, since restoring her to Christine again. She did want it, and by now she even suspected she needed it. Not even just to satisfy her baser urges, although those were beginning to frighten her with the way they began to pool into a veritable reservoir of lust filling all of the empty spaces within her.
No. NO. It has to be MEANINGFUL, Christine reminded herself. For him. For me. Has to be earned. To prove that I’ve changed—I need to initiate things, this time. To WINE AND DINE him, first. Or at least, show him that special kind of interest, prove that I’m taking this seriously. That I KNOW what I did wrong. That I have feelings for him, that he MATTERS, that I’m willing to not just MAKE UP FOR WHAT I’VE DONE, but to go above and beyond, and really… I don’t know. Amaze him. Impress him. I feel like it’s SO IMPORTANT to act on all of those little RELATIONSHIP sort of milestone things that, as Chloe, I just either pushed on him as expectations for what HE should do, or ignored or scoffed at or looked down upon.
“Kiss!” Kelly repeated. “Kiss kiss.”
“But—hey, I’m all sweaty,” Brian warned her.
In response Christine could tell Kelly pouted, pursing her lips out and smacking them to make kissy noises again, this time with insistence. Brian finally relented, stepping over to Kelly and kissing her. Envy seethed in bright silvers within Christine for a moment but never quite became jealousy. Because, Brian would kiss her too if she asked. Whenever she wanted. Christine wasn’t able to ask for that, just yet. Some distant shadow twisted painfully within her inner mirror as if a component nearly unthreaded and slipped out of place, but with a grating soundless shudder, it shifted back into place and Christine carried on.
“You do smell!” Kelly observed. “Brian? You smell like sex.”
“Hah, I do not,” Brian said. “I haven’t had sex in… well, I guess it’s been hours? Since last night. I just smell like sweat. Normal sweat.”
“Well,” Kelly tugged him closer and brought her face up to his bicep, invoking another flash of jealousy-tinged awe from Christine—because now she wanted to do that as well. “Hey, guess what? Your sweat always smells like sex. It’s like, the other kind of musky. The uhh, like the pheremone-laden kind, s’all like specifically tailor-made to get girls hot and bothered. I’m just sayin.’”
“You know, with all of the charm stuff and magic bullshit we talk about all the time…” Brian chuckled, “I can’t even tell if you’re being serious or not.”
“Maybe it’s like a fetish?” Kelly joked. “Some sweaty morning when Emily’s up, grab her and get her in a chokehold. Her face all trapped in your armpit—see if it has her go all weird-horny.”
“Oh, so yeah I should try that on Emily, and not with you?” Brian nodded. “Makes sense.”
“But Briiian! I work my shift earlier than she does!” Kelly used a pleading sulky tone. “She’s a much better guinea pig for that, right? She lurves it when you test out magic sex things on her, and, and I don’t have time to be a sopping mess, right now! Look, you’re already making me all slick down there. You’ll make me slide right outta my seat, if we’re not careful!”
“Uh-huh,” Brian seemed to shake his head. “I bet! Right out of your seat. Shuddup and gimme another kiss.”
“Seriously, Brian!” Kelly continued the playful voice as she grinned and moved back in for a kiss. “Sliding. It’s just like Emmie said the other night—sliding. Like a fucking snail.”
I want to be cutesy and playful and flirt, too, Christine kept her expression schooled in a neutral mask as Kelly flicked her a playful glance. I’m honestly starting to ACHE for it. I can’t tell if they’re exaggerated with that when I’m around, to get a rise out of me, or if that really is a normal natural couples thing. Maybe they’re still probing for any remnant radical feminist I might have in me? Maybe I’ll just never be able to relax and be informal enough or comfortable enough to have fun with them. Not after everything I’ve done.
With pangs of hunger, the starved-for-affection Christine had watched a playful rivalry between Emily and Kelly grow into place. One where the girls each egged Brian on towards degrading and humiliating the other in increasingly lewd ways. It was getting impossible to determine how much of that was done in jest, and how much of it was actually part of their real relationship. Kelly sometimes set aside her honestly intimidating natural cunning to act out the airheaded bimbo—when she was love-drunk her IQ seemed to drop double-digits, and Christine genuinely couldn’t tell if she was pretending or not. Likewise, it meant sometimes Emily was somehow rather suspiciously maneuvered into extremely submissive positions.
“Mm-uah,” Kelly concluded their kiss with a smooch. “Give Christine a kiss too, yeah? She made breakfast.”
Brian turned to look at Christine, and some parts within her mind spun up into a dizzying churn, while other pieces that should have connected with those lurched to a stop and stalled—Christine quickly looked away, shaking her head softly in refusal.
“Eat first,” Christine said. “...Please.”
“Sure,” Brian nodded. “Alright.”
Kelly’s eyebrows furrowed as she shot Christine a meaningful look, but the redhead didn’t say anything.
On occasion Kelly would suggest Brian give Christine little instances of appreciation like that, but she didn’t push the situation, and Brian seemed to be very careful with the way he was treating her. It was Emily who pressed for Christine to be present down there on their knees whenever they were all servicing Brian, to have her at least included. Christine did participate there… a little, but compared to the other two, she was awkward and hesitant and so had yet to be the one to actually bring Brian to completion.
Although her idle thoughts wandered back over towards exactly that more and more often lately.
Despite that recent progress in joining the girls to give Brian an occasional handjob or a blowjob, and even after having another private punishment session that again skewed unbearably erotic, Christine’s relationship with Brian was still silent suffering—because she was very, very broken. Losing herself in the simple clarity of her restored mirror metaphor for the first few weeks had been easy, almost thoughtless. She did what she was told, performed however they instructed her to perform. Reflecting their desires seemed to be the most natural course of action in the world. The self-destructive thoughts were kept at bay so long as she kept busy. Christine wished everything could have simply remained like that forever, because back then things were mostly fine.
The difficulties were mounting, now. Christine needed to do something, something for Brian, because she needed to. On one side of a glassy pane her love and desire for him grew unceasingly, and on the other side as a reflection to that her horror and hatred for herself and bitter, ugly regrets grew as well. With the opposing forces pressing her psyche from both sides, something was eventually going to break. This fragile psyche that carried Christine through her days right now was bound to shatter, perhaps this time into little pieces that even the group’s magic couldn’t fix.
Just do it. Do it, Christine, Christine raged at herself. Ask him if it’s okay. Ask him if he’d like to have dinner some night with me, or go somewhere, do something—ANYTHING. You know he’ll probably make time for you. You KNOW he will, so WHY IS THIS SO FUCKING HARD?!
Every time she worked up the courage to almost ask, some other part of her sapped that fleeting bravery away. Her mouth almost opened to blurt it out several times, but the words refused to come out and a growing sense of loss transformed into terrifying anxiety. The silver within her helped as much as it hurt in this regard, but at least it always kept her in agonizing balance. When her self-loathing deepened into despair, it also meant her love, longing, and attachment for them grew to match it. When that love grew, so too did hatred and regret mirror that as a result.
She felt perfectly trapped.
“Uh. Breakfast is served?” Kelly reminded them.
Something in Kelly’s voice made Christine flush, because she was made to realize that both Kelly and Brian had been silently observing her as she sunk deep into her own thoughts again. That had been happening more and more often lately, frequently enough that in the evenings Emily had begun to rib her for how distracted she was growing. Christine didn’t even have any excuse, because that was exactly what was happening.
Sometimes she just paused in the middle of doing something as her thoughts began to turn and turn and never really get to wherever they might be going. These moments of absentmindedness were often characterized by a shine of silver but they weren’t really daydreams or sexual fantasy like Emily wanted to tease her for. Rather, it felt like at those times the power of the charm was fighting hard to suppress darker, self-destructive urges and maintain balance, and at those times Christine’s chain of thought was left in the lurch, her mind fogged over.
French toast and eggs were laid out on plates already.
Kelly perked up in her chair again as though pursing her lips in invitation for one last kiss, and Christine remained standing with her head bowed as if waiting for more instruction. She didn’t even know what instruction, but unformed desires and cloudy confusion brought her to an awkward halt. She listened with relish as Brian paused to kiss Kelly again, the wet sound of their mouths smacking sticking in Christine’s ears in ways that made her own lips twitch, and then Brian dropped heavily onto the barstool just beside her.
“Looks great,” Brian praised, gesturing for Christine to sit. “Eat with us. Please.”
Being told what to do by Brian was one of the guilty pleasures Christine couldn’t help but secretly indulge in, and it made her remember why she waited in strange positions and hovered in expectation of his words. Him giving her instructions was just an immense relief from the complicated thoughts and wavering feelings pushed back and forward by the conflict within her. On her own Christine was a mirror pane standing upright but unsupported, and Brian expressing intentions to her—no matter how small or trivial—was like a steadying hand that grasped out to keep her from teetering too far in either direction.
To put me in the correct place.
The silvery-haired girl gave him a serious nod without making eye contact, and then slowly took her place with them at the counter. Forks were raised, and then they dug in. The eggs were good today—Christine knew how he liked his, firm and not runny, generous with the salt. Brian had never been too picky, and just having someone willing to help out with cooking at all was something she could tell he appreciated. Earning his genuine appreciation seemed like one of the keys to escaping the mirror maze of madness her life seemed locked in right now.
But, it’s still not enough. Not just little things like breakfast and chores. I need to be worth it. To cut myself off from the wretched reflection of who I was and push myself past Chloe getting what she deserves—I need to truly, completely become CHRISTINE and get past Chloe.
There were still a few other hurdles to overcome to make that happen.
Foremost among them was that Brian was extremely busy, and Brian was not left wanting for companionship or affection at all, ever.
Kelly and Emily were fucking him silly at every chance, and if not for her own bitter longing and repressed desires that bled across glass like spilled mercury, Christine feared she might have grown numb to the sight. Naked asses were clapping down atop Brian every day, and several times a day Christine watched them rutting like animals in heat—when the girls weren’t climbing atop him to ride they were being thrown over the bed and fucked, pressed up against the walls, the counter, the back of the couch. Few places in the apartment had not been christened by the insane amount of sex Kelly and Emily were having with Brian.
Not just sex, either, Christine thought as she cast a baleful look down at her food. The way they cuddle afterwards? How comfortable they are in that naked intimacy, how they’re able to just rest up against each other and find total peace… I’m still far from that. I’m still anxious and undeserving, tense. When they insist I lay with them, I’m still stiff and out of place. When they try to get me to be there with him when they ahh, when we SERVICE HIM, I’m not really part of it like I should be, either. Not properly. The only DEEP connection I really have is when Brian spanks me, and that is… that’s. Well. I’m terrified of how great that all is.
Then of course, there was the money issue.
Having no real bills to pay and sixty grand stacked up in her account had made Chloe feel an inordinate amount of agency and freedom—like she could do anything, go wherever, buy whatever she wanted without worrying about money. That wasn’t the case anymore. In the spirit of Brian’s intent to return all of the funds Christine’s father had been misled into transferring over… Christine had signed into her online banking and set her account statement to display all of the transactions for the past twenty-four months.
It was very sobering to see how wrong everything was.
After going through each one with care and doing the math, she discovered all of the cash earned from her own pay, back when she held a job, had been frittered away long ago. Even without considering the share of rent, utilities, and groceries she should have been giving to Brian… Christine could not return all of the money her father had sent. Because as Chloe, she had spent four thousand, six hundred and seventy-seven dollars of that money.
They hadn’t made the trip out to see Christine’s dad yet due to that reason, because if they were doing it, Christine wanted to make amends properly and return the total sum she had borrowed.
And then, after that—I’ll save up to pay Brian what I would owe him for all of those months I contributed nothing, Christine told herself, mentally cussing out her past Chloe self yet again. Another three grand, or so. At least. Whether or not he expects it of me or even wants it.
She was putting serious focus on the money, because Brian was rather unbudging on what was considered fair or what was deserved when it came to his own finances. That point was obviously important to Brian—so she couldn’t help but subconsciously give the issue more weight. Kelly and Emily still wanted to just use magic Send knowledge to grab winning lottery numbers from the future, and it had been a small argument in weeks past.
Christine didn’t know for sure how she herself felt about it. Even after vowing to be everything Chloe was not… she wasn’t sure she would have had many compunctions taking advantage of their abilities for free money.
Throwing herself back into employment and everyone being so busy at their different jobs was hectic and annoying, but on the other hand she found herself surprised by how much she appreciated Brian for sticking to his principles. Just a few months ago as Chloe, she had clung to the misandrist view that no men had actual principles, that they were all inferior violent and sex-obsessed savages. Brian adhering strictly to his own moral code regardless of how inconvenient or exhausting it might be turned out to be one of the foundational reasons the girls were able to put all of their trust in him. Christine thought it was deserving of her respect whether or not she necessarily agreed with him about the money.
Because, I not only contributed nothing, I made his life a living hell. And I did it on purpose. THAT needs to be made right, too. I don’t get to just cheat my way out of consequences by virtue of not being psychotic anymore. If I love Brian—and more and more I really, REALLY do, so much that it hurts—I need to make sure he’s treated the way he deserves, for once. Just sex would mean next to nothing—Brian’s having an unbelievable amount of sex lately. What I need to be doing… is creating a certain sense of romance, making my feelings clear to him in a meaningful way. Showing my love. Everything I never EVER would have or could have done as Chloe.
Thinking about all of the money stuff was also a petty distraction, and she needed those more than anything.
Because, she loathed herself to the point where she fantasized about self-harm and even suicide often, and also she was in love; attraction and bitter longing became the opposing force that kept her from ever actually cutting herself. Christine was broken, and she refused to allow herself to fully commit to all of this with Brian and the others while she was in this terrible state. These two extremes were not a permanent balance, however. She couldn’t live like this forever.
Going through the motions of assisting the group with daily tasks wasn’t enough to make up for all of her crimes against them in the past. She felt the need for something more meaningful, but she was increasingly lost on what that might even mean anymore. The intimacy they were encouraging with her right now felt off-kilter because it wasn’t deserved on her part and she felt that robbed the actions of what should have been their purpose. She still participated, of course, because she was asked to, and that had some meaning. Also, ravenous sexual desire sometimes invaded her every thought and she suspected she would have joined in out of sheer need, although that was a little shameful.
I can’t help it, Christine chided herself in dismay. Whenever he shows the tiniest bit of THAT kind of interest in me… my resolve shatters into itty-bitty pieces. The mirror starts to droop and melt into a puddle of mercury. I get so fucking horny I can’t even think.
Christine could service Brian, she could help jack him off or blow him, and she readily accepted ‘punishments’ from him as well as ‘rewards’ in the form of kisses, being held, or being spanked. Whatever he wanted to do to her was fine. Brian wasn’t willing to pressure her towards anything more than that, and Christine maybe wasn’t sure she could allow that for herself, either.
Because, I need to be the one to ask for it, Christine told herself. I need to earn it, I need to. To romance him. To prove myself, to DO something, anything other than just passively accept love from him. Because. Because if I allowed THAT, when still no part of me is capable of believing I deserve it? It would instead feed into that OTHER part of me. The me who just wants to die DIE DIE, who HATES EXISTING and will probably never, ever forgive myself for everything I’ve done. Anything I’ve done.
/// Alright. I know we're moving at the speed of molasses here, and that it makes for a terrible start to Renfaire. This section will probably be pared down some for when I go into my super edit to turn teaser sections into proper chapters. My main focus was that I wanted to get everything down correctly before I try to streamline it for better pacing, because trying to fix things to how they should be later on after the fact is a nightmare.
/// Christine is in an interesting mental place that I wanted to explore, she's doing better than when we saw her last in After AnimeCon—sorta—but hasn't had any sort of instant flip that skips over character growth. Because that would feel unearned, and as you can see a HUGE part of what she's hung up on here is specifically needing to feel like she's earning her way to where she should be. I want to try to imply that BIG, IMPACTFUL, IMPORTANT character moments haven't happened off screen in-between books, but that instead they were in a holding pattern of 'on the cusp of things getting better or worse' while everyone settled into routines. Because otherwise how can I timeskip past things, you know? Fuck.
/// Have been working on a long Brian POV, this Christine POV, and a Stephanie POV section all at the same time, and this Christine one in particular had to get torn apart and reworked several times because I subconsciously tried to keep skipping ahead on her character growth and 'summarizing' how she got from A to B, rather than showing my work. Already don't like how the Kelly bit reads with it just kind of mentioning things happening in passing, because... the reader brain part of me hates skipping past the good bits!
/// Also spent a week or so visiting with my brother, since it'd been well over a year since I spent time with him out there at his place. He's his own kind of hermit living in a barn way out in the middle of nowhere and struggles a lot with depression and suicide—you can tell that stuff's been on my mind just from this Christine section.
/// I do think going out to see him helped him a lot, just touching bases and catching up on everything was pretty cool. He doesn't have a ton of lighting so I didn't take many pictures. He also doesn't have plumbing, and satellite internet out where he is in the mountains and valleys is dogshit when it's overcast, and nonexistent when it's stormy like it's been here in PA. I talked him into trying to watch Cyberpunk Edgerunners, and whew boy was that giving me 'Tabitha dial up speed PTSD,' because it took several days to load and buffer the first four episodes so we could watch. We didn't get further than that before I left.
/// The barn out there has gotten to be a kind of dumping ground for my mother's old stuff and my old furniture and cat towers and such I've replaced here from over the past year. If the kitties there look familiar, it's because that is Missy Doodle and two of her daughters—Missy was the pregnant black cat I took in years ago who gave birth to her litter in the back room of my old trailer. They all been renamed since then, I think Missy now is 'Tish.' She's still Missy Doodle to me.
/// We'd found a home for them with one of my mother's friends, but they got returned to her, and then wound up out there at the barn with my brother. Honestly they probably do a lot more for my brother's mental state than me lending him money or making occasional visits to check up on him.
/// IN ANY CASE, I'm back home and into my normal groove and writing again. Probably will not create a guide page for Renfaire Fantasy until I have teasers organized into an chapter and the start is 'official.'
Comments
Clovermite
Even if they don't end up using future knowledge for lottery winnings, I hope to see the characters make smart use of their talents for money. Brian seems really down on his powers, but he can literally work cleaning miracles. He can definitely bring in some extra cash by setting up a small scale, premium price "dryclean" service where he takes heavily soiled garments, carpets, etc and uses his powers to magically clean & renew them. Likewise, he, Stephanie, and Christine could be bringing in extra money creating cosplay costumes for commission. Christine could certainly get into the Cosplay influencer scene like Kelly's sister is doing. Rebecca has tons of useful skills that she could leverage for making or saving them money. Depending on exactly how Brian's powers work, he could be a godsend for going on a hunting trip. If his powers completely eliminate odors, then that could save them from needing to douse themselves in urine. It's certainly worth having him along for the extra energy gained when losing sleep staying up waiting for a deer or whatever to show up. Then Kelly can use her powers to tell other timelines when and where they spotted a kill to save those others from needing to wait for hours on end. Presumably, other timelines would be returning the favor so they could snag a quick kill from time to time rather than always needing to spend hours waiting. And the amount of food you can get from a single deer will definitely be worth more than a single day's work at a minimum wage job - probably worth an entire week's worth of minimum wage pay, if not more. And that's not even counting the clothing/blankets and other products that can be made from the animal fur, antlers, etc that can then either be sold or used to save money in the future. Rebecca would certainly be able to teach the group about how to make yogurt, mozarella, ricotta, cheddar, and cream cheese from simple milk. This is something I'm looking into myself for saving money - for about the same price or less than like a quart's worth of greek yogurt, you can convert a gallon of milk into much more yogurt, and a bunch of whey. Whey, in turn, can be used for making ricotta cheese, and the final leftovers can be used to make bread, serve as as fertilizer for plants, or give a boosts to composting. And none of this is factoring in whatever Emily's powers are. It makes sense for them to just temporarily jump into minimum wage jobs while they are still getting situated and adjusting to life in a harem, but it doesn't make any sense as a long term thing, particularly for how much Emily and Kelly hate it. Fork lift certification is no joke and can definitely bring in some good money, so that path makes sense for Brian, and Librarian Assistant makes sense for Stephanie, but Kelly, Emily, Christine, and Rebecca can all do MUCH better than minimum wage by applying their talents elsewhere.
benjamin shropshire
Her internal monologue has a huge amount of overlap with the classic theological heresy of "salvation though works". Just in general, people seem to be really bad at accepting forgiveness they feel they haven't earned. I'm really curious to see if she develops by figuring out how to accept undeserved [stuff] "you don't deserve forgiveness, but I'm ordering you to accept it anyway" or if the development will lean more towards her lowering the bar for what she needs to do to quit hating herself "quit trying to be perfect, you've already done enough". -- Now the "actions have consequences" aspect is a different line; just because she's forgiven doesn't imply that there's nothing else that needs to be dealt with.
Kurt Thuresson
Glad all is well! Also, I thought your description of the renfaire fair grounds sounded familiar! Is it based on the PA renfaire in Mount Hope? I went last year for the first time in years with a bunch of friends and had an absolute blast! In any cas sleep up the great work, and I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving! 🦃
Jeanie6754
Thanks for the update Boss. Don't forget to take some time to relax yourself, ya hear 😜.
MrBliss
I like how this answered a lot of questions that last teaser posed. Am a little worried about the argument about the lottery. I could see that turning into a whole thing like the consent hangup a bit isn't nearly as compelling. Besides if it is an issue shouldn't future Kelly know that? And there are dozens of other ways to make money with future knowledge.
Cliff
I don't often provide content feedback, but reading this prompted some from me. 1) Christine is very repetitive here. She gets to the same conclusion one way, then comes at it from another way to get to the same conclusion, and again a third way. 2) Christine seems hopeless. And I'm sure that's the feeling you wanted to leave us with. But so much of it left me disconnecting from her, not rooting for her. And presumably you want us to want her to get better and recover from Chloe.
Dastauf
Good so far! I look forward to the streamlined version.
Jacob Bissey
Now, as for the chapter itself, I think Christine will benefit greatly from Stephanie moving in, since she requires an external push to break out of the holding pattern she is in. One of the big benefits of therapy is having an external voice that can push you toward actually doing what you need to do to fix your issues or improve your situation, and while Stephanie isn't a therapist, she's probably as close as they are likely to get, unless Nurse can recommend one that can be trusted with all the magic BS. Christine knows what she needs, but not how to get it. She needs to have an actual conversation about how she's feeling and what she needs, and that clearly isn't going to happen until external forces make it happen, and Steph is most likely going to BE that external force Also, I like how she thinks about the way the punishments and rewards are being handled and how she likes that it happens but isn't satisfied with the way it is implemented. I think they'd benefit from reading up on operant conditioning and the works of BF Skinner. It's important for rewards to actually reinforce specific behaviors and for punishments to actually discourage specific behaviors, simply giving random rewards or punishments doesn't really help much, and can be actively detrimental as you might reinforce wrong behaviors and discourage right ones. Random reinforcement is how you get superstitious pigeons and addictive slot machines, random punishment is how you get learned helplessness. While I don't know if this stuff was actively considered while writing her internal dialogue here, it did seem like a really solid representation of how punishments and rewards that aren't tied to specific behaviors can result in uncertain feelings and a lack of direction. While people can balk at the idea of training humans like animals, at the end of the day we ARE animals and we operate on a lot of the same mechanisms, so being conscious and aware of what those mechanisms are and using them to our advantage is a great way to make life better/easier, especially when struggling with mental health issues. Also, since she's leaning into the Sub side of BDSM, learning about how training actually *works* would go a long way toward getting her properly engaged.
Mocherthrath
TFTC In away there was just to much overload on Christine's mental talk. Some of it seemed repetitive.
Jacob Bissey
Gonna do two comments, this one to respond to the author notes and one to discuss the actual chapter. Anyway, I feel like you're being too hard on yourself, I don't think there are pacing issues in this or the last chapter (and I believe I said as much last time, too), this is just part of establishing the passage of time and showing what went on during a time skip. I do think Christine's inner monologue was kind of repetitive, but she's in a depressive spiral, so it should be. I've always held a preference for realism/verisimilitude being prioritized over narrative concerns like pacing, yes there is a point where it gets excessive and dull, but we are quite far from that point IMO. I'd rather feel like the characters are realistic portrayals of how real people think and behave, that is what gets me invested into a narrative, and importantly what *keeps* me invested in a narrative, and I've always felt like your style of writing does an especially good job of that, in both your series. You write character driven, introspective slice of life, I say embrace it.
mhaj58
I live in a studio above a house. It’s small but cozy enough.
FortySixtyFour
He told me it's normally not THAT bad, but just that I visited at a bad time when things were super rainy. I still can't imagine living with those sort of speeds though, I'm online way too much.
Toodles McGhee
I live out in the boonies with only satellite internet as an option, and the legacy stationary orbit variety is only barely better than nothing - no matter what you pay or your data cap is - and always includes a terrible latency hit. I was fortunate enough to get on the SpaceX Starlink beta a couple of years ago, and it's like WOW - internet that makes the commercials seem relevant and not some science-fiction version of reality. But looking forward to the Amazon Kuiper project to bring on some competition...
